About Buildings + Cities

The final part of our series on 'Delirious New York'! We discussed the culture clash between European high modernism and Manhattanism. We also discussed the Appendix at the end of the book, a set of speculative, wry, ironic and beautiful visions of where next for the retroactive manifesto, featuring the work of Madelon Vriesendorp, Zoe Zenghelis, Elia Zenghelis and Richard Perlmutter.

Hope you enjoy it!

Watch this episode with images: https://youtu.be/ouVLzj-292s

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York, we covered his discussion of three heroic skyscrapers of Manhattanism's golden age: The Empire State Building, The New York Athletic Club and The Rockefeller Centre. We also tried to further explain Koolhaas's unique way of thinking about history, and the particular emphases of his project.

For images, follow along on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tmOfxCU3dvA

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this episode, the first of a 3-parter, we began our discussion of 'Delirious New York' (1978) by Rem Koolhaas, a 'retroactive manifesto' for Manhattan. In this first part we discussed Rem's reputation, his style and his vision of the historical origins of the skyscraper and its formal qualities, a key part of the book's thesis. This takes us from the tabloid sensibilities of the Coney Island funfair to fraudulent 19thC building scams.

You can watch along to see our slides on YouTube https://youtu.be/XSR2UFpjB-A

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is an unlocked Patreon bonus episode from last year. To get access to all our bonus content and support the show, please subscribe for just £3 a month: https://www.patreon.com/about_buildings

In this bonus episode we discussed Neom, the sci-fi project of the Saudi Arabian government to totally reshape the north-west of the country, including a 170km linear city in the desert. We talked a little bit about the history of linear cities from Leonidov to Superstudio, and reflected on what the point of these fantastical publicity projects might be.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this one-off summer episode we discussed 'How Buildings Learn' (1994) by Stewart Brand. The book is concerned with the whole lifespan of buildings, and "What Happens After They're Built?" This is a valuable and necessary agenda in architecture, however Brand's methodology is sometimes a little slapdash, often to comical effect. Come for the timeless wisdom of the Duchess of Devonshire, stay for the reductive account of the sins of architects. We talked through the book, the things we liked about it and raised some critiques, notably Brand's lack of thought about ownership and economics.

All the images mentioned in this episode are available on YouTube.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the final episode of our Antoni Gaudí series, we discussed his magnum opus, one of the most famous buildings in the world: La Sagrada Familia. However, as is always the case, not everything is as it seems. We discuss the complex origins of this remarkable building, Gaudí's work on it over decades, the tragic circumstances of his death, and the life of the building after his death.

In the next couple of days we will be releasing a reflective episode on our Gaudí series, looking back at Gaudí, his legacy, and what it all means.

Watch this episode on YouTube to follow along with the images,

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this episode of our ongoing series on Antoni Gaudí we discussed the unsolved mystery of the Colonia Güell Church. Perhaps the most enigmatic of Gaudí's projects, and the apotheosis of his method and principles, wholly unrestrained. Only the crypt of this vast proposed church was actually built, in a language of burnt bricks, reclaimed stones and baffling geometries. All that survives to us of his plans are photographs of vast models of string, canvas and lead weights used to model the catenary arch structure of the building, along with a few blurry photographs of the drawings. Everything else was lost when Gaudí's studio was burnt.

The final episode in this series, on the Sagrada Familia, will be out soon. Make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss it!

Images for this episode are available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_gIFS6d3uCo

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this penultimate episode of our series on Antoni Gaudí, we dicussed projects he developed in his later career for Eusebi Güell. We talked about the Bodegas Güell, a complex of wineries and agricultural buildings in the countryside to the south of Barcelona. This project takes cyclopean masonry, a vast A-frame, gravity-defying stone pillars to create a building that calls back and forwards in time. Then we discussed the Park Güell, a consciously anglophile proposal for a garden city on the edge of Barcelona, where the housing never got built, and out of which Gaudí created a vast piece of land art, one of the most visited tourist attractions in the city. Lastly we discussed the recently renovated Chalet of Catllaràs, another curious masonry A-frame, like something out of a fairy tale with expressive dormers and spiral staircase, built as a shelter for coal miners.

Images for this episode can be found on the YouTube video version of the show: https://youtu.be/vWtYFwhvmW0

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the fourth episode of our series on Antoni Gaudí, we discussed two of his large projects in Barcelona. Casa Calvet was built 1898–1900, in many ways a conventional Spanish townhouse with references to the family's textile business into the scheme, and the rear facade with its bay windows and balconies has much of the horizontal boldness of early 20th-century proto-modernism. Casa Battló was built in 1904 on one of Barcelona's most iconic thoroughfares, with some of Gaudí's most radical use of biomorphic stone forms and a fantastical roofscape. Lastly, Casa Milà was built 1906–1912, an iconic apartment building on one of Barcelona's busiest thoroughfares. Its undulating stone facade, billowing wrought iron balconies and unconventional, organic plan made it a cause célèbre; we discussed some of the caricatures it inspired in the contemporary press at the end of this episode.

All of the images for this episode are available for the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZIrTub-2f6w

Or you can view them on our pinned Instagram Story 'Gaudí 4'

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our third episode on Antoni Gaudí we discussed some of his work that draws on traditions of Gothic, catholic and medieval architecture. Specifically we discussed his Teresian College of Barcelona, a female residential educational institution built in the rural Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, absorbed into Barcelona in the 20th century. We also discussed the bizarre Episcopal Palace at Astorga, one of Gaudí's strangest works, which we find fairly unsuccessful. We also discussed an unbuilt and sci-fi proposal for a monastery in Tangier and the Bellesguard House.

All of the images for this episode are available in the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iPCrxmud9RI

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the second episode of our series on Gaudí we discussed the remarkable Güell Palace, Barcelona, a work of total design with an unlimited budget built 1886–8. We talked about the mixture of cosmopolitan historical references, ornate detailing, and sophisticated urban party house that make up this unique work. We discussed the patron, Eusebi Güell, an industrialist and aristocrat with a reputation as a dandy and a supporter of wayward artists. Lastly we tried to make sense of the house, and some of the totally bizarre design choices which Gaudí made in the process.

You can see all the images we discussed in this episode in the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/KW3LkgzVYh0

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the first episode of our new series on Antoni Gaudí, we attempt to place him in the history of 19th-century Spain: a time of civil war, booming industry, declining empire and rapid urbanisation. We talked about the complex politics of the time, and movements for devolution and regional autonomy in his native Catalonia. We also discussed the myth of Gaudí, his status as one of the most famous architects in the world, but also the fact that he is considered deeply uncool amongst architects today. We discussed Barcelona's famous urban grid, and the uneven and contested process of urban growth that shaped it. Lastly we talked about some of Gaudí's earliest projects: streetlights for the city of Barcelona, a set of buildings for the Worker's Cooperative of Mataró, Casa Vicens in Barcelona, El Capricho in Comillas and the Güell Pavilions in Barcelona.

Thank you to everyone for following us as far as our 100th episode!

If you want to see images for all the buildings discussed, you can watch this episode on Youtube.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this episode we discussed 'Ubik' (1969) by Philip K. Dick, a piece of iconic science-fiction set in a world of psychic corporate espionage and dead relatives suspended in perpetual "halflife". Throughout the novel Gnostic and Platonic philosophy exude through perpetually inventive interpretations of advertising culture, psychotic mental states and satire of domestic mod cons. We talked about Dick's fixation on material culture as it appears in his other stories 'The Man in the High Castle' (1962) and 'Pay for the Printer' (1956).

Join us for an About Buildings and Cities Social this Saturday 3rd December from 5pm–late at The Kings Arms pub in Bethnal Green London.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this episode we discussed the idea of 'The Primitive Hut' in 18th and 19th century architectural theory. A vision of the first building was used by texts dating back to Vitruvius to imagine architecture's origins. We started with Marc-Antoine Laugier, author of Essai sur l'architecture (1753), which used the image of the Primitive Hut to call for a return to austere and structurally declarative classicism after the excesses of the baroque. We also discussed the idea of the Primitive Hut in the work of Viollet-le-Duc, who was influenced by ethnographic racism and eugenics in his depiction of the origin of architecture. We strongly recommend Joseph Rykwert's book On Adam's House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History for an even more in-depth commentary on this subject.

You can watch this episode on YouTube to see the images

Nature soundscape from: https://www.edinburghrecords.com/free-sound-effects/

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this one-off episode we discussed the late Richard Rogers, particularly his Reith Lectures, given for the BBC in the mid-90s on the subject of the 'Sustainable City'. We compare and contrast his rhetoric and his design work, try to decipher his vision for the future of the city, and think about the ways in which architectural culture has and hasn't changed in the intervening decades.

You can listen to the Reith lectures here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p00gxnzz

This is a one-off episode, our first in a little while! Next we'll be talking about the 'Primitive Hut' as voted for by our Patreon subscribers.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the final episode of our series on Palladio we discussed four of his great church designs:

• The facade of San Francesco della Vigna
• The monastery church of San Giorgio Maggiore
• Il Redentore
• Tempietto Barbaro, at Maser

For the images accompanying this episode, check out the video version on Youtube.

We hope you have enjoyed this series! Let us know what you'd like to see us discuss next

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Andrea Palladio's Quattro Libri is one of the most influential and important architectural books ever published. We discuss the four books of architecture, covering everything from masonry construction to proportional principles to the temples of ancient Rome.

To see the images as we discuss them, why not watch this episode on YouTube?

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Some of Andrea Palladio's most powerful and enduring work was carried out for his home city of Vicenza. We discuss some of his civic projects, and his extraordinary unrealised design for the Rialto Bridge in Venice

You can find the images on YouTube

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Though less wholly innovative than his villas, Andrea Palladio's palazzi for the nobility of Vicenza are still full of fascinating ideas, from the treatment of the facade, to the handling of difficult and strangely shaped sites. We discuss the Palazzos Thiene, Valmarana, Chiericati, Schio and Porto (x2). We also discuss their relation to roman villas and city houses, and their presentation in the Quatro Libri, or Four Books on Architecture.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Andrea Palladio created a new style of classical domestic architecture in his villa designs in the 1540-60s. We talk about some of the big hits: - Villa Saraceno - Villa Barbaro - Villa Cornaro - Villa Foscari 'La Malcontenta' - Villa Capra 'La Rotonda'

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We're starting a series exploring the work of Andrea Palladio. In his own time, Palladio was a prominent architect based in 16th century Vicenza. Subsequently he's become arguably one of the most influential architects of all history -- defining a style of classical architecture which became the house-style of elites around the world.

The most characteristic works in his long career are villas -- country houses on "terra ferma" for the rich merchants of Vicenza and nearby Venice -- though he also carried out some major local works of civic and religious architecture, and wrote a number of books. In this episode we're starting off, exploring him, his time, and some of the earliest Villas, including the Villa Godi.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We round off our series on Carlo Scarpa with two projects for Italian consumer electronics dynasties — the Olivetti corporation, for whom he designed a famous shop in Piazza San Marco, and the Brion-Vega family for whom he designed an extraordinary cemetery complex.

