Owen Hatherley Knihy

In the realm of architectural criticism, Hatherley stands out as a courageous, insightful, and scholarly writer who examines the contemporary built environment, revealing the political fantasies and social realities it embodies. Throughout the twentieth century, communism reshaped Eastern European cities, transforming urban planning to reflect its ideals. The sweeping boulevards, towering high-rises, and expansive housing estates served as bold declarations of a non-capitalist vision. Although the regimes that constructed these structures have vanished, their legacies endure in cities from Warsaw to Berlin and Moscow to post-Revolution Kiev, where the lives of residents were disrupted by the collapse of communism and the rise of capitalism. This work offers an intimate history of communist Europe through its architecture, exploring the dynamics of power within urban landscapes. Hatherley illustrates how much can be gleaned from the surfaces of these cities, especially those as surface-obsessed as the Soviets. Contrary to the common dismissal of Soviet architecture as monolithic, he reveals how these cities transparently reflect the evolution of ideas over decades, showcasing shifts in official style and the remarkable public spaces of metro systems. Ultimately, it is a journey into the depths of socialist architecture, inviting readers to explore the unexpected in these vibrant urban environments.

Kniha Owena Hatherleyho zkoumá nové pohledy na modernismus 20. století: věnuje se modernímu designu, filmu, popu, pozornost je zaostřena především na architekturu (ať už z hlediska ruského konstruktivismu či britského brutalismu). Dotýká se témat utopických sociálních projektů v první sovětské pětiletce i radikálních vizí Wilhelma Reicha (Sexpol), zkoumajících odcizující efekty každodenního modernistického života ve snaze o transformaci a determinaci nových zítřků. Owen Hatherley přináší ve své monografii hned několik prvků, které mohou být českému diskurzu přínosné. Autor se například nebojí pracovat s levicovými koncepty, ukazuje, že bez hlubokého pochopení komunistické ideologie a praxe nemůžeme pochopit modernistickou kulturu nejen v Sovětském svazu. Kniha je doprovozena obrazovým materiálem a rozsáhlým poznámkovým aparátem. Grafika Kateřina Šuterová.

Modernism is now a century old, and its consequences are all around us, built into our everyday lived environments. Its place in Britain's history is fiercely contested, and its role in our future is the subject of ongoing controversy - but modernist buildings have undoubtedly changed our cities, politics and identity forever. In Modern Buildings in Britain , Owen Hatherley applauds the ambition and explores the significance of this most divisive of architectures, travelling from Aberystwyth to Aberdeen, from St Ives to Shetland, in search of our most important and distinctive modern buildings. Drawing on hundreds of examples, we learn how the concrete of Brutalism embodies post-war civic principles, how corporate values were expressed in the glass faç ades of the International Style, and why Ecomodernist experimentation is often consigned to the geographic fringes. As Hatherley considers the social, political and cultural value of these structures - a number of which are threatened by demolition - two linked questions what happens to a building after it has been lived in, and what becomes of an idea when its time has passed? With more than six hundred pages of trenchantly opinionated, often witty analysis, and with three hundred photographs in duotone and colour, Modern Buildings in Britain is a landmark contribution to the history of British architecture.

"'A searching, timely account of the condition of contemporary Europe, told through the landscapes of its cities. Over the past twenty years European cities have become the envy of the world: a Kraftwerk Utopia of historic centres, supermodernist concert halls, imaginative public spaces and futuristic egalitarian housing estates which, interconnected by high-speed trains traversing open borders, have a combination of order and pleasure which is exceptionally unusual elsewhere. In Trans-Europe Express, Owen Hatherley sets out to explore the European city across the entire continent, to see what exactly makes it so different to the Anglo-Saxon norm - the unplanned, car-centred, developer-oriented spaces common to the US, Ireland, UK and Australia. Attempting to define the European city, Hatherley finds a continent divided both within the EU and outside it."--Provided by publisher

Darkly humorous architectural guide to the decrepit new Britain that neoliberalism built.

Should Britain form a new union with its old 'Dominions' in Canada, Australia andNew Zealand? Are they really our closest allies and relations? And is there any reasonwhy they should want to unite again with us?

Over the past twenty years European cities have become the envy of the world: a Kraftwerk Utopia of historic centres, supermodernist concert halls, imaginative public spaces and futuristic egalitarian housing estates which, interconnected by high-speed trains traversing open borders, have a combination of order and pleasure which is exceptionally unusual elsewhere. In Trans-Europe Express, Owen Hatherley sets out to explore the European city across the entire continent, to see what exactly makes it so different to the Anglo-Saxon norm - the unplanned, car-centred, developer-oriented spaces common to the US, Ireland, UK and Australia. Attempting to define the European city, Hatherley finds a continent divided both within the EU and outside it.

How to make a fairer, more just city From the grandiose histories of monumental state building projects to the minutiae of street signs and corner cafés, from the rebuilding of capital cities to the provision of the humble public toilet, Clean Living under Difficult Circumstances argues for the city as a socialist project. This essay collection spans a period from immediately before the 2008 financial crash to the year of the pandemic. Against the business-as-usual responses to both crises, Owen Hatherley outlines a vision of the city as both a venue for political debate and dispute as well as a space of everyday experience, one that we shape as much as it shapes us. Incorporated here are the genres of memoir, history, music and film criticism, as well as portraits of figures who have inspired new ways of looking at cities, such as the architect Zaha Hadid, the activist and urbanist Jane Jacobs, and thinkers such as Mark Fisher and Adam Curtis. Throughout these pieces, Hatherley argues that the only way out of our difficult circumstances is to imagine and try to construct a better modernity.

Set in the 1930s, the narrative explores the impact of refugees fleeing fascism in Europe, particularly Jewish individuals, on British society. Their arrival introduced transformative ideas in art, politics, and architecture, significantly shaping modern Britain. The book delves into how these revolutionary concepts influenced the cultural landscape and contributed to the evolution of British identity during a tumultuous period.

A polemical history of municipal socialism in London - and an argument for turning this capitalist capital red again.