Charles Holland
How to Enjoy Architecture

Sunday 31 May 2026, 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Wrabness Community Shop & Bar, next to the Train Station, Wrabness, Manningtree, CO11 2TL

Renowned architect and author of How to Enjoy Architecture, Charles Holland, challenges us to look beyond the day-to-day familiarity of buildings to rediscover the pleasure of experiencing architecture.

Architecture is bound up with our daily lives but, for most of us, it is experienced as a blur of habit. Our reactions towards the buildings that surround us are often culturally generated, and we experience them in ways that are immediate but often mundane. How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone encourages us to move beyond this and, instead, really look at buildings.

Charles will talk about the buildings and architects that excite and inspire him, with a special focus on A House for Essex (designed by FAT Architecture and Grayson Perry to explore the unique qualities of Essex), and the ideas and principles through which we can engage with architecture.

This event will be chaired by Hana Loftus

The talk will be followed by a walk to the magical and iconic A House for Essex.
Part of our series of Radical Walks.

Tickets: £15 / £12 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged) includes both author talk and guided walk

Event information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the day.
🖊️ There will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event.
☕  The bar will be open and serving drinks (including tea and coffee).

Timings

2.00pm – Gather at Wrabness Community Shop & Bar for a drink
2.30pm – Author talk: How to Enjoy Architecture with Charles Holland
3.30pm – Walk to A House for Essex (note: we will be walking around the outside of the house. We will not be going inside the house)
4.30pm – Back at the bar for more drinks and conversation

Charles Holland

Charles Holland is an architect, writer, and teacher. He is the principal of Charles Holland Architects, a design and research practice based in the UK. Prior to forming CHA, Charles was a director of FAT (Fashion Architecture and Taste), where he led a number of the practice’s key projects including A House for Essex, a collaboration with the artist Grayson Perry.

How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone

‘A book that will enrich any encounter with a building, it made me want to look harder and be more curious. We are led playfully through the fundamentals of architecture so that we might enjoy the details and the poetry of buildings all the more. A walk through the city feels more fun and also more profound after reading this book.’
– Grayson Perry, artist

‘We so often encounter architecture when it goes wrong, or offends us with its looks. Holland, though, is the perfect, clear-headed tour guide to help us appreciate it with newly sharpened senses and fall in love again – even those buildings we think we hate.’
– Tom Dyckhoff, academic and broadcaster

‘An enlightening and urbane exploration of architecture that resonates beyond conventional chronological histories.’
– Catherine Slessor, architecture writer and critic

‘A calm, wise, learned, undogmatic and quietly passionate new book.’
– Rowan Moore, The Observer

Buy a copy of the book from bookshop.org.

Hana Loftus

Photo of Hana Loftus © Polly Alderton

Hana Loftus is a planner, designer and writer based in Essex. She co-directs HAT Projects, an architecture and planning practice based in Colchester, and as a writer has been published in Apollo, Icon and widely in the architecture and planning press. Her first full-length book, Sixteen Acres, will be published by Profile Books in 2027 and an early version was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize in 2025.