These are two of his most unrestrained, symbolically laden and elaborate projects — in which Scarpa's unique approach to architectural form, decoration, materials and narrative are most powerfully evident.

Thanks for watching, and all the best — back with you in 2022.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The Castelvecchio Museum (1959-73) in Verona is an elaborate spatial narrative, weaving together historic structures and ingenious design elements to create a fragmentary and multi-layered story about the site, the city, and the objects contained in it. The project was Carlo Scarpa's largest and longest running, and we go through it at some length.

For images, subscribe to us on YouTube.

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We talked about Carlo Scarpa's work at the Querini Stampalia foundation (1959-63), a palazzo-museum in Venice. Scarpa's interventions are focussed on the ground floor spaces, including a new entrance bridge, galleries and courtyard garden. There's a very distinctive mixture of restoration and fantasy, historical narration and occasional touches of grooviness.

You can watch this episode, including relevant images, on our YouTube channel.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our first episode on Carlo Scarpa, we're trying something new! We've made a video to accompany the episode that you can find on our YouTube Channel, in which you can watch Luke and George discuss the enigmatic architecture of Carlo Scarpa, accompanied by images of the buildings! Make sure you subscribe on YouTube to keep up to date.

This is an experiment, so let us know what you think! We will always put out these main episodes here on the podcast feed, and we will try to keep them accessible to those in audio only. As always, accompanying images will appear on our socials. Thanks to everyone for supporting the show and making this new model possible, do give us a review on your podcast app if you're enjoying what we do.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the final episode in our series on Ian Nairn, we discussed the 1967 book 'Britain's Changing Towns' and the BBC television work that has granted Nairn a viral afterlife on YouTube.

Here's the Nairn clip from the outro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K-53widcdY You can find all the Nairn tv shows we discussed in the episode by simply searching 'Ian Nairn' on Youtube, and we'll be posting some Nairn clips on the socials over the next couple of weeks.

Bonus episode for patreon subscribers on Gordon Cullen and Townscapes will be out this week!

This episode is sponsored by Blue Crow Media, purveyors of beautiful architectural maps, including maps of London tube stations and Art Deco or Brutalist architecture in London, in the tradition of Ian Nairn! Use the code aboutbuildings at checkout for 10% off! https://bluecrowmedia.com/

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the second episode of our series on Ian Nairn, we talked about Nairn's London, the 1966 architectural guide to the city which was the critic's magnum opus. We discussed his inimitable prose style, his deep knowledge of the buildings of London, the afterlife of the book and its un-propositional nature.

This episode includes clips from a walking tour of the West End that we took with Nairn's London in hand. The full audio tour of the West End will be published on our Patreon for subscribers!

This episode is sponsored by Blue Crow Media, purveyors of beautiful architectural maps, including maps of London tube stations and Art Deco or Brutalist architecture in London, in the tradition of Ian Nairn! Use the code aboutbuildings at checkout for 10% off! https://bluecrowmedia.com/

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The first episode in our new series on the work of architectural critic Ian Nairn. In this first episode we discussed his breakout work for the Architectural Review, Outrage, which railed against 'subtopia', the suburban sprawl of concrete and fencing that Nairn saw ruining the British environment in the decades after World War 2. We also discussed his writings on America, his similarities to Jane Jacobs and his work on Nikolaus Pevsner's Buildings of England.

Nairn has become something of a cult figure in recent years, with his uniquely irascible and sullen television style enjoying a successful afterlife on YouTube. In our next episode we'll be discussing his guide books: Nairn's London and Changing Towns, followed by a final episode on his TV work.

This episode is sponsored by https://bluecrowmedia.com/, who produce beautiful architectural maps that show you all the architectural highlights of a city, including newly released maps of Modernism in Venice and Prague. Use the offer code aboutbuildings for 10% off your next purchase.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Our final episode on Otto Wagner considers his relationship to modernism, asking whether Wagner was a predecessor to modernism. We discussed his most modern building, the Österreichische Postsparkasse or Austrian Postal Savings Bank, like so much in Vienna at this time, a coming together of the old world and the new.

Our next series on Ian Nairn will start very soon!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the penultimate episode in our series on Otto Wagner, we discussed Wagner's most famous projects, the art nouveau works produced at the height of the Vienna Secession. We talked about the Majolikahaus, other art nouveau apartment blocks, the Karlsplatz stadtbahn station and his transcendent Kirche am Steinhof designed for a psychiatric hospital with Wagner also masterplanned.

There's one more episode to come on Otto Wagner, where we will discuss his relationship to modernism! Our next series on the British architectural critic Ian Nairn will start in June.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is a preview of our latest bonus episode on Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secession, get access to the full episode on our Patreon.

In this episode we discussed the work of the Vienna Secession beyond Otto Wagner, particularly the artist Gustav Klimt. The Secession were a group of radical artists who were central to establishing the Art Nouveau in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Klimt's paintings, with their flattened perspectives, hallucinatory colours and heroin-chic female nudes made him famous, however increasingly prominent commissions led to his style coming into conflict with the dominant hierarchies of taste within the Empire.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this episode, we talked about the middle stage of Otto Wagner's career, primarily his work on the infrastructure of the city of Vienna. Visit our instagram and Twitter for pictures of the dams, railway stations and bridges that shaped Viennese modernity and provided the infrastructure for this rapidly growing city.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Otto Wagner, we discussed a couple of Wagner's early buildings, specifically the Landerbank in Vienna and the Rumbach Street Synagogue in Budapest. Both are tantalising glimpses of the themes that would dominate his later, most famous works.

We then discussed the architectural theory that was being produced in vast quantities in the German-speaking lands of the 19th century, specifically how they addressed the question of architectural style, posing the question 'In what style should we build?' These authors, such as Gottfried Semper, Heinrich Hübsch and Carl Gottlieb Wilhelm Bötticher offered complex justifications for different architectural styles, grounded in stories about history, structural logic, skeuomorphs and culture.

Otto Wagner plunged headlong into this debate with his 1896 book, Modern Architecture: A Guidebook for His Students to this Field of Art, which offered his own view on the answer to the style question, and prefigured many of the arguments and ideas touted by the modern movement in the 20th century.

Go to Blue Crow Media and use the offer code AboutBuildings at checkout to get 10% off your next architectural map.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is the first episode in our new series on Otto Wagner. In it we discussed 19th century Vienna, an ancient city wracked by extremes of urbanisation and population boom; political radicalism and revolution. A crumbling ancient order and an emerging modern metropolis came to create the Ringstraße, a vast redevelopment programme that took the empty space around the walls of the old city and filled it with vast marble institutions and speculatively built apartment complexes that came to symbolise the newly empowered liberal city.

Into this fiery melting pot came Otto Wagner, a singular architect, often hailed as a precursor to modernism, whose career we will be exploring over the course of this multi-part series (with slightly shorter episodes that we will release more regularly).

There's lots of images in this one so please come to instagram to see them!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is a preview of a bonus episode we published on Patreon as part of our series of WG Sebald's 'Austerlitz', subscribe to our Patreon to subscribe and get access to our back catalogue of bonus episodes.

In this bonus episode we talked about the films of Patrick Keiller, specifically 'London' (1994) and 'Robinson in Space' (1997), a pair of meticulously observed polemical psycho-geographies, exploring the derangements and idiosyncrasies of Britain in the Long 90s. Like in the work of Sebald, a narrator stands in for Keiller, and relates to us the strange beliefs and worldview of his interlocutor, Robinson. Keiller's exploration is laboured with literary accretions, wry observations about the decline and fall of Great Britain, and more than a little righteous anger.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Our second episode on WG Sebald's 2001 novel 'Austerlitz', encountering strangely preserved rooms, nightmarish dream landscapes, gigantesque 19th century fantasies, and a mix of psychoanalysis, Perrault's Bibliothèque Nationale, Liverpool Street Station and Casanova.

Watch Sebald giving a reading of Austerlitz and listen to an interview with him on KCRW.

This episode is sponsored by Blue Crow Media, who gorgeous architectural maps. Use the offer code aboutbuildings at checkout to get 10% off.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our first episode of 2021 we discussed 'Austerlitz', the final novel by W.G. Sebald. It's the story, at the most basic level, of an architectural historian, Jacques Austerlitz, who in middle age begins to rediscover his own submerged history. It's a novel driven by architectural spaces, which are mysterious containers of both individual and collective memory and history. Austeritz's own memories of his childhood escape from Nazi-occupied Prague, his lost parents, and the bloody history of Europe itself are gradually revealed in the images and landscapes that he encounters.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is a preview from our latest Patreon Bonus Episode – subscribe to our Patreon for just $3 a month to listen to the whole episode! Thank you to everyone who supported the show this year, we couldn't have done it without you, and we can't wait to discuss more architectural history in 2021.

Our final episode for 2020 is here and our last episode on Jane Jacobs. We're discussing Robert Moses, the megalomaniacal titan of New York planning who wielded enormous political power and bent the metropolis to his will, orchestrating a symphony of demolitions, highways, expressways and grands projets which changed the face of the city forever.

'You can draw any kind of picture you want on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra, or Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax.'

He was also a spiteful bully, a racist, an egomaniac and a very difficult man, yet he maintained his authority and his power for almost 3 decades before a precipitous fall in the 1960s, when public and political opinion turned against him for good. He embodied everything that Jane Jacobs despised about urban planning, but his life and work have much to tell us about the mid-century city.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Our second episode on Jane Jacobs' canonical work, 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'. In this second half we further discuss her vision for the ideal city, based on her experiences in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. We focus on her ideas around 'unslumming', her alternative model of gentle and community-led gentrification which offered an alternative to the mass-demolition of deprived neighbourhoods advocated by planners during this period. We talk about the ethics and politics of gentrification and Jane's blindspot for certain pernicious effects of market economics, and her proposals for economic health. We also discuss her approach to the car in the city, which will feel very familiar to anyone concerned with transportation and urbanism today. Subscribe to our Patreon for a bonus episode coming soon on Jane's campaigns against Robert Moses and the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

Our sponsor for this episode is Blue Crow Media, who produce gorgeous architectural maps of different cities, including Pyongyang, Tbilisi and New York. Use the offer code aboutbuildings for 10% off your next purchase!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The first episode in a two-part series on Jane Jacobs, a profoundly influential writer, thinker and campaigner on issues of urbanism, whose magnum opus 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' (1961) forms the backbone of our discussion. In it, Jacobs lays out an idealised vision of tight-knit, dense communities, inspired by her time living in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. It is a vision of an interconnected, urban way of life dominated by local small-scale agents: families, independent businesses and community ties from which emerge vitality, security and comfort in densely populated streets of tenements with wide sidewalks and endless lines of sight across the bustling public spaces.

Jacobs' work was a rejection of many sacred cows of modernist planning, espoused by architects and bureaucrats alike: questions of density, scale, urban grain, transportation and space. Jacobs felt that their efforts rarely supported the vitality and energy she found so alluring in the tenements of Greenwich Village.

