In Praise of White Elephants
Though easy targets for fiscal hawks, public architecture that’s luxurious and dramatic — even excessive — should be ours as a right.
62 Search Result(s) for: “Owen Hatherley”
Designing the Soviet Union
Soviet architecture had diverse and ambitious ideas for transforming the spaces people live, work, and travel in.
Charlie Chaplin in Moscow
Early Soviet filmmakers took great inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, but his critique of mass production put him at odds with them.
In Defense of the High-Rise
Elite arguments against tower blocks aren't about safety — they're about contempt for public housing.
Green Islands
When eco-socialism in one city becomes a gated community.
Life Without Buildings
In the late sixties, radical architects expressed their scorn in satirical utopias, where the world’s landmarks and landscapes are eaten up by the power of capital.
Our Very Own Albert Speer
The architect Philip Johnson had some good qualities. He was also talentless, a fascist, and a liar.
Rebuilding the Social City
To solve the housing crisis, we may have to go back to the future.
All Dad’s Armies
British politics have become a strange form of World War II cosplay, where the European Union are the Nazis, 1945 is a betrayal, and Boris Johnson is the newWinston Churchill.
The End of Anti-Fascism
The European Parliament has condemned communism as equivalent to Nazism. Based on a fantasy reading of history, the motion smears all “radicalism” as “totalitarian” — and dismisses the moral superiority of those who fought fascism.
Spaghetti Junctions
How did New York become the only metropolis in the world to insist that its transit map reflect the layout of the city above?
Jeremy Corbyn’s Opponents Burned the House Down to Stop Him — Now Keir Starmer Is King of the Ashes
By sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey on a trumped-up pretext, Keir Starmer has set the seal on a drastic shift to the right for the British Labour Party. That shift comes just as the key arguments by Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents to justify a break with his left leadership have been falling apart in the face of overwhelming evidence.
From Your House to Our House
America’s experiment with public housing was far less successful than Europe’s — but this hasn’t made it any less influential.
We Can’t Lose the Collective Experience of Going to the Movies to This Pandemic
Going to the movies feels fundamentally different from simply streaming videos: it's a collective experience, and often inspires discussion and argument. In 2021, when the pandemic finally recedes, we should build socialist film clubs.
When Paris Was Red
In the twentieth century, socialists and communists used municipal power in Paris to build some of Europe's most ambitious social housing projects — housing that was not only beautiful but made for and by the city's working class.
Workers Deserve Beautiful, Renovated, Even Luxurious Public Housing
This year's Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture, went to French architects who rejected the demolition of public housing. Instead, the architects insisted on renovating and expanding public units to make working-class residents' homes more modern, humane, and attractive.
Willi Münzenberg Was the Marxist Rupert Murdoch
In the 1920s and ’30s, German publisher Willi Münzenberg built a network of magazines, newspapers, and film studios that terrified big business interests. It became the largest left-wing media operation in history.
International Solidarity Rebuilt Postwar Vietnam
During the Vietnam War, the city of Vinh was almost destroyed by US bombing. Socialists around the world helped rebuild it. Today, Vinh's architecture stands as a monument to that internationalist solidarity.
Lee “Scratch” Perry (1936–2021)
Lee “Scratch” Perry, who died last week at the age of 85, wasn’t just a sonic genius — he was also a politicized producer whose work was full of demands for justice.
Planned Paranoia
There’s a reason why urban housing developments and suburban subdivisions can seem threatening and unwelcoming to outsiders: they’re planned that way, in order to “design out crime.”