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Vivir con edificios y caminar con fantasmas
Un gran libro del colosal Sinclair, uno de los escritores actuales más brillantes y originales, auténtico mentor en la sombra de Alan Moore y adorado por escritores como William Gibson o Peter Ackroyd, entre otros. Nos formamos a nosotros mismos y, a su vez, somos formados por las paredes que nos contienen. Los edificios afectan a nuestra manera de dormir, trabajar, socializar e incluso respirar. Pueden aislarnos y ponernos en peligro, pero también curarnos. Proyectamos nuestras esperanzas y temores en los edificios, mientras ellos absorben nuestras historias.
En Vivir con edificios y caminar con fantasmas, Iain Sinclair, uno de los escritores actuales más brillantes y originales, auténtico mentor en la sombra de Alan Moore y «padre» de la psicogeografía moderna, se embarca en una serie de expediciones por Londres, Marsella, México o las islas Hébridas, explorando las relaciones entre la enfermedad y la estructura arquitectónica, entre el arte, la arquitectura, la planificación social y la salud, uniendo prodigiosamente historias de todo tipo. Para Sinclair, caminar es la magia defensiva contra la enfermedad y, mientras este se desplaza, observa su entorno: bloques de pisos apilados y urbanizaciones gigantescas, oficinas de cristal iluminadas con halógenos y hospitales perturbadores, el casco ennegrecido de una iglesia de Spitalfields o la masa flotante de la radiante ciudad de Le Corbusier, todo eso y más en medio de un torbellino de prosa excelsa y poética a manos de un escritor único.
Sinclair también va desgranando las capas de la vida. Un padre y su hija (que padece un raro síndrome) visitan la finca en la que una vez vivieron. Los promotores brindan con copas de champán al tiempo que los residentes son expulsados de sus casas. Una caja esculpida en hueso de ballena, que se cree que contiene propiedades curativas, es devuelta a sus orígenes con consecuencias inesperadas. En parte investigación y en parte cuaderno de viaje, Vivir con edificios y caminar con fantasmas es uno de los grandes libros del colosal Sinclair.
«Sinclair recorre cada pulgada de sus maravillosas novelas y sus psicogeografias midiendo enormes tramos de palabras como un arquitecto que planifica una ciudad sobre un plano vacío» J. G. Ballard
«Sinclair ha pasado de ser un autor de culto a ser un tesoro nacional». The Guardian
Iain Sinclair (Cardiff, 1943) es uno de los más grandes y originales escritores actuales. Su inmensa obra, que recoge también cine o poesía, gira fundamentalmente alrededor de Londres, pero su manera de narrar sus descubrimiento acerca de su historia oculta, la increíble riqueza de su escritura, sus insólitas conexiones con escritores, libros, místicos, películas o hechos pasados y el constante uso de la psicogeografía, son universales y han inspirado a autores como Peter Ackroyd o Alan Moore, entre muchos otros. Sinclair, un oscuro W. G. Sebald o un urbano William Gibson (que confesó que Sinclair es su autor favorito), es autor de decenas de obras, entre las que destacan Lud Heat, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings o Blake´s London: The Topographical Sublime.
En Vivir con edificios y caminar con fantasmas, Iain Sinclair, uno de los escritores actuales más brillantes y originales, auténtico mentor en la sombra de Alan Moore y «padre» de la psicogeografía moderna, se embarca en una serie de expediciones por Londres, Marsella, México o las islas Hébridas, explorando las relaciones entre la enfermedad y la estructura arquitectónica, entre el arte, la arquitectura, la planificación social y la salud, uniendo prodigiosamente historias de todo tipo. Para Sinclair, caminar es la magia defensiva contra la enfermedad y, mientras este se desplaza, observa su entorno: bloques de pisos apilados y urbanizaciones gigantescas, oficinas de cristal iluminadas con halógenos y hospitales perturbadores, el casco ennegrecido de una iglesia de Spitalfields o la masa flotante de la radiante ciudad de Le Corbusier, todo eso y más en medio de un torbellino de prosa excelsa y poética a manos de un escritor único.
