Owen Hatherley Contributors
Building Design
Owen Hatherley is a freelance writer, working regularly for the New Statesman and The Wire, writing about music, film, art and politics but mainly architecture and urbanism, as well as researching a phd thesis on Americanism in the Weimar Republic and the USSR at Birkbeck College.
As an outlet for the non-academic and unpublishable he keeps the weblog sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com, and as more academic site, The Measures Taken themeasurestaken.blogspot.com
His first book, Militant Modernism, a defence of modernism against its defenders, is published by Zero Books in April 2009.
Stories by this contributor.
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If only stations would drop the shops
4 May 2012
How railway stations, such as King’s Cross, allow architects to get round planning rules
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Who will champion pride in civic building design?
5 April 2012
A look at the dark side of urban architecture tours
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Ignore workers’ conditions at your peril
9 March 2012
Few in architecture today think much about the people who actually build buildings
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City as a Political Idea
28 February 2012
Krzysztof Nawratek’s exploration of urbanisation is a welcome attempt to shake up the consensus
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A lesson from post-industrial Kent
10 February 2012
Industrial wreckage, pleasure boats and an art school make for a unique mixed-use development in Chatham
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Keep your ideas for the desk drawer
13 January 2012
A look back to the 1930s shows how radicalism can thrive — even when it’s not being commissioned
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Does Rogers live up to his good words?
19 December 2011
Richard Rogers’s oeuvre is a masterclass in separating principles from practice
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City of London: Old Corruption in braced glass
24 November 2011
The Occupy encampment makes the perfect backdrop against which to examine the City’s contrasts as Owen Hatherley’s series concludes
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The creative power of opposition
18 November 2011
Poland’s church architecture reveals the imaginative force of decades working outside the regime
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Cities stand or fall on mediocrity
21 October 2011
The standard of everyday buildings defines the architecture of the age
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Belfast: a city riven with divisions
20 October 2011
The physical barriers built to quell sectarian violence in Belfast feel disturbingly close to home
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Success is all in the execution...
23 September 2011
The shoddy application of good planning ideas has sold our towns and cities short
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The Art-Architecture Complex
22 September 2011
The mutual influence of art and architecture has had little benefit to either
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Mediocrity has been wealth’s bequest to Aberdeen
15 September 2011
Since Aberdeen became the UK’s oil capital, its city centre has not seen a single worthwhile building
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Building an escape from the ghetto
26 August 2011
The results of the very rich living next to the very poor can be seen in Hackney and Clapham
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Edinburgh: A planning tradition that is the opposing force to grands projets
25 August 2011
A process of ’conservative surgery’ has helped create an impressive city - making its low points all the less forgivable
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The Valleys: some of the saddest sights in Britain
26 July 2011
The south Wales Valleys bear the architectural scars of their brutal history
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Beware starchitects bearing gifts
15 July 2011
Much-vaunted showpiece schemes can often become a front for sneaking bad buildings in under the radar
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Unison headquarters, London, by Squire & Partners
6 July 2011
Unison’s new headquarters is an enclave of sobriety that draws on the imagery of corporate rebranding to reflect the changing language of the union movement
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Plymouth: the architecture is palpably the work of men in their dotage
24 June 2011
The modernised classicism of the rebuilt city centre was already tired by the 1940s, but Plymouth has other surprises
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Croydon: one of London’s more surreal urban experiences
20 May 2011
Grand ambitions and patchy execution are a recipe for urban misery in the London Borough of Croydon, the Mini-Manhattan of the South-east
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Architects must lose the silo mentality
13 May 2011
The profession’s indifference to the industrial icons of Buffalo shows its true detachment
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Brighton: the most seductive city of the new economy
15 April 2011
Attractiveness and hypocrisy combine to create Brighton & Hove’s unique urban experience
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Yes, minister, we need more Bykers
8 April 2011
Grant Shapps’ enthusiasm is surprising, as the estate embodies the antithesis of his policies
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Food on the Move by David Lawrence
1 April 2011
This study of motorway services takes readers on a memorable journey
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Bristol feels as though it’s been asleep since 1910
17 March 2011
Two centuries on from its heyday, Bristol presents an apathetic, scarred, yet striking face to the world
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Berlin — Matter of Memory by FredrikTorisson
11 March 2011
An exploration of Berlin divides the city into monuments and relics
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Remember the past, but don’t repeat it
11 March 2011
The government threat to stop funding Unesco shows a tortured relationship with conservation
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Rodchenko and his Circle
28 February 2011
A new London show puts his architectural photography in sharper focus
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The West Midlands: a mash-up of speculative tat and fearless originals
21 February 2011
Carefully planned post-war townscapes fight with moneymaking imperatives in the UK’s largest unplanned agglomeration.
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Closing the libraries is just the start
11 February 2011
Localism seems to require a near impossible suspension of disbelief
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Typespotting Warszawa
4 February 2011
A survey of Warsaw’s signage shows why this much-neglected art matters
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Plutocrats or squatters? Your choice
14 January 2011
Two towers in different cities give architects a glimpse of the future.
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Barrow-in-Furness: kept on life support by perpetual warfare
13 January 2011
Once dubbed ’the English Chicago’, Barrow-in-Furness has been kept alive by the nuclear arms industry
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Preston: lacking the clout to challenge developers
2 December 2010
While this Lancashire town of the industrial revolution has three first-class urban moments they sit in a sea of uncaring dross
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Try looking east for inspiration
26 November 2010
Serbian activists could teach us a thing or two about the value of modernist social housing
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Arseniusz Romanowicz at Warsaw’s Powisle Station
12 November 2010
A display of Polish architect Arseniusz Romanowicz’s railway stations challenges all you know about Soviet design
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Middlesbrough: exploring the ‘least resilient’ place in the UK
11 November 2010
Patchy attempts to revive post-industrial towns are producing unsettling results in Teeside, one of Britain’s most blighted regions
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Why rebuilding can be a minefield
15 October 2010
The re-release of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis demonstrates the importance of honest restoration.
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Chto Delat? The Urgent Need to Struggle
15 October 2010
An exploration of the Russian avant-garde at the ICA throws today’s industry into sharp relief
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Who do we think we are kidding?
17 September 2010
The trend for invoking the Blitz spirit reveals the hollowness of the new architecture of austerity
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The resistance to regen starts here
27 August 2010
Embracing every regeneration project on offer does no favours to our rundown urban areas
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Please keep your references to yourself
16 July 2010
Cladding covered with pictures of knives and forks doesn’t make a building any more ’local’.
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Your enemy’s enemy is not your friend
2 July 2010
Whatever the coalition policies bring, we must avoid any nostalgia for New Labour
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East London Line railway extension
11 June 2010
Despite being largely built during the boom, London’s newest transport link is depressingly unambitious
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Surrey Quays, the real Tory heartland
21 May 2010
The Conservative non-planners of the eighties have never been held to account for their legacy
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Sharon Haward: An experiment in Town Planning
23 April 2010
Sharon Haward’s installation at Southampton’s Bargate Monument Gallery gives an indication of the city that might have been
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Whose modernist icon is it anyway?
23 April 2010
The Azerbaijani restaurant in Melnikov’s Rusakov club strikes an incongruous note
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Dublin’s docklands, a melting pot of failure
26 February 2010
The recession has left Dublin’s half-hearted and half-finished new buildings open to reinterpretation
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Midtown, the last bastion of shabbiness
29 January 2010
Enjoy it while it lasts, the grimy integrity of this central London patch will soon be sandblasted off the map
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Architectural drawing out of the wilderness
08 January 2010
Laura Oldfield Ford’s ferocious line drawings call for a transformation of everyday space
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‘Sustainability’ is a dangerous mirage
11 December 2009
Even in Dubai, the language of greenwash is used to distract us from the real design issues
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Greenwich: Monument to Blair’s Britain
04 December 2009
It’s 10 years since the Greenwich peninsula was at the centre of millennium celebrations, but its redevelopment has proved to be a microcosm of New Labour’s wasted opportunities
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Cities of the Lens
20 November 2009
A recent Architecture Foundation debate explores how the camera can help construct an ‘alternative urbanism’
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Where is the Ice Cube of architecture?
13 November 2009
Today the idea of an angry architecture is all but inconceivable
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Cardiff: Baudrillard at the Eisteddfod
06 November 2009
With two districts competing for Cardiff’s administrative crown, the result is a city confused by its architectural patchwork
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Retrospective on the Tyne
30 October 2009
Lit & Phil’s exhibition is a fascinating examination of T Dan Smith’s part in creating Newcastle
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Slow train to our lumpen fantasy past
16 October 2009
Despite renewed interest in their radical edge, our suburbs stand for the failure of idealism
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West Riding: Northern exposure
02 October 2009
The stolid Victorian charms of Leeds and Bradford remain intact despite some horrendous redevelopment
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Vriesendorp leads these high-rise distractions
25 September 2009
This east London installation plays with ideas of technology but ultimately leaves one wanting more
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Helpless towers are being buried
18 September 2009
What lies behind this Europe-wide mania for recladding post-war buildings?
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Why the Repromotion exhibition at Brussels’ Bozar fits the space
11 September 2009
Jan de Cock’s vast flatpack installation is holding a minimalist conversation with its own gallery
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Cambridge blues
04 September 2009
Beyond its historic centre, Cambridge’s modern architectural landscape speaks of dislocation and secrecy
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Glasgow: Centuries of change
14 August 2009
With its sixties blocks being reclad or demolished, Glasgow has never regained the architectural confidence it showed in the early 20th century
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Modernism sells better with frocks
14 August 2009
Coco Before Chanel reminds us why we rarely see architecture on the big screen
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Modernism shouldn’t take rap for fire
10 July 2009
It’s not the tower blocks that are to blame but, rather, our dereliction of duty towards their welfare
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Fog on the Tyne
26 June 2009
Successive waves of regeneration have landed Newcastle and Gateshead with a riot of architectural statements — yet an urban spirit born in the 19th century lives on
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Memorials still dying an awful death
12 June 2009
Remembering the dead has always led to crimes against design
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Manchester: Heaven knows it’s miserable now
05 June 2009
Manchester is hailed as a flagship for successful regeneration but along the way it has lost all appetite for civic architecture
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Sheffield: City of skeletons
15 May 2009
Sheffield remains a unique city set in a spectacular landscape, but the gutted form of Park Hill exemplifies the efforts being spent to make it look like everywhere else
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Restoration this country truly needs
08 May 2009
We shout about preserving our buildings, but are strangely quiet on the issue of council housing
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Time to face up to the brutalist truth
17 April 2009
Channel 4’s Red Riding trilogy suggested a different way of looking at the post-war city
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Nottingham: A notty problem
03 April 2009
Nottingham hopes to be ‘2012 world design capital’ but the varying quality of its newer buildings exemplifies the problems of what to do with a post-industrial city
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Searching for some soul on the dole
20 March 2009
Architects visiting a jobcentre for the first time might hanker for Gropius’s attempt to make signing on elegant
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Milton Keynes: End of the space age
06 March 2009
It’s the empty streets and lack of crowds that make Milton Keynes feel civilised — but attempts to bring density to the new town could spell the end for this unique quality
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A tragic tale of two Thamesmeads
20 February 2009
The 60s estate’s potential could still be unlocked — given a bit of the cash squandered on its successor
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Southampton: What's next for this major port turned mega-retail park?
06 February 2009
Southampton’s reliance on retail and leisure to counter a declining shipping industry has given it a new architectural identity
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The house is a machine for learning
30 January 2009
Architects’ quest to design mixed communities could benefit from looking at a group of Gallic militant lefties
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Trapped between ego and blandness
12 December 2008
Totalitarian architectural monuments or toadying to heritage? The choice is yours
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A signal to rebuild public transport
14 November 2008
There must be a reason why the boring old car is architecturally uncelebrated
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Corporate educators are bad business
31 October 2008
Designers love Westminster Academy, but is what’s going on inside really such a good idea?
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A green New Deal can tackle depression
10 October 2008
Looming financial disaster might have unexpected social and environmental benefits
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The broken heart of east Greenwich
12 September 2008
What used to be Greenwich District Hospital is now a vast, overgrown wasteland
