Podcasts by About Buildings + Cities
A podcast about architecture, buildings and cities, from the distant past to the present day. Plus detours into technology, film, fiction, comics, drawings, and the dimly imagined future.
With Luke Jones and George Gingell.
Further podcasts by Luke Jones & George Gingell Discuss Architecture, History and Culture
Podcast on the topic Bildende Kunst
All episodes
110 — Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York — 3/3 from 2023-11-28T13:36
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 se...
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109 — Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York — 2/3 from 2023-11-06T15:30
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 C...
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108 — Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York — 1/3 from 2023-10-02T11:57:19
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 r...
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Bonus Unlocked — 97.5 — Neom from 2023-08-28T16:08:19
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: Listen
107 – Stewart Brand's 'How Buildings Learn' — "What Happens After They're Built" from 2023-08-08T13:00
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?...
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106 — Antoni Gaudí 7 — La Sagrada Familia from 2023-07-06T11:59:23
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 i...
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105 — Antoni Gaudí 6 — Colonia Güell from 2023-06-22T17:24
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 met...
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104 — Antoni Gaudí 5 —Güell Projects from 2023-05-24T16:35:18
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 ag...
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103 — Antoni Gaudí 4 — Casas Calvet, Batlló&Milà from 2023-04-06T10:10:42
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 refe...
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102 — Antoni Gaudí 3 — Going Gothic from 2023-03-08T16:04:17
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 Barce...
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101 — Antoni Gaudí 2 — Palau Güell from 2023-02-17T15:00
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 cos...
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100 — Antoni Gaudí 1 — Bad at School from 2023-01-19T16:00:04
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 urbanisati...
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99 — Philip K. Dick's Ubik — Gnostic Paranoia from 2022-11-30T11:34:36
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"...
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98 — The Primitive Hut — The Design of the First Building from 2022-10-20T13:46:18
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 a...
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97 — Richard Rogers' Reith Lecture — Cities for a Small Planet from 2022-09-06T17:40
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 ...
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96 — Andrea Palladio 6 — Venetian Churches from 2022-07-05T09:00:26
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 ... Listen
95 — Andrea Palladio 5 — Quattro Libri from 2022-06-17T09:00
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 const...
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94 — Andrea Palladio 4 — Civic Buildings from 2022-05-13T09:29:53
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 Ria...
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93 — Andrea Palladio 3 — Palladian Palazzi from 2022-04-07T09:26:09
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 dif...
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92 — Andrea Palladio 2 — Greatest Villas from 2022-03-17T09:53
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 ...
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91 — Andrea Palladio 1 — The Most Imitated Architect in History from 2022-02-21T18:01:20
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 mos...
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90 — Carlo Scarpa — 4/4 — All I Want Is A Pharoah from 2021-12-09T19:48:38
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 B...
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89 — Carlo Scarpa — 3/4 — Castelvecchio, Invented History from 2021-11-10T15:39:40
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...
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88 — Carlo Scarpa — 2/4 — Querini Stampalia, Venetian Sci-Fi from 2021-10-14T09:30
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 ent...
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88 — Carlo Scarpa — 2/4 — Querini Stampalia, A Modern Palazzo from 2021-10-14T09:30
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 ent...
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87 — Carlo Scarpa — 1/4 — Not Every Architect is an Artist from 2021-09-15T13:00
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 Listen
87 — Carlo Scarpa — 1/3 — Not Every Architect is an Artist from 2021-09-15T13:00
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 Listen
86 — Ian Nairn — 3/3 — Nairn on TV from 2021-08-17T12:21:14
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.
Her...
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85 — Ian Nairn — 2/3 — Nairn's London from 2021-08-03T13:32:41
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 s...
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84 — Ian Nairn — 1/3 — Subtopia from 2021-07-12T14:05:39
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 rail...
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83 —Otto Wagner — 5/5 — Proto-Modernist from 2021-06-07T13:02:52
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 Postspa...