Subscribe to our Patreon for a discussion of one of the infrastructure projects Jacobs campaigned against: Robert Moses and the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

Also, we just reached 1 million listens on this feed! Thank you so much for all your support, we couldn't have done it without you. Remember to tell a friend, and give the show a review if you enjoyed it.

Our sponsor for this episode is Blue Crow Media, who produce gorgeous architectural maps of different cities, including Pyongyang, Tbilisi and New York. Use the offer code aboutbuildings for 10% off your next purchase!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The final episode in our series on the deep history of the monastery. Modernity has arrived and monasticism is living a strange afterlife. First, we discuss the early 19th century Utopian Socialism of Charles Fourier, whose Phalanstère take the framework of the monastery and repurpose it to build community whose purpose is not the Opus Dei, but to ensure that all its members live fulfilling and happy lives. Next come the Constructivist communities of the early Soviet Union, where monastic communal living is weaponised as a tool to smash traditional bourgeois lifestyles and mould the next generation. Lastly we return to the the sunny hills of southern France, where Le Corbusier brought together his late-career love of sculptural concrete with the religious revival in postwar France to build the greatest monastery of the 20th century, La Tourette.

Our final episode of this series, on Romanticism and the Monastery, will be out on our Patreon feed next week.

Make sure you visit our instagram and view the pinned stories on 'Monasteries' for all the images from this series. Our next series on Jane Jacobs will begin next month.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Monasteries we're talking about Carthusians, millenarian religiosity, the co-option of radicalism by the mainstream, baroque splendour, Slow TV, retirement bungalows and whether Jesus owned the shirt on his back. In this episode we attempt to delve into the way that monastery buildings facilitate true Monastic obedience, and the way that different typologies of monastic domesticity might reflect different priorities in their orders. We also question how the Church harnessed the radical and dangerous power of popular religiosity by co-opting some movements into the status quo, such as the Franciscan Order, whilst burning countless Cathars and Waldensians as heretics.

For more on these themes, catch our latest bonus episode on Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose'. Another Patreon Bonus on Dominican heretic Tommaso Campanella's psychedelic and monkish Utopia 'The City of the Sun' will be out very soon.

You can watch the documentary we mention about a Carthusian Monastery 'Into Great Silence' on YouTube

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this new 3 part series we’re trying something a little bit different, we’re going to try and think about the monastery from deep time up to the present day. The monastery is an almost unique architectural typology; in its continuity, the specificity of the brief and its legacy and afterlife. In this first episode we discuss the origins of the monastery, and the conflict that arises between differing visions of monastic life in 11-12th century France. What role should architecture, art, sculptural decoration, gold, marble and jewels play in the life of a monk sworn to poverty? How can the architecture and style of monasteries give voice to the ideologies of the monastic orders that live in them? We will be thinking about the afterlife of monasteries in the fervent imagination of modernism in later episodes.

Make sure you visit our pinned instagram story to see images of the amazing buildings we are discussing.

This episode is sponsored by Blue Crow Media, who publish lushly designed architectural maps of cities all over the world, from brutalist Sydney to Art Deco New York. Use the offer code aboutbuildings to get 10% off if you buy before the end of August.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. For this episode we will very shortly be releasing a Patreon bonus on Umberto Eco's post-modern genre mashup 'The Name of the Rose'.

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In our second episode on Christopher Alexander, we discuss 'A Pattern Language', the book he wrote with Murray Silverstein and Sara Ishikawa, published in 1977. The text proposes a list of patterns, derived from experience, imagination and vernacular traditions, from the scale of the city to the balcony and the flowerbed. The text has been influential on many professions, from architects to computer programmers, and its blend of universal claims, spatial analysis, political idiosyncrasy and design logic makes it a unique and intriguing piece of theory. We then discuss some of Alexander's buildings, which we admittedly have not been to visit, but generally we find them to be somewhat wanting!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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<img alt="Picture of Alexander's Sala House" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcyqtGiWkAEMrgH?format=jpg&name=900x900" title="Sala House" />

<img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcyqtGiWkAEMrgH?format=jpg&name=900x900" alt="Sala House" title="Sala House" width="900" height="900" />

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This is the first episode of a new series on Design Theorist, Architect, Mathematician and Computation Fan, Christopher Alexander. Alexander studied Mathematics at Cambridge University in the 1950s, then undertook the first ever PhD in Architecture at Harvard, where he applied newly emerging ideas of computational analysis to questions of design. The results of this combination are bizarre, often illogical, undeniably of there time, but also lay the foundations for much subsequent interaction between design and computation, including the Parametricism that we discussed in our last series on Zaha Hadid. In this first episode we mainly discuss his 1964 work Notes on the Synthesis of Form, which was based on his PhD thesis. Make sure to subscribe to catch the next episode, where we will discuss his 1977 work with Ishikawa and Silverstein, Pattern Language.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this final episode on Zaha Hadid we discuss a small fraction of the huge number of projects that ZHA produced from the early noughties up to Zaha's untimely death in 2016. We attempt to reflect on Zaha's legacy as a designer, try to understand what concepts defined her design process, from Parametricism to pure sculptural form. There are so many projects from this period that we could have talked about, so we focus on discussing the most

Projects discussed: Maxxi Museum in Rome, Ordrupgaard Museum Extension in Denmark, Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg, the Kartal Masterplan proposed for Istanbul, Bergisel Ski Jump and the Nordpark railway stations in Innbruck, the London Aquatic Centre built for the 2012 Olympics, the Library at the University of Economics in Vienna, Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, the SOHO projects in Beijing and the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Saudi Arabia.

Pictures of all these projects will be on our pinned instagram story titled 'Zaha 4'.

The site recording at the London Aquatics Centre will be published in full on our Patreon, which you can access for just $3 a month.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The third part of our ongoing series on Zaha Hadid! In this episode we discuss the early buildings of the practice, including IBA housing in Berlin, Vitra Fire Station, Spittelau Viaduct Housing, and the unbuilt competition winning design for the Cardiff Opera House. As always, make sure you check out our pinned instagram story to see pictures of all of the projects we discuss. Thanks for listening!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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UNLOCKED PATREON BONUS

This unlocked bonus episode comes from our Patreon feed, where we post extra content and bonus discussions with every episode of the podcast. This bonus follows on from Episode 48, discussing the early projects of OMA and the theory of BIGNESS developed by Rem Koolhaas. If you want to access many hours of bonus material like this, you can subscribe to our Patreon for just $3 a month at www.patreon.com/about_buildings.

Our series on Zaha Hadid will continue next week.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Zaha Hadid, we're covering the rest of the 1980s, from the competition to design the Peak Leisure Centre in Hong Kong, to the Deconstructivism exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The episode also includes an interview with Andrew King, a principal at Lemay Architects in Canada, Professor at McGill University and winner of two AIA Progressive Architecture Awards. In the late 1980s Andrew worked in Zaha's office, and the interview gives a wonderful insight into Zaha's method and the close personal relationships she forged with people who worked for her. We want to warmly thank Andrew for his time and memories of Zaha, and also thank friend of the show Kai Woolner-Pratt for putting us in touch with him. If you want to listen to the full length interview, you can find it on our Patreon.

Make sure you check out the Zaha Hadid pinned story on our instagram to see all the images for this episode.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our first episode on Zaha Hadid, we dive into the spell-binding work of one of the most famous, controversial and interesting architects of her generation. We begin by imagining the unique atmosphere of the Architectural Association in the 1970s, where Zaha was a student, taught by Leon Krier, Rem Koolhaas and innumerable other architectural luminaries. We examine two of her student projects, Malevich's Tektonik and A Museum for the 19th Century, both heavily influenced by an interest in Russian revolutionary avant-garde art, from Suprematism to Constructivism. We then discuss one of her earliest competition entries, the residence for the Irish Taoiseach in 1979. In the next episode we will cover her competition entry for the Peak in Hong Kong and interview Professor Andrew King, who worked at her office in the late 1980s.

The Rem Koolhaas lecture that Luke discusses in the episode can be found on the AA Lecture Archive.

Go to Instagram, and have a look at our pinned story for Zaha, which will include all the images you could desire in the correct order with captions and explanations.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our final episode on Andrei Tarkovsky, we discuss the two films he directed after leaving the Soviet Union: Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986). Both films see a continued intensification of the directorial moves that Tarkovsky had been developing for his whole career: from heightened and ecstatic soundtracks to long and suspenseful shots; from close-ups of valuable objects in the mud to underdeveloped and over-emotional female characters. The films both draw heavily on the landscapes of Northern Italy and the island of Gotland in Sweden, which are rendered sublimely beautiful through Tarkovsky's unique blend of painterly compositions and disorientating surrealism. We hope you enjoyed this series on the films of Tarkovsky, next up we will be returning to architecture in the company of the inimitable Zaha Hadid!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Soviet director and auteur Andrei Tarkovsky we discuss his most well known film and possibly his magnum opus, Stalker (1979). The last film that Tarkovsky made whilst living in the Soviet Union, Stalker is loosely adapted from the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.

In Stalker, Tarkovsky takes decaying the post-industrial ruinous landscapes and transforms them into the mysterious 'Zone', a land full of hidden rules and invisible threats, that our trio of anguished and existentially angsty protagonists must traverse. Our characters are the Writer and the Professor, guided through the mysterious and dreamlike landscape by the eponymous Stalker. In this episode we discuss the unique artistic and technical feats that make this movie such a cult classic, and some of our quibbles with Tarkovsky's ethic.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this first part of our new series on legendary Russian director Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky we discuss his early films: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972) and Mirror (1975). We will also be releasing a Patreon bonus very shortly with discussions of the work Tarkovsky did whilst studying at film school, including The Violin and the Steamroller (1961).

Tarkovsky's work is greatly favoured among architects, despite not being explicitly architectural. His strange dream-like visions conjure up a unique spatial experience, with strange and often confusing materiality that hovers somewhere between a childhood memory and a disturbing nightmare. In this episode we discuss his interest in the paintings of Bruegel, the importance of faith to his work, his overpowering Oedipal complex, his run-ins with the Soviet authorities, and the artificial naturalism of his sets.

Make sure you subscribe to catch our next Tarkovsky episode, where we will be discussing Stalker (1979).

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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62 — Leon Battista Alberti — 2/2 — Building the Quattrocento

Having discussed his magnum opus, 'De Re Aedificatoria' in the last episode, here we discuss the curious collection of buildings that Alberti designed across Italy over the course of his lifetime. From the hulking and austere white stone of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini to the carefully proportioned fine marble inlay of the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, these buildings have a unique feeling, that reflects the idiosyncratic interests of Alberti in conjuring the authentic mood of Classical Architecture, within the confines of his rigid understanding of proportion and geometry. These moments of strangeness are heightened by the incomplete nature of much of the work, and his own distance from the construction process, most of which he directed by letter. Make sure you check out the pinned story on our instagram for this episode, where you will find lots of high quality images of the buildings we're discussing.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this first episode of a two parter, we tackle the original big beautiful bouncing boy of the Italian Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti, and his 1485 blockbuster publication, On the Art of Building in Ten Books. After Vitruvius' original Ten Books, De Re Aedificatoria represents only the second explicitly architectural treatise in the history of Western Architecture. Alberti's work covers everything you'd need to start building and much more, including: sacrificial animal murder; mysterious gases that leak from the ground; how best to control a mob; endless quotations from Classical sources and some ruminations on the nature of beauty. We also discuss the historical context of Renaissance Italy, Florentine class-warfare shenanigans and the many strange and unexpected twists and turns of this enigmatic cornerstone of the canon. In the second episode we will be discussing Alberti's buildings!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second and final episode on Reyner Banham, we discuss his pivot to Los Angeles, his love affair with Archigram, his theories of Megastructure, and his later projects on American industrial vernacular ('Concrete Atlantis') and his unpublished book about the High-Tech movement.

