About Buildings + Cities

In the fifth part of our series on John Soane, we discussed his designs for speculative housing developments in central London, another building in the middle of the city for the Bank of England's National Debt Redemption Office, and his various hypothetical schemes for transforming the city with a thick encrustation of Corinthian columns. We also discussed his work for the Royal Hospital Chelsea, some of which survives to this day. We talked about John Gwynne's 'London & Westminster Improved (1766) and the ongoing problem of London and Westminster's disorderly urbanism, which Soane's unbuilt schemes cannot convincingly overcome ? as always, he is at his best when constrained!

To see the images as we discuss them, check out this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/_Rr-GRqsc4Y

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In this fourth episode of our miniseries on John Soane, we discussed his projects conducted over many years in and around Westminster. This is a tale of confusing canceled schemes, designs by committee, thwarted architectural vision and some of the most electrifying lost interiors of 19th-century London.

As always, you get get a better sense of the images we discuss by having a look at this episode of the show on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/xxeGY4LsHdM

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In the third episode of our ongoing series on John Soane, we discussed his magnum opus, and one of the most entrancing lost buildings ever: The Bank of England. This vast administrative complex signalled the transformation of London into the capital of a modern imperial state, but by the 1930s, after just a century of its existence, the bank had outgrown Soane's intricate and weighty toplit classicism and the whole thing was demolished. We attempt here to imagine and reconstruct what it was actually like, why it was like that, and how Soane achieved it.

See the images we discussed on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/FmY1bFPv-oo

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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In episode 2 of our series on John Soane, we discussed the projects he worked on after returning from his Grand Tour of Italy, but before he got his career-defining job as surveyor to the Bank of England. These include several built and unbuilt schemes for country houses, a proposal for a pair of enormous prisons in strict geometrical manner, and several rural outbuildings in a rustic classicism that draw upon the founding myths of architecture.

Images for this episode can be found on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/0dAc_Dh1BTk

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We're back!! In this first episode of our new series on John Soane (1753?1837) we discuss his origins: the child prodigy draughtsman, son of a bricklayer, apprentice of George Dance, winner of a studentship at the Royal Academy, and later with his Design for a Triumphal Bridge, winner of the Royal Academy and a travelling scholarship to Italy, enabling him to join the aristocratic young men of Britain on their Grand Tour. Over the rest of this series we will discuss is iconic works: the Bank of England and his house (Sir John Soane's Museum) alongside some of the deeper cuts.

Watch this episode on YouTube for accompanying images: https://youtu.be/qtB_nERFaBA?si=1q5EdJEkQbsLBRxH

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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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:

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.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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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.

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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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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.

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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.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Check out our most recent bonus on the debate between Christopher Alexander and Peter Eisenman at Harvard in 1982.

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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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