Sinclair también va desgranando las capas de la vida. Un padre y su hija (que padece un raro síndrome) visitan la finca en la que una vez vivieron. Los promotores brindan con copas de champán al tiempo que los residentes son expulsados de sus casas. Una caja esculpida en hueso de ballena, que se cree que contiene propiedades curativas, es devuelta a sus orígenes con consecuencias inesperadas. En parte investigación y en parte cuaderno de viaje, Vivir con edificios y caminar con fantasmas es uno de los grandes libros del colosal Sinclair.
«Sinclair recorre cada pulgada de sus maravillosas novelas y sus psicogeografias midiendo enormes tramos de palabras como un arquitecto que planifica una ciudad sobre un plano vacío» J. G. Ballard
«Sinclair ha pasado de ser un autor de culto a ser un tesoro nacional». The Guardian
Iain Sinclair (Cardiff, 1943) es uno de los más grandes y originales escritores actuales. Su inmensa obra, que recoge también cine o poesía, gira fundamentalmente alrededor de Londres, pero su manera de narrar sus descubrimiento acerca de su historia oculta, la increíble riqueza de su escritura, sus insólitas conexiones con escritores, libros, místicos, películas o hechos pasados y el constante uso de la psicogeografía, son universales y han inspirado a autores como Peter Ackroyd o Alan Moore, entre muchos otros. Sinclair, un oscuro W. G. Sebald o un urbano William Gibson (que confesó que Sinclair es su autor favorito), es autor de decenas de obras, entre las que destacan Lud Heat, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings o Blake´s London: The Topographical Sublime.
256 pages, Paperback
First published September 20, 2018
About the author
Iain Sinclair
131 books353 followersIain Sinclair is a British writer and film maker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.
Sinclair's education includes studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus, the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).
His early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) closely connected with the British avantgarde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as J.H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver, Peter Ackroyd and Brian Catling are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters; later on, taking over from John Muckle, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology Conductors of Chaos.
His early books Lud Heat (1975) and Suicide Bridge (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet and the Jack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull).
Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver (1991), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992 Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of the Widow, a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a one party state in a fifth term. The volume of essays Lights Out for the Territory gained Sinclair a wider readership by treating the material of his novels in non-fiction form. His essay 'Sorry Meniscus' (1999) ridicules the Millennium Dome. In 1997, he collaborated with Chris Petit, sculptor Steve Dilworth, and others to make The Falconer, a 56 minute semi-fictional 'documentary' film set in London and the Outer Hebrides about the British underground filmmaker Peter Whitehead. It also features Stewart Home, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks.
One of his most recent works and part of a series focused around London is the non-fiction London Orbital; the hard cover edition was published in 2002, along with a documentary film of the same name and subject. It describes a series of trips he took tracing the M25, London's outer-ring motorway, on foot. Sinclair followed this with Edge of the Orison, a psychogeographical reconstruction of the poet John Clare's walk from Dr Matthew Allen's private lunatic asylum, at Fairmead House, High Beach, in the centre of Epping Forest in Essex, to his home in Helpston, near Peterborough. Sinclair also writes about Claybury Asylum, another psychiatric hospital in Essex, in Rodinsky's Room, a collaboration with the artist Rachel Lichtenstein.
Much of Sinclair's recent work consists of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called occultist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home and the London Psychogeographical Association. In 2008 he wrote the introduction to Wide Boys Never Work, the London Books reissue of Robert Westerby's classic London low-life novel. Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report followed in 2009.
In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.
Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and has a flat in Hastings, East Sussex.
Sinclair's education includes studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus, the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), and the London School of Film Technique (now the London Film School).
His early work was mostly poetry, much of it published by his own small press, Albion Village Press. He was (and remains) closely connected with the British avantgarde poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – authors such as J.H. Prynne, Douglas Oliver, Peter Ackroyd and Brian Catling are often quoted in his work and even turn up in fictionalized form as characters; later on, taking over from John Muckle, Sinclair edited the Paladin Poetry Series and, in 1996, the Picador anthology Conductors of Chaos.
His early books Lud Heat (1975) and Suicide Bridge (1979) were a mixture of essay, fiction and poetry; they were followed by White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987), a novel juxtaposing the tale of a disreputable band of bookdealers on the hunt for a priceless copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet and the Jack the Ripper murders (here attributed to the physician William Gull).