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82 — Otto Wagner — 4/5 — Secession from 2021-05-10T11:55:48
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 Listen
*Preview* — 81.5 — Vienna Secession from 2021-04-29T14:03:48
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...
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*Preview* — 81.5 — Klimt from 2021-04-29T12:03:48
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...
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81 — Otto Wagner — 3/5 — On the Stadtbahn from 2021-04-18T16:43:15
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 dam...
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80 — Otto Wagner — 2/5 — The Style Question from 2021-03-31T21:09:01
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 ...
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79 — Otto Wagner — 1/5 — Ringstraße Rent Palaces from 2021-03-18T21:24:31
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 ...
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*Preview* — 77.5 — Patrick Keiller Bonus Episode from 2021-03-10T17:56:04
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 ...
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78 —WG Sebald's Austerlitz — 2/2 from 2021-03-04T22:00:26
Our second episode on WG Sebald's 2001 novel 'Austerlitz', in which discussed the complexities of depicting the holocaust, psychoanalysis, Perrault's Bibliothèque Nationale, Liverpool Street Sta...
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78 — WG Sebald's 'Austerlitz' — 2/2 — Locked Rooms from 2021-03-04T21:00:26
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, ...
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20 – William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' – 1 of 2 – Foam Mattress, No Sheets from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
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 pa...
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77 — WG Sebald's Austerlitz — 1/2 from 2021-01-31T19:46
In our first episode of 2021 we discussed Austerlitz, WG Sebald's last novel, published just months before he died in a tragic accident. The novel is concerned with memory and trauma, explored t...
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77 — WG Sebald's 'Austerlitz' — 1/2 — In the Nocturama from 2021-01-31T18:46
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 ...
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*Preview* — 76.5 — Robert Moses Bonus Episode from 2020-12-28T08:37
This is a preview from our latest Patreon Bonus Episode – subscribe to our Listen
76 — Jane Jacobs — 2/2 — Unslumming and Gentrification from 2020-12-10T10:50:34
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 i...
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75 — Jane Jacobs — 1/2 — Eyes on the Street from 2020-11-25T07:53:21
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 Citi...
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74 — Monasteries — 3/3 — Fourier, Narkomfin, La Tourette from 2020-10-27T07:34:57
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 Social...
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73 — Monasteries — 2/3 — The Apostolic Life from 2020-09-25T08:28
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...
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72 — Monasteries — 1/3 — Cluniacs and Cistercians from 2020-08-19T10:15
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 ...
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71 — Christopher Alexander — 2/2 — Pattern Language from 2020-07-10T05:45
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 patte...
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70 — Christopher Alexander — 1/2 —Notes on the Synthesis of Form from 2020-06-17T05:15:04
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 19...
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69 — Zaha Hadid — 4/4 — The Parametric Years from 2020-05-17T14:14:54
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 refle...
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68 — Zaha Hadid — 3/4 — Vitra to Cardiff from 2020-05-03T17:27:52
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...
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Bonus Unlocked — 48.5 — OMA — Bigness from 2020-04-22T09:53:16
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 fo...
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67 — Zaha Hadid — 2/4 — The Peak from 2020-04-14T17:47:49
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 o...
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66 — Zaha Hadid — 1/4 — AA Days from 2020-04-08T15:06
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 at...
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65 — Andrei Tarkovsky — 3/3 — Nostalghia and The Sacrifice from 2020-03-17T08:58
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 intensificat...
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64 — Andrei Tarkovsky — 2/3 — Stalker from 2020-02-28T13:01
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 ...
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63 — Andrei Tarkovsky — 1/3 — Setting the Stage from 2020-02-03T07:00
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 Mirr...
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62 — Leon Battista Alberti — 2/2 — Building the Quattrocento from 2019-12-09T13:59:43
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 buildin...
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61 — Leon Battista Alberti — 1/2 — De Re Aedificatoria from 2019-11-05T16:06:08
In this first episode of a two parter, we tackle the original big beautiful bouncing boy of the High Italian Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti, and his 1485 blockbuster publication, On the Art ...
