It can be hard being a critic. Not everything cultural is wonderful, so to be a fair, balanced, and honest critic of art, architecture, or any other discipline, a good reviewer should air their thoughts not only on the creations that they consider bring joy, invention, and value to the world, but also those which may be problematic, unsightly, or just really badly executed.

Olly Wainwright has been covering architecture in the Guardian since 2012 and in that time has developed a reputation not only for bringing the best of contemporary international architecture to the paper’s readers, but also using his words to cut into political, aesthetic, and economic issues and how our built environment manifests them.

An early review of Renzo Piano’s Fearnley Astrup Fearnley Museum by the Oslo fjord described it as a “well-tailored envelope covering a vapid haul of corporate cultural capital”; he questioned whether the (now defunct) David Adjaye fashion hub would help post-riot Hackney; followed the saga of egg-cooking reflections from a skyscraper; reported on the alleged (later settled out of court) Olympic plagiarism by Heatherwick Studio; discussed perceived failings of architectural education; raised the level of discussions around poor doors and social housing design discrimination; damned value engineering; and, more recently, investigated the small print of Keir Starmer’s plans for housing.



This, however, makes it Wainwright sound like a curmudgeon. He isn’t, but what such critical reading of architecture means is that when a project is praised or appaluded, you can trust it is sincere and considered. So, when the writer was given the opportunity from Blue Crow Media to pick his favourite examples of contemporary London architecture for a new map, it meant he could solely celebrate the greatest projects – which has now down with a fold-out presentation listing 51 of his best-loved buildings from the capital, all presented so you can plot your own route to tick them all off.

It includes a great number of designs for culture, from the rippling reflections of Herzog & de Meuron’s 2003 Laban Centre for Dance to Frank’s Café rooftop bar and Bold Tendancies’ sculpture park that occupy the roof of a disused Peckham carpark, the Newport Street Gallery by Caruso St John (with all the nuance, delicate touch, and depth of consideration lacking from the work of its owner, artist Damien Hirst) to the signature Millenium Great Court project at the British Museum by Norman Foster.





Many creative renovations are included. In 2015 Tim Ronalds Architects carefully scraped back the layers of Wilton’s Music Hall to reveal a patina-layered, ghostly shell before inserting just enough modern requirements to offer a perfect venue for theatre and music while retaining an aura of performance’s past. Battersea Arts Centre had been undergoing a phased transformation by Haworth Tompkins architects when, in 2015, a fire engulfed the building – a disaster that was turned into a phoenix-like return of the cultural space with a sensitive and imaginative transformation of the Victorian building that is now a unique, beautiful venue.

There are many places that have cropped up in recessed.space coverage over the last few years. We have taken you into John Pawson’s somewhat-compromised Design Museum rejig of the former Commonwealth Institute, designed in 1962 by Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall and Partners, several times, including for exhibitions on ASMR (00045) and Barbie (00215). APPARATA a rchitects’ 2021 nu-brutalism of Barking’s House for Artists was one of our first articles (00009). And we have sent writers including Will Wiles (00091) and Robert Barry (00050) to explore exhibitions in Assemble’s fascinating Goldsmiths CCA gallery.



It isn’t all culture. Across Wainwright’s list there is a breadth of architecture, from civic to landscape, equitable residential to corporate towers – there’s even a nod to steampunk classicism with Ptolemy Dean Architect’s Weston Tower at Westminster Abbey. Other than a short introductory text, there isn’t much said about the buildings – which perhaps was a struggle for the opinionated, wordsmithing critic, but in some ways brings value to the map. After all, we know Wainwright is a fan of each of the 51 projects, but instead of telling us why it is more of an invitation to the public to go, see, and develop their own opinions.

The London Contemporary Architecture Map is the latest of a burgeoning offer from Blue Crow Media who also print a range of other London maps looking at South Asian History, Women’s History, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Art Deco, alleyways, and many more – as well as maps from towns and cities across the world looking at every angle of architecture and landscape you can imagine.




No doubt, the emergence of respect for much-maligned brutalism following on from Oscar-nominated film  The Brutalist (see 00250) will only help the publisher’s offering on the genre, including: a calendar, book on Parisian brutalism, and several maps on concrete architecture in cities across the world from Melbourne to Montreal, Skopje to Seoul.

Blue Crow Media are a niche publisher – and this isn’t written in a negative way. Niche is important as it carries with it passion and real care for both the subjects under consideration and the ways in which they are presented – here through rich, clear presentation from the art directors and designers Tuomi. You might want to start collecting their maps to add to your shelves and archive of architectural publishing, or perhaps you want one to throw in your bag, allowing it to deteriorate through use as you keep grabbing it to see what is nearby when visiting any of their many focus cities. Whichever, they offer a great primer into looking at cities and places afresh and curating a selection of a city from the noise of it all.