Sinclair was for some time perhaps best known for the novel Downriver (1991), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1992 Encore Award. It envisages the UK under the rule of the Widow, a grotesque version of Margaret Thatcher as viewed by her harshest critics, who supposedly establishes a one party state in a fifth term. The volume of essays Lights Out for the Territory gained Sinclair a wider readership by treating the material of his novels in non-fiction form. His essay 'Sorry Meniscus' (1999) ridicules the Millennium Dome. In 1997, he collaborated with Chris Petit, sculptor Steve Dilworth, and others to make The Falconer, a 56 minute semi-fictional 'documentary' film set in London and the Outer Hebrides about the British underground filmmaker Peter Whitehead. It also features Stewart Home, Kathy Acker and Howard Marks.
One of his most recent works and part of a series focused around London is the non-fiction London Orbital; the hard cover edition was published in 2002, along with a documentary film of the same name and subject. It describes a series of trips he took tracing the M25, London's outer-ring motorway, on foot. Sinclair followed this with Edge of the Orison, a psychogeographical reconstruction of the poet John Clare's walk from Dr Matthew Allen's private lunatic asylum, at Fairmead House, High Beach, in the centre of Epping Forest in Essex, to his home in Helpston, near Peterborough. Sinclair also writes about Claybury Asylum, another psychiatric hospital in Essex, in Rodinsky's Room, a collaboration with the artist Rachel Lichtenstein.
Much of Sinclair's recent work consists of an ambitious and elaborate literary recuperation of the so-called occultist psychogeography of London. Other psychogeographers who have worked on similar material include Will Self, Stewart Home and the London Psychogeographical Association. In 2008 he wrote the introduction to Wide Boys Never Work, the London Books reissue of Robert Westerby's classic London low-life novel. Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report followed in 2009.
In an interview with This Week in Science, William Gibson said that Sinclair was his favourite author.
Iain Sinclair lives in Haggerston, in the London Borough of Hackney, and has a flat in Hastings, East Sussex.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 10, 2022
Act now! Before clipped anathemas overwhelm the unscripted perversity of the gangrene desert into which we had strayed.
This is a series of essays grouped along the ways that buildings, cities and architecture reflect the health of the human inhabitants. There’s some really interesting art criticism and few standard Sinclair on the hoof psychogeography pieces, traveling in Marseille, the Outer Hebrides and an all too grief piece about attending a literary conference in Mexico. That one especially warranted more. The conclusion is moribund but undoubtedly earnest. What else should we require?
This is a series of essays grouped along the ways that buildings, cities and architecture reflect the health of the human inhabitants. There’s some really interesting art criticism and few standard Sinclair on the hoof psychogeography pieces, traveling in Marseille, the Outer Hebrides and an all too grief piece about attending a literary conference in Mexico. That one especially warranted more. The conclusion is moribund but undoubtedly earnest. What else should we require?
April 4, 2023
«Si hemos de mantener alguna relación con los edificios que nos preceden, debemos solicitarles que toleren nuestra intrusión. Las estructuras derribadas dejan una nube de polvo activo. Las nuevas edificaciones tienen hambre de narrativas. Cuando se tambalea esa ecuación nos ponemos enfermos y buscamos chivos expiatorios entre los promotores inmobiliarios y los arquitectos.
Pero los edificios y sus espacios interiores, dormitorios, pasillos y cocinas se convierten en autorretratos en evolución, en visiones de cómo contemplamos nuestra mejor versión. Ya sea trabajando o descansando, damos forma a quienes somos, y, a su vez, nos dan forma las paredes que nos contienen. Algunas de las tribus más antiguas del planeta, pueblos indígenas capaces de convertir el tiempo en espacio, fluyen con las estaciones, con sus ríos seminales. Se construyen refugios y se abandonan. Los antepasados siempre están presentes».
Pero los edificios y sus espacios interiores, dormitorios, pasillos y cocinas se convierten en autorretratos en evolución, en visiones de cómo contemplamos nuestra mejor versión. Ya sea trabajando o descansando, damos forma a quienes somos, y, a su vez, nos dan forma las paredes que nos contienen. Algunas de las tribus más antiguas del planeta, pueblos indígenas capaces de convertir el tiempo en espacio, fluyen con las estaciones, con sus ríos seminales. Se construyen refugios y se abandonan. Los antepasados siempre están presentes».
