Owen Hatherley
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.
OpinionSky’s the limit — if we get the planning right
Towers have the virtue of shock, but they may not be the worst we’ve done to our cities, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionFlickrs of interest amid the perfection
The truly democratic expression of architectural media is on the photo-sharing site, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionCovered markets must be preserved
Redeveloping Adjaye’s Wakefield hall is a sign of what urban priorities are, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionBury the past in heritage and shopping
History has been smoothed over in Dresden’s reconstruction, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionStriking but useless… just like Boris
The two proposed Thames footbridges have little purpose except to give the mayor his vacuous legacy
OpinionMusic festivals tune into urban spaces
Architecture can be a source of inspiration for experimental performers, says Owen Hatherley
AnalysisWhatever happened to student housing?
With university accommodation now defined by the developers’ desire to cram students in as densely as possible, high-quality design may be too much to ask, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionPostmodernism: the freak that dare not speak its name
Never mind brutalism - there’s one architectural movement that’s really beyond rehabilitation, argues Owen Hatherley
OpinionThe GCHQ building is tasteless by design
GCHQ’s paranoid modernism is more New Labour than Cold War
OpinionSun, sea and Soviet system-building
How come British tourists like their seaside resorts modern but their homes traditional, asks Owen Hatherley
OpinionThe architects paralysed by politics
Local council policies make make producing decent architecture difficult
AnalysisAre libraries living on borrowed time?
Britain’s public libraries grew out of an age of civic pride and self-improvement. Now, adrift in a privatised digital world, their architectural presence needs celebrating more than ever
OpinionLessons from Berlin’s mysterious east
We should learn about austerity and urbanity from the city’s Nikolaiviertel area, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionFlats don’t always need to be flattened
The refurbishment of Paris’s Tour Bois-le-Prêtre shows us how it could be done, says Owen Hatherley
OpinionOxbridge is still locking out the proles
Our most famous university cities are always worth a visit… or would be, if their finest landmarks weren’t closed off to outsiders
AnalysisLet’s raise a glass to our local heritage
With 18 pubs closing each week, part of the UK’s street history is vanishing. Yet many of the finest documented by Ian Nairn are still there to be celebrated
OpinionHalifax HQ: A building that looks out of place but isn’t
The newly listed Halifax HQ displays a deeper understanding of context
OpinionKnocking through the social divides
What happened to Camden in the 1970s proves that gentrification doesn’t have to be insidious
ReviewSergison Bates Architects: Buildings
A new book shows how Sergison Bates’ sensitive yet radical housing stands out from the crowd
OpinionBritish housing seems to be sobering up
Are residential schemes becoming more stylistically connected with their surroundings?