After his support of the Smithsons and the 'New Brutalism' Banham was next renowned for supporting and publicising the work of English paper-architecture utopia-envisioners Archigram. We discuss Archigram, their lack of built fabric and the potentials of ecstatic 1960s techno-optimism. Banham's most iconic work is probably his 1972 documentary 'Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles' and we discuss the documentary, Banham's idiosyncratic presenting style, as well as his blind spots around race, class, and the un-freedom of bottomless consumption. You will hear a series of clips from the documentary scattered through the episode. We also reflect on Banham's legacy, the revival of his reputation, and the difficulties of techno-optimism in the face of the climate crisis.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. The next bonus episode will be discussing the ropily-acted Sci-Fi cult classic 'Silent Running' in all its Banham-ite glory.

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As requested by the listeners, part one of a two parter on Reyner Banham!

Banham was an architectural critic, historian, scenester and prophet of the future, with a flair for iconoclastic and pugilistic writing. In this first episode we discuss his background in Norwich and his studies at the Courtauld Institute under Nikolaus Pevsner, where he wrote his PhD on the history of the modern movement. We then consider his involvement with 'The Independent Group' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, his support for the 'New Brutalism' of Alison and Peter Smithson, and his role in British architectural culture.

Central to the development of Banham's project was his obsession with technology and his growing fascination with the potentials of American consumerism and the ways it might change architecture. We conclude with his ecstatic vision of the mechanical pudenda of technological architecture, in his first visits to America and his plastic bag homes.

Here are the key Banham texts we discussed in this episode:

PhD thesis (later to be published as Theory and Design in the First Machine Age)

'School at Hunstanton, Norfolk' Architectural Review, September 1954

'The Machine Aesthetic' Architectural Review, April 1955

'Vehicles of Desire' Art, September 1955

'The New Brutalism' Architectural Review, December 1955

Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 1960

'The History of the Immediate Future' RIBA Journal, May 1961

'What Architecture of Technology?' Architectural Review, February 1962

'A Clip-On Architecture' Design Quarterly 63, 1965

'A Home is Not a House' Art in America, Vol. 2 1965

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our final episode on Reactionaries, we explore the politics and theory that underpinned the reactionary rejection of Modernism in the 70s and 80s. We discuss Prince Charles' architectural interventions and the theories of our future king's favourite architect, Leon Krier (and Krier's problematic fave, Albert Speer). We also dive into the hotbed of Trad theorising, Peterhouse College Cambridge, and its two favourite sons, architectural historian David Watkin and philosopher Roger Scruton. We explore the framing of traditionalist theory against modernist hegemony, and ask if the architectural consensus of the 21st century is a bit more Trad than some advocates would admit.

We also dip our toes into the culture war, and ask questions about the political connotations of architectural style in the age of social media. Is an obsession with style actually holding us back from confronting the real social, economic and political problems that ail the city? Ultimately, we lament the destruction of good architecture of any style, with a poignant reflection on the proposed fate of the Aton Estate in Roehampton

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In our second episode on Reactionaries, we explore the rejection of modernism by traditionalist architects and theorists in England after the Second World War. Modernism became the hegemonic architectural and urbanist mode in England during this period, and we examine those who rejected the consensus, and sought to continue the retreat into the past, designing architecture that occasionally verges on Caesar's Palace, without any of the fun.

In this episode, we discuss Raymond Erith, the traditionalist architect who restored Number 10 Downing Street in the 1960s. We go on to discuss his pupil, Quinlan Terry, whose Richmond Riverside Development we went to visit and recorded our observations in situ. Their stodgy, and often unsuccessful attempts to revive and reconjure a classical vernacular expresses a political and ideological agenda that we attempt to unpack, and will go on to discuss in our final episode on the Reactionaries.

As always, find images on our social media feeds, and footage from the trip to Richmond in a pinned story on our instagram.

There will be a bonus episode discussing the cult 60s TV Show The Prisoner for Patreon Subscribers.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This is the audio from our live panel discussion at Dulwich Picture Gallery, where we were joined by the gallery's assistant curator, Helen Hillyard, and Neba Sere, founder of WUH Architecture and co-director of Black Females in Architecture. The discussion took place in the gallery's summer pavilion, the Colour Palace, which we strongly recommend going to visit.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery was designed by John Soane in the early 19th Century. In this panel we discuss Soane, polychromy, tombs, the architecture of cultural institutions, and the social context of the gallery.

The images from the presentations can be found, with timestamps, on a pinned story on our instagram, so you can follow the images along as you listen. Let us know if you like this feature, and we will incorporate it into other episodes!

Thank you to everyone at the Dulwich Picture Gallery for making this event possible.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Come and see us record a live episode at Dulwich Picture Gallery on the 26th June! We'd love to meet you!

Modernist Architecture has always had more than its fair share of critics. In this episode, the first of a two parter, we discuss the reactionary, counter-revolutionary opposition to modernism in Britain during the interwar period. First, comes an examination of the stodgy, flag-waving, imperialist Classicism of the Edwardian era, which Luke thinks includes some of the worst architecture in Britain. One of the perpetrators of that style, Reginald Blomfield, wrote a patriotic screed against the continental, ‘cosmopolitan’ Modern architecture, which he subtly titled ‘Modernismus.’ We also examine Lutyens’ review of ‘Towards a New Architecture,’ a critique of Corbusier’s theory, but also a refutation of modernism as an appropriate style for living in. Lastly we consider the slightly outlandish ‘England and the Octopus’ by the eccentric architect Clough William Ellis, famous for designing the town sized folly of Portmeirion in North Wales. Fruity characters, problematic tropes and anxiety about a declining Empire abound.

In the bonus episode we will discuss the Evelyn Waugh's 'Decline and Fall.'

This episode is sponsored by The Article Trade Program.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this concluding part of our discussion, we interview Anna Mill, artist of ‘Square Eyes’ about Akira from the point of view of an illustrator, and also discuss the feature length Akira anime (1988), and the wonderful soundtrack by Geinoh Yamashirogumi.

You can find more about Square Eyes here.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the second part of our discussion, we talk through the whole, incredibly epic six-volume manga 'Akira' from start to finish.

Music is from the soundtrack to the film 'Akira' by Geinoh Yamashirogumi.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Katsuhiro Otomo’s vast magnum opus ‘Akira’ (1982-90) is one of the landmarks of late 20th century science fiction — a story of psychic battles, youth counterculture and technology run out of control — all set in Neo-Tokyo, a vast megastructure in the Tokyo bay.

If you’ve only ever heard of one manga, it’s probably this one. We’ve been reading the definitive black and white version — worth getting hold of if you can.

Actually we didn’t even get to start talking about the book proper because we went on about context too long. We talked a bit about the earlier works ‘Fireball’ and ‘Domu’, the documentary ’God Speed You Black Emperor’, manga as a genre, and a load of other stuff.

The bonus will look at the early work in more detail.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We conclude our discussion of the churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor in London, featuring discussion of church politics, 'the primitive church of the early Christians' and wet and windy site recordings from St George in the East, Shadwell (1714-29), Christ Church Spitalfields (1714-29), and St Mary Woolnoth (1716-27).

Sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Nicholas Hawksmoor, born in 1661, built six churches in London between 1711 and his death in 1736. Vast, white, monumental and enigmatically detailed, the Hawksmoor churches are a looming and mysterious presence in the architectural consciousness and mythic history of London, somehow both of time and out of it. Bombed, burned, spurned by popular taste before they were even completed, they have nevertheless survived to become objects of fascination, speculation and obsession. Created on the threshold of modernity, they reach back toward an imagined (and distant) past when the Church was young, and the worship was pure.
We’ve recorded a series of observations of the churches on site, and attempted to locate them in the world of early 18th century England.
On a forthcoming bonus we’ll be exploring the fictional Hawksmoor — as time-magician, cabbalist, summoner of Egyptian gods and more. Our editor Matt Loyd Roberts has joined us for this one — 

Music is by Ketsa 'Rain stops play' from the Free Music Archive Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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The second part of our discussion of the utopias and dystopias of the late 19th century 'machine age'.

Including a discussion of Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backwards: 2000-1887' (once incredibly famous and now almost unknown), William Morris's 'News From Nowhere: Or, and Epoch of Rest' and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Moving the Mountain.'

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We start a two-part discussion of the utopias and dystopias of the late 19th century 'machine age,' when new technology seemed to be remaking the world, and society along with it.

What sort of world would the machines bring? In this episode we discuss Samuel Butler's novel 'Erewhon' and the extraordinary speculation on machine life that it contains. We also talk about Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 'Vril' — to which it was initally (erroneously) thought to be a sequel — and Nikolai Chernyshevsky's 'What is to be done'.

Music — Chris Zabriskie 'Is that you or are you you?' from the Free Music Archive.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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Rem Koolhaas and the firm he founded with three partners in 1975 — Office of Metropolitan Architects, OMA — are fascinating, critical and provocative presence within the architectural culture of the 1970s and 1980s, riding the wave of the crisis of modernist collapse while positioning themselves outside or against all of the main tendencies in the post-modern.

In this episode we’re focussing on a particular, transitional moment, in which the early ‘paper’ projects start to be replaced by real buildings and large scale competition entries, culminating in three fascinating competition entries from 1989 — the Zeebrugge Sea Terminal, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) and Très Grand Bibliothèque (TBG).

Lee Rosevere ‘Baldachin’ from the album ‘Music for Podcasts 3’ on the Free Music Archive

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We continue our discussion of the theoretical works of Robert Venturi with this episode on ‘Learning from Las Vegas — The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form’ — researched and written with Denise Scott-Brown and Steven Izenour, and published in 1972.

The book, which examines the architecture of the Vegas strip, is the origin of the famous ‘Duck vs Decorated Shed’ comparison, and contains a lot else besides, including denunciations of the cult of Space, praise for the ‘ugly and ordinary,’ a certain amount of ostentatiously-wielded erudition, and so on.

Music: Al Smith 'Road House' https://archive.org/details/78_road-house_al-smith-a-smith-c-carter_gbia0054635a

This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus — a streaming learning service with video lectures by experts in all sorts of fields. Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/BUILDINGS to get a month of free access to thousands of courses.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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For the first AB+C of 2019 we’re tackling one of the seminal texts of the 1960s, and an iconic moment in the stylistic overthrow of the postwar modernist order — Robert Venturi’s ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’ (1966). It’s a slim, lavishly illustrated volume, which seems lucid and straightforward, but upon closer reading turns out to be much more elusive. What are complexity and contradiction, where are they found, and what are architects supposed to do with them?