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60 — Reyner Banham — 2/2 — Design By Choice from 2019-10-10T14:10:51
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 industria...
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59 — Reyner Banham — 1/2 — Science for Kicks from 2019-09-22T13:00:39
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...
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58 — The Reactionaries — 3/3 — The Empire Strikes Back from 2019-08-19T13:40:34
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 int...
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57 — The Reactionaries — 2/3 — Caesar's Palace without the Fun from 2019-08-01T13:05:38
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 arc...
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Conversation 3 — Dulwich Picture Gallery — Soane in The Colour Palace from 2019-07-27T14:00:34
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 a...
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56 — The Reactionaries — 1/3 — Interwar Anxieties from 2019-06-17T16:00:42
Come and see us record a live episode at Listen
55 — Katsuhiro Otomo's 'Akira' — 3/3 — Good for Health, Bad for Education from 2019-05-30T11:58:08
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 (...
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54 — Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira — 2/3 — Exploding Neo-Tokyo Twice from 2019-05-15T10:00
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...
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53 — Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira — 1/3 — Radio School from 2019-05-01T15:00
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 con...
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52 — Nicholas Hawksmoor's Churches — 2/2 from 2019-04-15T09:03:11
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 recordi...
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51 — Nicholas Hawksmoor's Churches — 1/2 from 2019-03-25T11:42:30
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 my...
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50 — 19th c Machine Utopias — 2/2 — Looking Backwards from 2019-03-11T12:35
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 in...
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49 — 19th c. Machine Utopias 1/2 — Darwin Among the Machines from 2019-02-26T14:35:16
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 so...
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48 — OMA 1989 — Going Big from 2019-02-11T10:00
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...
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47 — Venturi Scott-Brown&Learning From Las Vegas from 2019-01-28T09:00
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...
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46 — Robert Venturi's 'Complexity&Contradiction' — Valid Banalities from 2019-01-14T08:45
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...
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Bonus Unlocked — 44.5 — Italian Architecture Under Fascism from 2019-01-04T13:29:31
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 li...
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45 — John Ruskin&the 19th century — Living Too Late from 2018-12-16T09:50:21
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 s...
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44 — Giovanni Michelucci — Late Style from 2018-11-27T16:16:17
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 manage...
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Shoetopia! — by Stories from the Eastern West from 2018-11-22T22:13
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 dis...
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Conversation 2.2 — Adam Caruso — Second Thoughts from 2018-11-12T13:30
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) down...
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Conversation 2.1 — Adam Caruso — On the night from 2018-11-12T13:00
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) down...
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43 — John Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice' — Shafts! from 2018-10-30T09:51:39
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 ...
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42 — John Ruskin — Rock Lover from 2018-09-30T19:11:13
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...
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Conversation 1 — Fred Scharmen — Zero-G Carnival from 2018-09-16T09:56:06
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 Listen
41 — '2001 – A Space Odyssey' 2/2 — Live on BBC 12 from 2018-08-23T11:37:27
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....
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40 — '2001 – A Space Odyssey' 1/2 — Pink Upholstery in Cartesian Space from 2018-08-02T07:27:22
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 ...
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39 — Catastrophe Curves — Early 90s Computer Architecture from 2018-07-17T13:40
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 a...
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38 — Le Corbusier — 9 — Villa Stein&Villa Savoye from 2018-07-02T06:10
We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode.
Projects like the Villa S...
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37 — Le Corbusier — 8 — Five Points Towards a New Architecture from 2018-07-01T06:00
We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode.
Le Corbusier and Pierre J...
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36 — Bernard Rudofsky&'Architecture Without Architects' from 2018-06-13T13:00
We’re launching a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode.
Bernard Rudofsky’s ex...
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35 — 'Playtime'&'Mon Oncle' — Modern life in Tativille from 2018-05-07T13:08
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 ...
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34 — Adolf Loos's 'Ornament and Crime' — Bathroom Kink from 2018-04-10T11:29:06
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 Freu...
