God in Reverse: Art, Architecture and Consciousness is the monograph that Sydney's architecture culture has needed — a four-decade account of Richard Goodwin's practice that refuses the conventions of the form, fusing biography, fiction, criticism, and provocation into a single restless document.
About This Book
Where most architect monographs present a curated career, God in Reverse dismantles the genre entirely. Authored and illustrated by Goodwin himself, the book moves between lambasting the commercial opportunism of Barangaroo, meditations on Jerusalem's divided urbanism, and lessons in urban density drawn from coral reefs. It is at once a record of public artworks, sculpture, drawings, and performance art, and a sustained argument about what architecture owes the city. Jeremy Till has called it an act of "tough love" toward Sydney — a reckoning with financialised space written by someone who has spent decades inside it. Designed by Sean Hogan, the layout itself slowly destabilises as you read, making the book's form inseparable from its content.
Key Features
- 264 pages of archival photography, recent artwork, and critical text spanning four decades of practice
- Designed by Sean Hogan; illustrated throughout by Richard Goodwin
- Engages directly with Sydney urbanism, Barangaroo, Jerusalem, and high-density housing
- Published by Uro Publications, 2019
What You'll Discover
- How financialised urban development has reshaped Sydney — and what an architect-activist makes of it
- The philosophical and cultural influences underpinning Goodwin's interdisciplinary practice across architecture, sculpture, public art, and performance
- A book design that enacts its argument: Sean Hogan's layout progressively discombobulates as the text grows more radical
- The ethical dimensions of urbanism — from drone warfare to super-high-density housing — treated not as sidebar but as central architectural concern
About the Author
Richard Goodwin is a Professor at the University of New South Wales Art & Design, where he also holds a PhD. He has practised as an artist, architect, and urban activist since the 1970s, and his work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Nuremburg Museum. He was awarded the Wynne Prize by the Art Gallery of NSW in 2011.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 264
- Dimensions: 250 x 340 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780994396662
- Publisher: Uro Publications
- Publication Date: 2019
Perfect For: Architects and urbanists invested in Sydney's built environment, artists working across disciplines, academics in architecture theory and urban criticism, and readers who want a monograph that argues rather than simply documents.