On the bonus we’ll be discussing the early projects of Venturi and Rauch.

This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus — a streaming learning service with video lectures by experts in all sorts of fields. Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/BUILDINGS to get a month of free access to thousands of courses.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We're a bit late with the first episode of the new year, so I'm releasing our bonus conversation on Italian fascist architecture to tide you over until then. If you want more material like this, there's a link to the Patreon below.

We talk about the architecture of the Italian fascist period. Some of it is pretty good, unfortunately. Some of it is very weird indeed.

We cover a lot ground, including — Gino Coppedè, Giovanni Muzio, Antoni Sant’Elia, Mario Chiattone, Giuseppe Terragni , Fortunato Depero, Marcello Piacentini, Armando Brasini and more.

Music is Ottorino Respighi — Serenata per piccola orchestra

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We finally get onto the last book of Stones of Venice, and its reverberations through the long second half of the 19th century. Young Ruskinians, EL Godwin, William Burges, William Morris and so on.

Music — Vivaldi concerto for two horns, strings and continuo in F major RV 539 pt I The Fall — Living too late

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Giovanni Michelucci was born in 1891, and lived through nine-tenths of the 20th century, through all its terrifying and perplexing twists and dislocations. Throughout his career, his work manages to express an idiosyncratic and critical relationship to the spirit of the age. Over fifty at the end of the war, and sacked from his university job in the late 1950s for being too old, he would go on to produce his best and most daring work in the 60s and 70s.

We discuss Michelucci and Italy, fascism, post-war, and late style.

Apologies for the quality of Luke’s audio —

On the bonus, we take a longer look at the ideological tensions within Mussolini-era architecture, Giovanni Muzio, Giuseppe Terragni, and many others.

Music —
Rossini ‘Le Cenerentola’ Blackway — New Life

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A collaboration between About Buildings + Cities and Stories from the Eastern West (@sftewpodcast) — a cool podcast telling little-known stories from Central & Eastern Europe.

We discuss Tomas Bata's modernist shoe-factory Utopia in Zlin, Moravia, his project to create an orderly (and suitably hierarchical) paradise for loyal, productive, clean-living workers, and the spread of his model all over Europe — even as far as Essex!

Thanks a lot to Wojciech and Adam for coming to interview us.

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This is the audio from our ‘In Conversation’ with Adam Caruso, held at Nottingham Contemporary on October the 4th.

You can (and probably should, if you want to know what’s going on) download the slides from the presentation here — https://tinyurl.com/y7gab672

We didn’t get through the whole slideshow, but we’ll talk about what we missed on the second part.

Thanks a lot to Sam, Mercè et al at Nottingham Contemporary…!

And to you, listener, for listening.

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This is the audio from our ‘In Conversation’ with Adam Caruso, held at Nottingham Contemporary on October the 4th.

You can (and probably should, if you want to know what’s going on) download the slides from the presentation here — https://tinyurl.com/y7gab672

We didn’t get through the whole slideshow, but we’ll talk about what we missed on the second part.

Thanks a lot to Sam, Mercè et al at Nottingham Contemporary…!

And to you, listener, for listening.

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We discuss the first two volumes of 'Stones of Venice' — the interminable first and dream-like second. Shafts, archivolts, more shafts, rotten and sun-whitened vegetation, encrustation, palaces (Gothic and Byzantine), melancholy ruins, the sound of distant seabirds, and lapis luzuli and gold aplenty.

Thanks for listening — we're gearing up for a productive autumn I hope.

Audio includes — the following site recordings from the Radio Aporee project on archive.org ‘Zadar, Sea Organ - Sea Organ’ by Doro-Koeln (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_8070_23343] ‘In a plane before the flight, 31700 Blagnac, France - Before the flight !’ by claire_sauvaget (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_34599_39770] ‘in the airplane - approaching tokio airport’ by Frank Schulte (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_7538_9283] ’cargo train terminal, Ljubljana - train arrives and stops’ by udo noll (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_15347_17883] ’West Wittering, UK - ships foghorn ... brent geese …’ by david m (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_34620_39791]

Plus music —  Chris Zabriskie ‘Cylinder Nine’ from the album ‘Cylinders’ on the (Free Music Archive)[freemusicarchive.org] Waves of the sea — Royal Servian Tamburiza from (archive.org)[https://archive.org/details/78_waves-of-the-sea_royal-servian-tamburitza-orch-savski-volovi_gbia0018162b]

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John Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice’ is one of the monuments of architectural theory in the 19th century. But it’s a hard book to get through, or to get inside. It’s incredibly long, and animated by a kind of moralistic passion that feels a little alien, at best quaint, or childish. Part of the reason is that Ruskin was a Victorian — indeed, one of the great formers of Victorian taste.

We were planning to talk about the first part of the book, but in the end we just spent the whole episode trying to get to grips with what that means. Why was he like this?

We’ll read the first two parts in the next episode. Thanks for being patient!

As usual we got a couple of things wrong — Little Nell is actually in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. Also the number of volumes of ‘modern painters’ isn’t five — there are 7, actually — though often sold as five volumes.

Music —  Tita Ruffo ‘Visione Veneziana’

Audio includes — the following site recordings from the Radio Aporee project on archive.org Ksamil, Albanie - Midnight waves / by François-Emmanuel Fodéré (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_25349_29390] 17590 Ars-en-Ré, France - Waves wheeling / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_40307_46036] river Drava, Loka - dry grass, river flow, stones / by OR poiesis (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_25057_29057] larnichtsberg, swallows, crows and insects / by Frank Schulte (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_11544_13596] Venice, Italy - fish market / by Carlos Santos (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_16461_19081] 12230 Nant, France - Nant bells / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_32229_37026] Ksamil, Ksamil island, District de Sarandë, Albanie - Waves and waves / by François-Emmanuel Fodéré (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_30140_34668] Bruges, Belgique - Brugge bells / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_31798_36523]

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A short post-script to the Space Age episodes — we talked to Fred Scharmen about the mid 1970s NASA Space Settlements design study.

You can read his essay at Places Journal where you can also see a selection of Rick Guidice and Don Davis’s illustrations.

We’ll have a new full episode out very soon — 

Luke's graphic novel is here

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The second part of our discussion of '2001 — A Space Odyssey'.

At a certain point quite early on we started referring to the Monolith as 'the Obelisk' and neither of us noticed. Oh well.

Thanks for listening and let us know your thoughts.

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Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001 a space odyssey is the iconic depiction of space travel, channeling the optimism and excitement of radical advances in space exploration and technology. It’s an uncompromising, utterly singular film, whose vision of a possible future is carried through comprehensively. Its scope and ambition are still basically unequalled. Kubrick is famous for the obsessiveness of his research — in this case bringing in expertise from leading scientists, cutting edge digital pioneers, animators, makers of special effects. As a result, 2001 seems to capture the imagination of a very particular era of technological optimism in the mid 1960s in America and worldwide.

We talk about the film, its amazing worlds and interiors, the Worlds Fairs in Seattle and New York which were a proving ground for many of those involved, as well as passing references to — Chris Marker’s La Jetee
— Charles and Ray Eames
— Xerox PARC
— Superstudio

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. On this episode's bonus — we're talking Osaka Expo and Space habitats.

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The 1990s were when computers really entered the mainstream of architecture. The rise of personal computing, with wider access to inexpensive machines, the world wide web, advances in software and hardware, all took place against the background of global political transformation that at the time was theorised as the End of History, the breakup of the Soviet Union, democratisation, and the apparent rise of a single, global, liberal capitalist world order.

But the exploration of CAD, rendering, generative design and CNC manufacture would all be theorised through a pre-existing set of ideas and agendas, drawing heavily on ‘French theory’ — Derrida, (and particularly) Deleuze — and a partially pre-digested blend of complexity mathematics. We find ourselves — among the blobs, deformed surfaces, landscapes and evolutionary forms — in a world of ‘affective singularities’, ‘the Fold’, pliancy, Catastrophe Theory…

We talk technology, key actors, and attempt a glossary of key concepts…

Under discussion — 
— Frank Gehry’s fish sculpture
— Revit / BIM
— The F117 and B2 defense projects
— Peter Eisenman
— John Frazer
— MIT Computer Lab
— the Bilbao Guggenheim
— Cardiff opera house
— Yokohama ferry terminal
— NOX’s Freshwater and Saltwater pavilions
— The Affective
— Catastrophe Theory
— D’Arcy Thompson
— The Fold
— Singularity
— Max Reinhardt Haus
— Phallogocentrism & Helene Cixous

Recordings are from Peter Eisenman’s Lecture ‘Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media’ (1993) (AA archive)[https://www.aaschool.ac.uk//VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=737]

Music —
Lee Rosevere ‘Quizitive’
Lee Rosevere ‘Curiosity’
Lee Rosevere ‘Thoughtful’ all from (Free Music Archive)[freemusicarchive.org]

Clips of —  Awesome 3 ‘Don’t Go’ (1992)
Liquid ‘Sweet Harmony’ (1992)
2 Bad Mice ‘Bombscare’ (1992)
M.A.N.I.C ‘I’m Coming Hardcore’ (Original Mix) (1991)

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We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode.

Projects like the Villa Stein and Villa Savoye are icons of modernist architecture — among the most famous of all modern buildings — images and symbols of what modern architecture is. Below all the machine age crispness, there's also a certain amount of weird bourgeois sex stuff as well.

This is the second part of the conversation we began in episode 37 — it's best to listen to that one first.

Music —  'Easy Living' Bob Howard and his Orchestra from archive.org

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Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanerret's 'Five Points' (1926) were an attempt to condense the fundamental structural and design principles underlying their new architecture. Drawing on the discoveries made during design and construction of their early villa projects, the points are in a sense the culmination and fulfillment of the original 'Maison Domino' idea of 1914.

The points set the template for the most famous 'Purist' villas of the later 1920s, culminating in the Villas Stein-La Monzie and Savoye, icons of what became the 'International Style.'

This episode started off as a single chat but there was too much so we've split it.

We discuss —  — Villa Church (need photos of spaces)
— Pierre Chenal's film 'L'architecture d'aujourd'hui'
— Five points towards a new architecture
— Villa Meyer
— Villa Ocampo
— Ramps
— Villa Cook

Music — 'Modern Design' Johnny Messner And His Orchestra from archive.org

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Bernard Rudofsky’s exhibition Architecture Without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1964 — and the fantastically successful book which followed it, have become an iconic polemic in support of the architectural ‘vernacular’. Ever-keen to play up his own iconoclastic distance from mainstream of architectural thought, Rudofsky would later claim that the idea was, at the time he proposed it, ‘simply not respectable.’ In hindsight though, the exhibition actually fits very clearly within a broader ‘return’ to an image of architecture’s pre-industrial roots among the postwar avant gardes all over the world.