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33 — Le Corbusier — 7 — Early Mass Housing from 2018-03-25T12:55:26
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<... Listen
32 — Le Corbusier – 6 – Urbanism — Let's Demolish Paris (Again) from 2018-03-05T13:19:12
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 d...
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31 – Le Corbusier – 5 – Urbanism – Of Men&Asses from 2018-02-13T12:00
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 readi...
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30 – Franz Kafka's America from 2018-01-14T22:38:38
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...
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29 – Le Corbusier – 4 – At Home He Feels Like A Purist from 2017-12-23T20:50:43
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 Corb...
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28 – Le Corbusier – 3 – Towards a New Architecture from 2017-12-13T22:42:04
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 Archi...
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27 – Le Corbusier – 2 – Oyster and Breezeblock Years from 2017-11-27T12:39:33
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 garde...
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26 – Le Corbusier – 1 – Have Formwork, Will Travel from 2017-11-13T19:16:35
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, pro...
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25 – Palace of the Soviets – Wedding Cake Stalinism from 2017-10-30T09:00
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 co...
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24.5 – Blade Runner 2049 from 2017-10-23T17:28:16
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, ...
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24 – Blade Runner – Do You Like Our Owl? from 2017-09-16T08:24
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’.
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23 – Chicago Tribune – 2 of 2 – Honourable Mentions from 2017-09-02T07:33:29
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. Apologi...
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22 – Chicago Tribune – 1 of 2 – World's Most Beautiful Office Building from 2017-08-10T12:53:34
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...
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21 – William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' – 2 of 2 – A Haunted House in Space from 2017-06-14T14:02
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...
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19 – Jean Renaudie – French Concrete Utopia from 2017-05-04T20:45:46
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 hous...
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18 – Junkspace – Rem Koolhaas&the End of Architecture from 2017-04-17T16:10:06
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 wa...
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17 – Michelangelo – 3 of 3 – St Peters, Last Judgement, and Late Style from 2017-04-06T11:00
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. W...
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16 – Michelangelo – 2 of 3 – Laurentine Library and Campidoglio from 2017-03-15T06:00
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 understandin...
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15 – Michelangelo – 1 of 3 – David and the Sistine&Medici Chapels from 2017-03-06T15:00
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...
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14 – Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' – 2 of 2 from 2017-02-13T15:00
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...
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13 – Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' – 1 of 2 from 2017-01-30T09:47:48
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 ...
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12 – Aldo Rossi's Buildings – Part 2 of 2 – Venice Theatre to Disney HQ from 2017-01-22T09:10:46
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...
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11 – Aldo Rossi's Buildings – Part 1 of 2 – from the Partisans to the Cemetery from 2016-12-24T06:00
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 influen...
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10 – Aldo Rossi's 'The Architecture of the City' – Interrupted Destiny from 2016-12-06T20:51:15
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 pict...
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09 – The Glass Paradise – 3 of 3 – The Crystal Chain from 2016-10-31T07:00
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 ...
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08 – The Glass Paradise – 2 of 3 – Bruno Taut dissolves the Cities from 2016-10-24T08:00
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 tr...
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07 – The Glass Paradise – 1 of 3 – Coloured Glass Destroys Hatred! from 2016-09-27T07:00
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 ...
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06 – Tate Modern – Herzog&de Meuron Before and After from 2016-09-19T04:01
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 machin...
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05 - Living The Roman Good Life – Pliny's Letters on the Villas from 2016-09-05T01:00
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 o...
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04 – Barbican Estate – Establishment Brutalism from 2016-08-29T05:00
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...
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03 – How To Run An Efficient Dystopia – Taylorism and Science Fiction Cities from 2016-08-24T13:40
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 O...
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02 – Strawberry Hill – Horace Walpole's Gothic Fantasies from 2016-08-24T13:33
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’, int...
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01 – 'The English House' by Hermann Muthesius – A German Spy in the Inglenook from 2016-08-24T11:20
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, dr...
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