February 7, 2024
Este libro es único y arrollador. Sinclair es un talentoso monstruo que recorre parajes de Marsella, Escocia, Londres, etc. para dejar constancia de la arquitectura (y la vivienda) y su estrecha relación con el individuo. Viaja entre el arte, la naturaleza y la salud para tejer el entramado social y urbanístico que nos (de)construye.
Un fragmento bestial y piedra angular del texto:
«Si hemos de mantener alguna relación con los edificios que nos preceden, debemos solicitarles que toleren nuestra intrusión. Las estructuras derribadas dejan una nube de polvo activo. Las nuevas edificaciones tienen hambre de narrativas. Cuando se tambalea esa ecuación, nos ponemos enfermos y buscamos chivos expiatorios entre los promotores inmobiliarios y los arquitectos. Pero los edificios y sus espacios interiores, dormitorios, pasillos y cocinas se convierten en autorretratos en evolución, en visiones de cómo contemplamos nuestra mejor versión. Ya sea trabajando o descansando, damos forma a quienes somos, y, a su vez, nos dan forma las paredes que nos contienen. Algunas de las tribus mas antiguas del planeta, pueblos indígenas capaces de convertir el tiempo en espacio, fluyen con las estaciones, con sus ríos seminales. Se construyen refugios y se abandonan. Los antepasados siempre están presentes».
Un fragmento bestial y piedra angular del texto:
«Si hemos de mantener alguna relación con los edificios que nos preceden, debemos solicitarles que toleren nuestra intrusión. Las estructuras derribadas dejan una nube de polvo activo. Las nuevas edificaciones tienen hambre de narrativas. Cuando se tambalea esa ecuación, nos ponemos enfermos y buscamos chivos expiatorios entre los promotores inmobiliarios y los arquitectos. Pero los edificios y sus espacios interiores, dormitorios, pasillos y cocinas se convierten en autorretratos en evolución, en visiones de cómo contemplamos nuestra mejor versión. Ya sea trabajando o descansando, damos forma a quienes somos, y, a su vez, nos dan forma las paredes que nos contienen. Algunas de las tribus mas antiguas del planeta, pueblos indígenas capaces de convertir el tiempo en espacio, fluyen con las estaciones, con sus ríos seminales. Se construyen refugios y se abandonan. Los antepasados siempre están presentes».
October 15, 2019
So I went to this exhibition (“Living with buildings : Health and Architecture”) at the Wellcome collection in January, which was extraordinary. The exhibition reflected on the relationship between space and health in very wide-reaching ways, from the slums of Victorian London, to modern health care spaces such as hospitals.
I am sorry to say this book, commissioned for the same exhibition, is a major let down and does not justice to a fantastic exhibition. Very little of the content is overlapped, but that is not the real issue. Iain Sinclair has a style of writing that is deeply frustrating. It is very fragmentary, oddly structured in many instances, heavily referential without explaining any of the references, and overall manages to make a fascinating topic terribly uninteresting.
On to the pile of Tragic Sad Man Literature this one goes...
I am sorry to say this book, commissioned for the same exhibition, is a major let down and does not justice to a fantastic exhibition. Very little of the content is overlapped, but that is not the real issue. Iain Sinclair has a style of writing that is deeply frustrating. It is very fragmentary, oddly structured in many instances, heavily referential without explaining any of the references, and overall manages to make a fascinating topic terribly uninteresting.
On to the pile of Tragic Sad Man Literature this one goes...
September 8, 2023
Decent enough late Sinclair - he flans about, he visits famous-ish mates, and ties it together elegantly enough via architecture and public health, subjects he has at best a passing interest in. But if the heights of Downriver seem v far away now, he can still stun with a phrase or a juxtaposition when he wants to.
February 4, 2024
Soz Iain was a tough read took me 2 years to finish it
December 9, 2018
I had high hopes for this book as I enjoyed the accompanying exhibition at the Wellcome Collection Museum in London. But this is a mess of a book that reads more like a self-indulgent and trying way too hard to be erudite travelogue than a meaningful book on the important topic of health and architecture.
October 9, 2020
I bought this, having seen the exhibition. I had hoped for a further insight into the subject, but instead got boring, rambling, pretentious twaddle. I couldn't even get through the first chapter.
