Interview with Greg Keeffe

We have an awesome interview with Greg Keeffe. Who gave an illuminating talk at one of our nights. He is a wonderful archictect, thinker, and musician. Here is a link to his website

So what is your favourite Irish folk tune?
The Patriot Game. By the Clancy Brothers. Or on a more modern note Streets of New York by the Wolftones. Both for the same reasons great words brilliant tunes.


Do you think playing music from an early, had anything to do with you turning into an architect?

Yeah definitely. Both are abstract structures experienced linearly but conceived spatially. I think both professions have a lot in common. Particularly in the fact that they occupy the weird space between the worlds of content and Form. You can't talk a building or a tune.

Should we be more involved/passionate about the buildings that are going up around us?

The city is the most complex thing man has designed and at the same time the most contested. I think that buildings are battlefields of desires and that everyone should come and throw things: it's our city, no one elses.

What piece of legislation would immediately make building become more environmentally friendly, and can the public do anything to push this through?

Every buildings roof should be an energy producer. Simple. Enough energy lands on the roofs of Manchester in a month to power the city for the whole year.


Do you go to many gigs?

I try to. I saw Wire last week. They were a bit old. I like small wild gigs paul latham quartet at Matt n phreds is usually good.


What was the worst gig you played at?

I once played in Hebden bridge in 1983 it was our first gig outside of Manchester. There were six people and a dog at it. Oh and when we came out the Hells Angels were waiting for us and battered us!!! Great

You are considered a bit of maverick in the architect world, I imagine. Judging from some of the things at your talk, international ski slope in Nelson proposing to Mcdonalds how they could be sustainable by growing all there food on their roof. Should it not be the other way round that the people who are building houses to the lowest possible environmental denominator should be scorned?

I think my job is to stretch the envelope and show people how it could be. I don't really see myself as a maverick. I just start with the current conditions and be rigorous with what I do. People think they have a lot to lose. I don't think so. We need to manage the change by designing new futures rather than being in denial and have a future thrust upon us.


Do you think government lobbyists should be banned, as they seem unsuprisingly to be heavily leaning towards the rich?

Definitely. I think we need a more conciliatory system. May be one that's more syndicated so more people have more of a say.

How is your sandcastle making, does your architecture skills come in handy?

As a confirmed pacifist it perturbs me that I am too interested in the architecture of defence. I like to use my knowledge of the history of defence to build impenetrable things

Can you reccommend a book nand a piece of music, we should listen to?

I would recommend She is Beyond Good and Evil by the Pop Group as my piece of music. 1978 but it still sounds great.

The book would be Out of Control by Kevin Kelly. 1995. It talks about a new bio informational chaotic future which is onthe money. I wish I could write like Mr Kelly

Do you think it would be helpful if we could all go an a one week course so we could be filled in on the fundamentals of architecture?

Definitely We should have appreciation courses for all the arts (and music). There's so much hidden in the meta language of each art that adds to it.

Next Event

A Reasonable Cause

A night of music, short film, a talk about something green/interesting and a whole lot of fun.
We have the wonderful music of dan cropper and edmund cottam , have a listen to some of their tunes.
The Lancashire wildlife trust talking about the campaign to save Chat moss, only 15 minutes from my house.
Lucy Campbell and her film The Bird which was featured in this years Exsposures festival at the Cornerhouse

Here is a link to our facebook page

Going, Going

A poem by Philip Larkin. Notice the date, it is hard to disagree with him.
Recommended by my Dad.

GOING, GOING by Philip Larkin. (January 1972)

I thought it would last my time -
The sense that, beyond the town,
There would always be fields and farms,
Where the village louts could climb
Such trees as were not cut down;
I knew there'd be false alarms

In the papers about old streets
And split level shopping, but some
Have always been left so far;
And when the old part retreats
As the bleak high-risers come
We can always escape in the car.

Things are tougher than we are, just
As earth will always respond
However we mess it about;
Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
The tides will be clean beyond.
- But what do I feel now? Doubt?

Or age, simply? The crowd
Is young in the M1 cafe;
Their kids are screaming for more -
More houses, more parking allowed,
More caravan sites, more pay.
On the Business Page, a score

Of spectacled grins approve
Some takeover bid that entails
Five per cent profit (and ten
Per cent more in the estuaries): move
Your works to the unspoilt dales
(Grey area grants)! And when

You try to get near the sea
In summer . . .
It seems, just now,
To be happening so very fast;
Despite all the land left free
For the first time I feel somehow
That it isn't going to last,

That before I snuff it, the whole
Boiling will be bricked in
Except for the tourist parts -
First slum of Europe: a role
It won't be hard to win,
With a cast of crooks and tarts.

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.