Architecture Without Architects definition of vernacular architecture is (typically) idiosyncratic. It contains more or less everything outside the canon of architectural history, and free from entanglement in industrial supply chains. There are 3000-year-old rock dwellings, bamboo houses under construction. The images in the catalogue are carefully paired — the hollowed-out tufa pinnacles of Göreme in Turkey above a village of Apulian trulli — each one an ingenious conical pile of stones around a pitched circular chamber — mountains above and below. But what matters is that these houses, towns, and structures, the anonymous creations of these isolated and anonymous designers are presented, in the clarifying light of black and white photography, as a window into a world outside the prison of modernity — organic, communally unified and bizarrely and daringly creative.

We’re talking about Architecture Without Architects within the context of Rudofsky’s polymathic, crankish, sarcastic and wholly inimitable vision and career.

Music —  Eddie Dunstedter — ‘Dancing Tambourine (Pandereta)’ Dick McDonough and his Orchestra — ‘My Cabin of Dreams’ from archive.org Athenian Mandolin Quartet — ‘Cacliz March’ Chris Zabriskie — ‘The Dark Glow of Mountains’ From the Free Music Archive

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Jacques Tati's 'Mon Oncle' (1957) and 'Playtime' (1967) playfully dramatise the clash between old and new in the fast-changing cities of post-war France. Nostalgia, alienation, the absurdity of modern life and work, play, rhythm, rebellion and the curious affordances of materials and everyday items... serious fun, with silly noises.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer weather and speak soon!

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Adolf Loos’s essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ (1910) is considered the classic modernist polemic against the frills and folderols of the established arts of the day.

We're in the city of Freud — and the neurotic subtext is very close to the surface.

We discuss a little of Loos’s career as an architectural iconoclast, jersey fanatic, and pervert :-/

Then we go on to a more freeform discussion of ornament in the contemporary, during which we massively contradict ourselves several times.

We discussed — 

• Freud Nietzsche Hegel Darwin
• Louis Sullivan
• Mrs Beeton
• English Free Building — Hermann Muthesius
• Peter Behrens
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel
• Joseph Maria Olbrich
• Henry van der Velde
• Joseph Hoffmann
• Josephine Baker’s 'Banana Dance'
• The black granite bathroom at Villa Karma
• (On the subject of reprehensible characters) Albert Speer

Contemporary ornamenters — 

• Caruso St John
• Farshid Moussavi & her book on facades

Music — 

• Victor Sylvester and his Ballroom Orchestra ‘Vienna, City of my Dreams’
• The Three Suns ‘Alt Wien’ (1949)
• Philharmonic Orchestra Berlin ‘Von Wien durch die Welt'
• Oldbrig's zither trio ‘Wien bliebt Wien’
  All from archive.org

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In this episode we explore in two early schemes for mass housing, at Pessac and in Stuttgart.

Among many other things, we talked about —

• Bourneville
• New Lanark
  - Arnold circus
  - Bruno taut’s horseshoe estate
  - Pessac
  - Henri Frugès
  - The Weissenhofseidlung
  - Margarete Schutte-Lihotsky
  - Hannes Meyer’s essay ‘The New World’

Music & Interlude —

• Harry Ross ‘Get Me an Apartment - Part 1’ from archive.org

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The concluding part of our discussion of ‘Urbanism’ (1925) — we look at the proposals for a Contemporary City for Three Million (1923), and the notorious Plan Voisin (1925). For Le Corbusier’s detractors, these are really the crimes of the century. We did our best to think of something nice to say about them.

Music —
Dave Gabriel ‘Midst of their morning chimes’
Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Nobody Here’

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The first of a two part episode exploring Le Corbusier’s infamous and much-derided urban proposals, exhibited in the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion in 1925. In this part, we’re conducting a close reading of ‘Urbanism’ (sometimes known as ‘The City of Tomorrow and its Planning’).

We mostly stayed on topic but there are allusions to

• Camillo Sitte
• Augustus Welby Pugin’s ‘Comparisons’

Music —

• Glass Boy ‘WELP’
• Lovira ‘All Things Considered’
• Loyalty Freak Music ‘Once More With You’ and ‘Waiting TTTT’
• Three Chain Links ‘Heavy Traffic’
• All from the Free Music Archive

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Franz Kafka’s first, and least-finished, novel is an imaginary journey around the USA (a country he never visited). Written in 1912, it’s a fantasy of America at a time when seemed, to Europeans at least, to be the most futuristic (and mysterious) place on Earth.

Kafka’s fascination with machinery, technology and engineering is on display in ‘Amerika’, in which the young Karl Rossmann finds himself cut adrift in a land of glass elevators, miles-long traffic jams, endless hotels, filled with delirious extremes of luxury, poverty and inventiveness.

The edition we read is the current Penguin translation by Michael Hoffman.

We made brief reference to Joseph Roth, and to Neuromancer’s ‘Villa Straylight’.

Thanks for listening and Happy New Year!

Music:

• David Rose and his Orchestra / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1946) archive.org
• Felix Arndt / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1917) at archive.org
• Dvorak, Casals, Szell, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra ‘Cello Concerto’ I / II (1937) archive.org
• Dvorak, Szell, Cleveland Orchestra ’Slavonic Dances’ 2, 4 & 5 (1947) archive.org
• Efrem Zimbalist; Sam Chotzinoff; Zimbalist ‘Hebrew Melody and Dance’ (1912) archive.org
• Riccardo Martin; Dvorak; Victor Orchestra ‘Als die alte Mutter’ (1910) archive.org
• Ukrainska Orchestra Pawla Humeniuka ‘Kozak-Trepak’ from the Free Music Archive
• Jack Perry & the Light Crust Doughboys ‘Oklahoma Waltz’ (1947) youtube

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For our Christmas episode, we're discussing the early Purist villas!

Knowing the right people, and a relentless programme of self-publicity yielded a steady stream of clients for Le Corbusier in the early 1920s, and allowed him to explore an architectural complement to Purism, most notably in a pair of houses for art-loving ‘batchelors’ — the Ozenfant Studio and Villa La Roche. We found time to discuss (probably with unwarranted levity, sorry) the death of Le Corbusier’s father George, and his troubled marriage to Yvonne Gallis.

Topics include —  - Maison Citrohan
- Villa Ker-ka-re
- Studio Ozenfant

• Villa La Roche
  - Allusions to the English House and Pliny episodes 01 & 05, and 02 Strawberry Hill (Horace Walpole)

• The Architectural promenade
  - The Hôtel Particulier
  - CN Ledoux
  - Ryue Nishizawa & SANAA
  - Domesticity, Layered Space and the ‘Buffer Zone’

• Villa Le Lac in Corseaux
  - The 'involuntary euthanasia' of his father George
  - Luigi Snozzi

• Yvonne Gallis

Music —

• Emile Petti and his cosmopolitans — Cocktail Hour at the Savoy Plaza
• Joseph C Smith’s Orchestra ‘Oh, Frenchy!’
• Charles Trenet ‘En ecoutant mon cour chanter’
• Jean Sablon ‘J’attendrai’ all from archive.org

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A new epoch has begun! Le Corbusier’s ‘discovery’ is that the style of future architecture is to be found new inventions of the machine age — planes, cars, ocean liners. But ‘Towards a New Architecture’ is, at its heart, an argument for a fusion of timeless values and contemporary technology — provocatively encapsulated in its juxtaposition of a sports car and the Parthenon.

We went through the book in order, focussing on the chapters:

• The Engineer’s Aesthetic

• Three Reminders to Architects
  - Regulating Lines

• Eyes Which Do Not See

• The Pure Creation of the Mind
• Architecture or Revolution

Mentioning along the way: LC’s early books

• ‘Etude sur le mouvement d’art décoratif en Allemagne’, ‘Apres Le Cubisme’, ‘L’Art decoratif d’aujourdhui’, ‘La peinture moderne’
• Adolf Loos
• Piranesi’s ‘Campo Marzo’
• The Ecole des Beaux Arts
• Poché as a heuristic
• Christopher Alexander’s ‘A Pattern Language’
• Rob Krier ‘Architectural Design’
• Greek temples in Athens and Paestum
• Michelangelo
• Patrick Schumacher’s ’Autopoiesis of Architecture’
• at the end I sort of talked rather half-heartedly about Full Luxury Communism

Music is by Lee Rosevere
From the albums ‘Music for Podcasts’ and ‘Music for Podcasts 2’ ‘Musical Mathematics’, ‘Biking in the park’, ‘Featherlight’, ‘Places Unseen’

The outdo is by Mde. Ed. Bolduc ‘J’ai un bouton sur la langue’ archive.org

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We’re in Paris, 1917, where Charles-Edouard Jeanneret is making friends, thinking about sex (and writing enormous letters about it), designing the occasional mechanised abattoir / concrete garden terrace, going bankrupt, trying to sell concrete blocks to postwar society, inventing a new style of painting, launching a highly costly art magazine, and (finally!) acquiring the name under which he would become famous — Le Corbusier!

One of us had a very creaky chair in this episode. Also we were drinking again. Apologies for both.

We discussed — 

• The breeze block plant at Alfortville
• Societe d'Applications du Beton Arme
• a Slaughterhouse at Challuy, near Nevers

• (for no good reason) Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ (1906)
  - Unbuilt project for a dam

• a Water Tower in Podensac
  - his meeting and collaboration with Amedée Ozenfant
  - Purism as a style in Art — the Tate has a good definition
  - Fernand Léger
  - L’Esprit Nouveau

• Pierre Jeanneret

We’ve been reading — 

• Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
• Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
• Oppositions 15-16 (1980)
• Catherine de Smet ‘Le Corbusier: Architect of Books’ (2004)

Music —
Charles Trenet ‘Le Retour des Saisons’ archive.org
Victor Marching Bank ‘French Reel’ (1918) archive.org
Jean Sablon ‘Sur Les Quais de Vieux Paris’ (1941) archive.org
Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ (1940) archive.org

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We’re taking on the origin story of (for better or worse) the most important architect of the 20th century — Charles-Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier. His origins — petit bourgeois, Swiss, provincial — can make his eventual rise to world-enveloping notoriety and era-defining influence seem all the more unlikely. We’re digging into his childhood, family, education and travels as a young man before taking on a couple of early projects.

We discuss — 

• La Chaux de Fonds
• Charles L’Eplattanier, his teacher
• Jugendstil & Art Nouveau

Early projects — 

• Villa Fallet
• Villas Stotzer & Jacquemet
• Villa Jeanneret
• Villa Favre-Jacot

Travels, and meetings with — 

• Otto Wagner
• Josef Hoffmann
• Vienna Secession Building
• Auguste Perret
• Rue Franklin Apartments
• Peter Behrens
• Mount Athos

And a more detailed look at — 

• Villa Schwob (including Colin Rowe’s ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’)
• Maison Domino

We've been reading —

• Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
• Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
• Oppositions 15-16 (1980)

Music — 
The final part of Beethoven’s 9th — the Ode to Joy

An excerpt from —  Mahler: Symphony No. 3: iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast from archive.org

Britt Brothers — ‘Alpine Milkman Yodel’ (1933) from archive.org

Thanks for listening!