November 8, 2020
Favourite quotes:
"I felt that my compulsive fugue-drifts towards Christ Church were attempts to recapture a memory I could never bring into focus, perhaps the memory of something that had not yet happened." p.21
"I carry a camera as an instrument for forgetting, locking the present away." p.79
"Remember this moment. It will never be better. Here is where we are. For today. For ever." p.85
"I preferred not to read anything beyond the unravelling documentary of landscape, the peripheral tower estates of Paris and the unedited surge of graffiti as we approach Gare du Nord." p.89
"We sat, through the suspension of afternoon, hazy with drink and diffused sunlight, at a long table in an enclosed courtyard behind the studio of Manuel Ramirez Martinez." p. 118
"Steve, on the other hand, devoured libraries, in a free-ranging, truffling sort of way." p.147
"I felt that my compulsive fugue-drifts towards Christ Church were attempts to recapture a memory I could never bring into focus, perhaps the memory of something that had not yet happened." p.21
"I carry a camera as an instrument for forgetting, locking the present away." p.79
"Remember this moment. It will never be better. Here is where we are. For today. For ever." p.85
"I preferred not to read anything beyond the unravelling documentary of landscape, the peripheral tower estates of Paris and the unedited surge of graffiti as we approach Gare du Nord." p.89
"We sat, through the suspension of afternoon, hazy with drink and diffused sunlight, at a long table in an enclosed courtyard behind the studio of Manuel Ramirez Martinez." p. 118
"Steve, on the other hand, devoured libraries, in a free-ranging, truffling sort of way." p.147
October 2, 2020
As so often, this is an enjoyable Sinclair work, full of odd anecdotes and new insights on obscure corners of London. However, it seems lighter and less memorably strange than many of its predecessors. If I look back on it, having read it earlier in the year, the only section that really stands out for me is one on the Pepys Estate in Deptford (and that is probably because I know the area). Yet if I look back on other Sinclair works even years later, I remember far more specific scenes and even lines than I do from this one. This is not to say don't read this and others may get more from it than I did, but it might be wise not to expect the levels of strangeness and intensity the best of his classic works.
August 26, 2025
normalnie uwielbiam czytać o architekturze ale ten zbiór esejów był dla mnie nudny, chaotyczny i mam wrażenie, że głównie skupiony na rzucaniu znanymi nazwiskami i terminami architektonicznymi, a nie na przekazaniu jakiejkolwiek treści. jeżeli chcecie przeczytać o wpływie architektury na zdrowie i środowisko to bardziej niż tę książkę polecam "szarą godzinę" Filipa Springera, bo jest w niej po prostu więcej statystyk, ciekawych informacji i przemyśleń.
August 28, 2024
Dull, pretentious ramblings. I want my £10.99 back NOW, please. I am incredibly disappointed as the accompanying exhibition put on by the Wellcome Collection was incredible and tastefully curated - it made me fall back in love with architecture - this book is a disgrace in comparison.
February 21, 2020
I enjoyed Iain Sinclair's account of a walk from Euston to Angel but surprised he didn't this part of town. Otherwise I felt it was not one his best books and he was coasting for a comission.
December 9, 2024
“ que los médicos se guarden sus veredictos para cuando ya no estemos”.
July 3, 2026
Convoluted and pretentious to the point of being utterly unreadable. A shame considering the potentially interesting topic.
September 1, 2023
Reconozco que compré el libro porque me suelen interesar los libros que publica La Felguera, y porque la temática de este en particular me resultaba atrayente (arquitectura, sociología, geografía). Pero lo tuve que dejar a la mitad, ya que las parrafadas y divagaciones de este señor finalmente acabaron por cansarme. Mucho dato sin interés, muchos pareceres, y en definitiva nada que me enganchara, o me hiciera tener interés por lo que me contaba de su Londres, de sus edificios y de sus gentes. Quizá en unos años lo retome y me vuele la cabeza; pero por ahora lo dejaré descansando plácidamente en mi estantería del pasillo..
June 11, 2023
A broard sweeping study that looks at the influence of architecture and health, both physical and mental. He looks at various landscapes from the urban heart of London to rural Northern Scotland. It almost answers a question with a question: If building affects people's health, do people find building that they entrust their ill health and issues upon.
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February 1, 2024Reseña de VIVIR CON EDIFICIOS Y CAMINAR CON FANTASMAS de IAIN SINCLAIR. Una elegía del paseo y sus espacios. https://fanfan.es/vivir-con-edificios...
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews