NATØ

'Jamieson's book is an incredibly detailed and wonderfully illustrated exploration of NATO, a hugely influential yet until now under-studied episode in architectural and cultural experimentation. Covering the group's earliest incarnations through to its later impact and influences - and documenting everything from educational interventions to drawings, publications, films, fashion, urbanism, architectural designs and exhibitions - this is the key documentation of NATO's extraordinary creative range.' - Iain Borden, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, UK 'How did architecture become cool under neoliberalism? Claire Jamieson's wonderful history of punk- and Thatcher-era London provides one answer, and it extends our understanding of vanguard architecture into the 1980s. The legacy induces as much unease today as it did then, because NATO's architecture reimagined the post-industrial city as though it was an arty, expressionist, film or graphic novel, and urban decay has been an inspiration to contemporary architects ever since.' - Simon Sadler, Professor of Architectural and Urban History, University of California, Davis, USA 'NATO is often invoked as a marker of a shift in architectural imagination in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Like many myths, this claim has been built on little more than traces and impressions. In her deeply researched book, Claire Jamieson provides the evidence and the critical insights to connect this group of architectural dreamers and their magazine to the rapid transformations underway in London at the time. Enthusiasm for the ruins of the docklands, video art, the DIY aesthetics of punk, Soho's nightclubs and the historical fantasies of Albion were combined to suggest new architectural futures for the metropolis.' - David Crowley, Head of the Critical Writing in Art and Design programme at the Royal College of Art, UK