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First announced in 1931, the project for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow evolved into a staggeringly vast and bizarre proposal which stalled during WWII when only the foundations had been completed. A 400m tall neoclassical fantasy topped with a vast statue of Lenin; the Palace would probably, if completed, have still been the tallest building in the world in the year 2000. Forming a counterpart of sorts to our discussion of the Chicago Tribune — the Palace is another worldwide competition of the interwar period in which the battle over architectural style and ideology played out in the process of selection and development, as the old 1920s avant grade felt the ground shift under them and the ideology of Stalinist architecture began to solidify.

A couple of helpful listener corrections (here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxAq2FLaj/] (and here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxB0vlmnJ/]

We discussed — Joze Pleçnik Edwin Lutyens (neither in the competition)

Russian Avant-gardists — Ivan Leonidov Konstantin Melnikov Mosei Ginzburg

The League of Nations Competition entries of Le Corbusier & Hannes Meyer

Foreign modernists in Russia Ernst May

And the entries of —  Le Corbusier Walter Gropius Erich Mendehlson Hans Pölzig Auguste Perret

The winners —  Boris Iofan Vladimir Shchuko Hector Hamilton

Plus the later designs of — Ilya Golosov’s Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh Alabian, Kochar and Mordvinov’s Simbirtsev

Alexander Brodsky’s Reminiscences

Anatole Kopp ‘Foreign architects in the Soviet Union during the first two five-year plans’ Sonia Hoisington ‘Even Higher: The Evolution of the Palace of the Soviets’

Music —  ‘A1’ from the album ‘ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΚΟΚΚΑΛΑ’ by Kοκκαλα, from the Free Music Archive ‘Bolshevik Leaves Home’ (1918) by D. Vasilev-Buglay, Demyan Bedniy Soviet National Anthem, Stalin version

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Don’t listen if you haven’t seen the movie yet!

We discuss Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. It’s pretty formless and we forgot the names of most of the characters, actors, significant plot entities. You’ll get who we’re talking about it you’ve seen it.

We refer in passing to —  Moebius & Jodorowsky ‘The Incal’ Vladimir Nabokov ‘Pale Fire’ Robert Louis Stevenson ‘Treasure Island’

Outro —  Dharma — Plastic Doll (1982)

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As a postscript to our discussion of Cyberpunk in episodes 20-21, and vaguely looking ahead to the release of the upcoming sequel, we talked about Ridley Scott’s 1982 film ‘Blade Runner’.

We were really winging it on the research for this one and as a result it marks a high point for getting key facts completely wrong, including — the name of a key character (see if you can guess which one!), various attributions of ethnicity, dates, names, places, the ending of the book on which it’s based, and a bunch of other things. Oh well. I edited out what I could… some moments deserve to be lost in time & without any tears being shed over it…

Things we mentioned —  Nicholas Røeg Peter Sloterdijk's book ‘Terror from the Air' Dashiel Hammet’s ‘The Thin Man’ Akira Kurosawa ‘Stray Dog’ (again) Some great photos of the model shop for the film Caravaggio ‘The Calling of St Matthew’ Antony Burgess ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Richard Jeffries ‘After London’ Yvegeny Zamyatin ‘We’ (discussed in episode 3)  T.S. Eliot ‘The Wasteland' Johannes Vermeer Wilhelm Hammerschoi Jan van Eyck ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ Vernon Shetley, Alissa Ferguson ‘Reflections in a Silver Eye: Lens and Mirror in ‘Blade Runner’, in Science Fiction Studies Mar 2001, Vol 28 Issue 1 Michel Haneke ‘Caché’

Music and sound effects are from the film.

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We conclude our discussion of the 1922 Chicago Tribune competition, going through a few of the less favoured entries, and discussing how it’s been seen and understood in the years since. Apologies for some clipping on the audio – we’ve tried to edit most of it out but some is still left.

As before, you can see all the entries in this book

We discuss the entries of – Walter Gropius (197) Adolf Loos (196) Paul Gerhardt (159 & 160) Saverio Dioguardi (248) Vittorio Pino (252) Alfred Fellheimer & Steward Wagner (158) – the big pyramid Emile Pohle & Adolf Ott (200) – the bridge Walter Fischer (221) Bruno & Max Taut (231, 229) Gerhardt Schröder (228) Fritz Sackermann (225) Anonymous (281) 

Plus anonymous entries by –  Hans Scharoun Wassili Luckhardt

Manfredo Tafuri’s 'The Disenchanted Mountain' — published in ‘The American City’ (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1979)

Ludwig Hilberseimer’s unentered design

Hugh Feriss’s Envelope Drawings

Pier Vittorio Aureli’s ‘The Barest Form in which Architecture Can Exist’

The book of ‘Late Entries’ can be found here

Diana Agrest ‘Architectural Anagrams’ in Oppositions 11

Music includes Collins and Harlan ‘The International Rag’ King Olivers Creole Jazz Band ‘Just Gone’ …both from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program

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In 1922, to coincide with its 75th birthday, the Chicago Tribune set out to endow the city with ‘the world’s most beautiful office building’. The results of the design competition have been seen in retrospect less as ‘the ultimate in civic expression’ than as an expression of aesthetic and theoretical crisis within architecture. Hugely varied, bizarre, ingenious and occasionally grotesque, the entries provide a window into a discipline in transformation, as well as into the politics of a new American metropolis.

Apologies for some slight issues with the sound.

A book showing all the competition entries has been uploaded to Monoskop — if you download it you will be able to see what we’re talking about… https://monoskop.org/File:Tribune_Tower_Competition_vol_1_1980.pdf

We discuss the entries by John Mead Howells & Raymond Hood (plate 1) Eliel Saarinen (13) Holabird & Roche (20) John Wynkoop (90) Ross & Sloan (84) Hornbostel & Wood (91) Daniel Burnham (44) Jarvis Hunt (118) William Drummond (134) Sjostrom & Eklund (190)

Music includes — Arthur Fields ‘How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?’ Jockers Dance Orchestra ‘The Royal Vagabond’ The Columbians ‘Just Like a Rainbow’ Victor Dance Orchestra ‘The Great One Step’ …all from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program

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Leaving the waste-strewn Earth behind, we follow the team on their run all the way to its conclusion in orbit. On the way, we cast our eyes over the weed-smelling shanty-hulk of Zion, the sunlit Condé Naste-styled resort-perfection of Freeside, and the gloomy, Victorian-styled warren of the Villa Straylight. Fewer mattresses, more carpets.

Music – ‘Heliograph’ ‘CGI Snake’ ‘Wonder Cycle’ and ‘Oxygen Garden’ from the album ‘Divider’ by Chris Zabriskie – from the Free Music Archive

Outro – Hypnosis ‘Pulstar’(1984)

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We’re back in dystopia, soaking up the glamour, danger and decadence of the cyberpunk city. We’re reading William Gibson’s seminal science fiction novel Neuromancer (1984), which combines the pace of a thriller with a vivid and almost archaeological view of the technological and material fabric of the near future city – glue, chipboard, broken TVs, epoxy resin, dirty water, and a strange profusion of foam mattresses. Gibson has spoken about the city as a ‘compost heap’ – and we’re sifting through it alongside Case, Molly, Armitage, the AI Wintermute, and the rest of the misfit expedition – and considering Noir, technology, desire, fear of the suburbs, and the vast consensual hallucination you’re plugged into right now.

Some topics – – Chiba – Kowloon walled city – White flight – Noir – Paris review – William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211

Music from Chris Zabriskie 'Cylinder Seven’ from the album ‘Cylinders’ And from Three Chain Links ‘Demons’, 'The Chase’, ‘Phantoms’, 'Magic Hour’ all from the album ‘Phantoms’ both from the Free Music Archive

Outro music is from the Neuromancer computer game (1988)

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During the 1960s and 70s, the French architect Jean Renaudie designed and built a series of projects in which he attempted to upend the staid and formulaic model of postwar slab-block mass housing. Architecture, for Renaudie, had to acknowledge and enshrine human being's 'Right to Difference'.

But this didn't mean discarding the achievements or social ideology of modernism – rather, as part of a wider European project of dissent, critique and reformation, he formulated his own daring formal solution to the problem of uniting the needs and image of the individual with those of the collective.

And how did he do it? Well, for a start, the rooms are mostly triangular…

We discussed –

• slab blocks and Le Corbusier's Unite d’habitation in Marseilles
• 'Jean Renaudie: A Right to Difference' by Irénée Scalbert
• CIAM (Congress Internationaux d'Architecture)
• George Lucas's 'THX 1138'
• Team X and the ‘Mat Building'
• Renaudie's theory of 'structuralism'

The Projects

• The New Town of La Vaudreuil
• Ivry-sur-Seine
• The Jean Hachette Building, Flats 4, 16 and 9
• Town Plan at Vitrolles
• Housing at Givors

Music by – Chris Zabriskie – The House Glows With Almost No Help from The Dark Glow of Mountains from the Free Music Archive Robert Cogoi - Pas une place pour me garer (1966)

We've posted some pictures on our twitter and instagram feeds – addresses for these at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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A fuzzy empire of blur, a low grade purgatory, a perpetual Jacuzzi with millions of your best friends…

We're discussing Junkspace (2001), Rem Koolhaas's notoriously elliptical wander through the dystopian and formless morass of early 21st retail architecture that seems gradually to be devouring the city, and the world.

In keeping with the essay, the episode is radically unstructured, only barely makes sense, and is held together largely by hyperbole.

We discussed – – Rem Koolhaas and OMA – The books SMLXL and Delirious New York – Exodus: The Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture – Frederic Jameson's review of Junkspace in NLR 21 (2003) – Jameson's Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) – Walter Benajmin's Passagenwerk or Arcades Project

Music – 'Ruca' and 'Agnes' from the album 'Teal' by Rod Hamilton and 'Curiosity', 'Quisitive' and 'Biking in the Park' from the album 'Music for Podcasts' by Lee Rosevere; both from the Free Music Archive Blue Gas 'Shadows From Nowhere' (1984)

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Michelangelo’s incredibly long career meant that he was old for a very long time, and the idea of death, and of what comes afterwards, hang over many of the projects he worked on late in life. We discuss his pivotal role in the design of St Peter’s in Rome, the sombre and terrible ‘Last Judgement’ in the Sistene Chapel, and a series of fragmentary late drawings, designs and sculptures which seem to be pointing to the future and the past at the same time.

It’s been about four hours of solid Michelangelo now, and it’s time to send him (and the other cast of characters) into the tender arms of our Lord & Saviour. It'll be back to late Capitalism next time.

Please let us know what you think – tweet us @about_buildings or email aboutbuildingsandcities@gmail.com – you can also find links to subscribe to the podcast, and all our social media profiles at our website – aboutbuildingsandcities.org

Music – Gervaise 'Bransles de Bourgogne' from Gothic and Renaissance Dances at https://archive.org/details/GOTHICANDRENAISSANCEDANCES Vocal Ansambl Gordela ‘Zinzkaro’ Lee Rosevere ‘Dream Colours’ from the album Time-Lapse Volume 4 Sleep Music at the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere Ago ‘Trying Over’ (1982)

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We continue our discussion of the architecture of Michelangelo Buonarotti with an exploration of two of his most important projects – the Laurentine Library, in which his sculptural understanding of form and mass is most powerful and disconcerting – and the Piazza del Campidoglio, an urban ensemble which would become a definitive reference for the idea of civic space.

