A E I OU Articles, Essays, Interviews and Out-takes. The name itself says something of the nature of Tony Fretton's collected writing.
As an architect he has said 'Words, the most collective form of communication, thread their way through the projects, in explanations to clients and constructors, and as my means, along with drawings, of explaining the projects to my collaborators, to myself and to the wider world.'
As Professor of Architectural Design-Interiors at TU Delft, he wrote: 'Interior design accommodates peoples physical and emotional comfort and rituals of use directly in the material of buildings, and offers freedom, directness and social meaning to architecture'.
Between these two professional poles lies a series of articles on other architects, essays on the historical currents in architecture, interviews in which Fretton lays out the developing bases of his practices, and out-takes: ideas and phrase retrieved from early drafts and unpublished writing.
Tony Fretton is a principal of Tony Fretton Architects with James McKinney, David Owen and Guy Derwent. Buildings designed and realised by the practice include the Lisson Gallery London, Red House Chelsea, Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Denmark, which was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, the new British Embassy in Warsaw, Solid 11, a multi-purpose building in Amsterdam, and most recently two apartment towers in Antwerp Harbour and the City Hall in Deinze Belgium.
Tony Fretton was Chair of Architectural Design-Interiors at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands 1999-2013. He was visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard in 2005-2006, at ETH Zurich in 2011-2012 and Oslo School of Architecture in 2015-16. In Autumn 2016 he will be visiting professor at the University of Navarre in Spain. Currently he is Master of Diploma Unit 2 at the Cass School London and visiting professor at the University of East London. Tony Fretton is a trustee of Docomo London. Project models and drawings of Tony Fretton Architects are in the Drawing Matter Trust collection. Buildings and their Territories a monograph on the work of the practice was published by Birkhäuser 2013.