Owen Hatherley Knihy

In the craven world of architectural criticism Hatherley is that rarest of things: a brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies. (Will Self). During the course of the twentieth century, communism took power in Eastern Europe and remade the city in its own image. Ransacking the urban planning of the grand imperial past, it set out to transform everyday life, its sweeping boulevards, epic high-rise and vast housing estates an emphatic declaration of a non-capitalist idea. Now, the regimes that built them are dead and long gone, but from Warsaw to Berlin, Moscow to post-Revolution Kiev, the buildings, their most obvious legacy, remain, populated by people whose lives were scattered and jeopardized by the collapse of communism and the introduction of capitalism. Landscapes of Communism is an intimate history of twentieth-century communist Europe told through its buildings; it is, too, a book about power, and what power does in cities.In exploring what that power was, Hatherley shows how much we can understand from surfaces - especially states as obsessed with surface as the Soviets were. Walking through these landscapes today, Hatherley discovers how, in contrast to the common dismissal of 'monolithic' Soviet architecture, these cities reflect with disconcerting transparency the development of an idea over the decades, with its sharp, sudden zigzags of official style: from modernism to classicism and back; to the superstitious despotic rococo of high Stalinism, with its jingoistic memorials, palaces and secret policemen's castles; East Germany's obsession with prefabricated concrete panels; and the metro systems of Moscow and Prague, a spectacular vindication of public space that went further than any avant garde ever dared. But most of all, Landscapes of Communism is a revelatory journey of discovery, plunging us into the maelstrom of socialist architecture. As we submerge into the metros, walk the massive, multi-lane magistrale and pause at milk bars in the microrayons, who knows what we might find?

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.

This illustrated guide offers a comprehensive exploration of contemporary British architecture, showcasing the work of renowned critics. It delves into the evolution of architectural styles, highlighting key buildings and their significance in modern design. The book combines insightful analysis with striking visuals, making it an essential resource for architecture enthusiasts and professionals alike.

"'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.