In between George extemporises for about 20 minutes on late medieval Italian history despite having done no research, and we dip into the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini.

Music – Tielman Susato (c. 1490-c. 1560)- Pavane - ''The Battle'' from Gothic and Renaissance Dances at https://archive.org/details/GOTHICANDRENAISSANCEDANCES Koto ‘Chinese Revenge’ (1982)

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The first of a three-parter in which we try to understand the work, and myth, of Michelangelo Buonarroti, referred to by followers as ‘the Divine’, and genuinely described by his biographer as a messenger sent from God to stop people from doing bad art.

It’s a long recording and we may have spent a bit too long talking about the ‘New Sacristy’ in Florence. But the 15 minute, rhapsodic description of David’s perfect body?

We regret it Not At All.

Some slightly excessive chat about a particular part of David's body but otherwise extremely wholesome.

Music – GF Handel’s ‘Unto us a son is born’ ‘Kyrie Chant’ from Cantores in Ecclesia on archive.org https://archive.org/details/CantoresInEcclesia/05Track5.wma

Outro: Kano ‘I Need Love’ (Full Time / Zig Zag, 1983) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AypT-SaUJE

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The second part of your discussion of Ayn Rand's extremely long fantasy about the 'ideal man' and the buildings he makes. The book gets weirder and more political as it goes on, and we meet Rand's Mary-Sue character, the long-suffering helmet-haired ice princess Dominique Francon.

All these things make the book worse.

Features music by Chris Zabriskie – 'Heliograph' from the album 'Divider', 'We always thought the future would be kind of fun' from the album 'The Dark Glow of Mountains' and 'Cylinder 3' from the album 'Cylinders'. and by MMFFF –  'Meeting the Demon' from the album 'The Dance of the Sky' All at the Free Music Archive

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This isn't one of those book reviews where you're expected to read the book first – we did it so you don't have to.

Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' is a 750 page long novel which at times is physically painful to read. It's a supposedly 'philosophical' book in which none of the motivations and actions of the characters make any sense. People have long conversations which are nearly impossible to follow. Rand maunders on about apparently random bits of mise-en-scene for pages. Even if you were going to live for a thousand years, it would still be an outrageous misuse of your time.

In spite of this, it's probably the most successful and influential depiction of an architect in fiction – the indominatable will of one (orange haired) man, Howard Roark, pitted against the entire resources of a corrupt and servile society, determined to try and make him care about other people's well-being.

Millions of people have read (and claimed to enjoy!) it.

We've had a moderately good time making fun of it.

Expect bad language and worse politics throughout.

Features music by Chris Zabriskie – 'Heliograph' from the album 'Divider', 'The Dark Glow of the Mountains', 'I need to start writing things down' and 'We always thought the future would be kind of fun' from the album 'The Dark Glow of Mountains' and 'Cylinder 3' from the album 'Cylinders'. All at the Free Music Archive

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The second half of Aldo Rossi's career. We discuss his role on the ushering in of the age of po-mo, a few selected monstrosties, and do listener correspondance (one email – that's how easy it is to get read out).

Music includes: ‘Β15’ and 'B16' from the album ‘ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΚΟΚΚΑΛΑ’ by Kοκκαλα, from the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org

Aldo Rossi’s strange and elegiac early buildings – from the tiny Monument to the Partisans, to the vast, unfinished cemetery at Modena – set him on a path toward the widespread fame and influence he would achieve during the 1980s. In many ways, his architectural vision seems to arrive already fully formed – the strange geometry, the stripped down, abstracted versions of familiar types. We explore these varied works, and how his ideas he was formulating about urban memory and history became works of architecture.

Music: Chris Zabriskie 'Cylinder 4' and 'Cylinder 5' from the album 'Cylinders' at the Free Music Archive at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/2014010103336111/

A valiant attempt to understand Aldo Rossi's 1966 'L'Architettura della Citta', a book which both Luke & George have owned for years, but which neither have actually read until now (the pictures are nice, and the spine is an attractive orange colour).

Aldo Rossi's celebrity began with this book, and a certain mythic image of him – gloomy, nostalgic, perverse – is widely recognised within architectural history. But what does the book actually say? We explore monuments, urban artifacts, fragments of the city, the persistence of time and memory; and the promise of a new 'science' of urban analysis.

Music – 'Sleep Trance' and 'Ciro' both by Lee Rosevere from the albums 'Time-Lapse Volume 3: ASMR' and 'Farrago Zabriskie'... at the Free Music Archive http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

The collapse of the Imperial German state after WW1 seemed an opportunity for Taut and his fellow visionaries to become architect-leaders themselves, and shape the form of post-war society. But faced with widespread political violence, and all at sea in dealing with bureaucratic power, Taut and his fellow avant-gardists retreated together into the secret group correspondance – 'The Crystal Chain'.

The final episode in our three part exploration of the Glass Dream, including ecstatic visions, the architecture school as monastery, and Bruno Taut's pitch for a big-budget movie feature – 'The Lucky Slippers.'

Music by – Chris Zabriskie 'Cylinder 2', 'Cylinder 4', 'Cylinder 5', 'Cylinder 6' and 'Cylinder 7' from the album 'Cylinders' at the Free Music Archive at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/2014010103336111/ ‘Tarnished Copper’ from the album ‘Marimba, Vibraphone, Chimes & Bells’ by Podington Bear at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Marimba_Vibraphone_Chimes__Bells

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

Paul Scheerbart is dead, and Europe has dissolved into conflict, but the Glass Dream continues. Luke & George explore Bruno Taut's manifestos, the dissolution of the dirty old cities, the transfiguration of the Alps into crystal, and the uniting of the people around the new religion – architecture.

Featuring Alpine Architecture (1917), The City Crown (1919), The Dissolution of the Cities & the Earth – a Good Dwelling (1920), and an original audio-only translation of Die Weltbaumeister: An Architecture Play (1920).

Music by – Chris Zabriskie 'Cylinder 2' and 'Cylinder 9' from the album 'Cylinders' at the Free Music Archive at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/2014010103336111/ Lee Rosevere 'Cat Wearing Glasses' from the album 'Disquiet Junto' at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Disquiet_Junto/ Schemawound 'If You See Nothing' from the album '@@TRANCOUNT' at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Schemawound/TRANCOUNT/

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

We begin a three-part exploration of the Glass Paradise – an early 20th vision of a better world – starting off with Bruno Taut’s extraordinary Glashaus (1914), and the even stranger text which inspired it, Paul Scheerbart’s ‘Glassarchitektur’. Conceived as a model for a new and more beautiful way of living – the Glashaus is a glimpse at a future that never came to pass, filled with jewel-like cites and kaleidoscopic colour. Also, vacuum cleaners as insect exterminators, spinning crystal globes at every door, gold-leafed factories, glass fibre soft furnishings, and the ever-present threat of zeppelin attack.

Much of our material is drawn from the excellent ’Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! A Paul Scheerbart Reader’ by Josiah McElheny & Christine Burgin (eds) (University of Chicago, 2015) – highly recommended.

Music by – Albert Campbell & Irving Gillette ‘By the dear old River Rhine’ (1911) at https://archive.org/details/edba-2410 Arthur F. Collins, Byron G. Harlan ‘On the banks of the Rhine with a Stein’ (1905) https://archive.org/details/edgm-9124 ‘Ice Chimes’ from the album ‘Disquiet Junto’ by Lee Rosevere at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Disquiet_Junto ‘Tarnished Copper’ from the album ‘Marimba, Vibraphone, Chimes & Bells’ by Podington Bear at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Marimba_Vibraphone_Chimes__Bells

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

Luke & George visit and discuss Switch House, the new extension to Tate Modern – and the architects of both it, and the original museum, Herzog & de Meuron. Plus – thoughts on the machine tool utopia also known as Switerland, design process, and the centrality of the spreadsheet in modern architecture.

Music: ‘Holy Roller’ from the album ‘Shangri-La (Instrumentals)’ by YACHT. From the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

Luke & George read and discuss Pliny the Younger’s two luxurious (but still so modest!) villas, as described in his letters. The box hedges have been trimmed, and dinner is swimming around on the back of a wooden duck.

We discussed the essay ‘The Villa as Paradigm’ by James Ackerman, from Perspecta, Vol. 22, Paradigms of Architecture (1986) pp10-31

Music: ‘Curiousity’ and ‘Quizitive' from the album ‘Music For Podcasts’ by Lee Rosevere. From the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Music_For_Podcasts/

Look at some images on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

Exploring the history and architecture of the inimitable Barbican Estate, the joys of brutalism, concrete, late modernist planning, concealed historical references, getting lost, etc. Includes a couple of short forays into the imagined lives of inhabitants and visitors...

Music includes: ‘Β6’ from the album ‘ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΚΟΚΚΑΛΑ’ by Kοκκαλα and ‘Heavy Traffic’ from the album ‘The Happiest Days Of Our Lives’ by Three Chain Links. Both from the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org

Look at pictures on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

George & Luke survey three dystopian cities; the glass perfection of Yvegny Zamyatin’s ‘We’, the consumer World State of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, and the shattered ruin of George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Competing visions of technological progress gone awry, and the real-world ideas that inspired them.

We read: Yvegeny Zamyatin ‘We’ tr. Clarence Brown (Penguin, 1993) Aldous Huxley ‘Brave New World’ (1932) George Orwell ‘1984’ (1948)

Music: ‘Shadows’, ‘Fearweaver’, ‘Bindings’ and ‘Demons’ from the album ‘Phantoms’ by Three Chain Links. From the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org

An exploration of Horace Walpole’s mid 18th c. Gothic fantasy villa at Strawberry Hill, purple cushions and all. Contains readings from his highly indigestible novel ‘The Castle of Otranto’, intermittent bursts of tuneless medieval music, and George singing. Be warned.

Find out how to visit the house yourself at www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk

Music includes: David Munro ‘Bladder Pipes - Pastourelle’ and the album ‘Gothic and Renaissance Dances’ by Klaus & Michel Walter et al, both from archive.org

Look at images of the house on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822

The first episode of a new podcast!

Luke and George read Hermann Muthesius's early 20th c. epic 'The English House'.

Learn about the English, their famed love of nature, damp, draughty buildings and burnt meat. Discover how these strange proclivities shape the homes they build and inhabit. With digressions on inglenooks, William Morris, and how to become 'safe for the drawing room'.

The edition we read was this one: Hermann Muthesius, Dennis Sharp (ed) ‘The English House’ (Rizzoli, 1979) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0CdUAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:ISBN0847802191

Music: Ukrainska Orchestra Pawla Humeniuka ‘Kozak-Trepak’ From the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org

Look at images of the projects on our Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822