What happens when ruination overtakes regeneration? Following on from A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley investigates the fate of British cities in the desolate new world of savage public-sector cuts, when government funds are withdrawn and the Welfare State abdicates. He explores the urban consequences of what Conservatives privately call the "progressive nonsense" of the Big Society and "the localism agenda," the putative replacement of the state with charity and voluntarism; and he casts an eye over the last great Blairite schemes limping to completion, from London's Shard to the site of the 2012 Olympics. Crisscrossing Britain from Aberdeen to Plymouth, from Croydon to Belfast, A NEW KIND OF BLEAK finds a landscape left to rot - and discovers strange and potentially radical things growing in the wasteland.
A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain
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Praise for A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain: 'This is the real Britain, and Hatherley is the most informed, opinionated and acerbic guide you could wish for.' --Hugh Pearman, Sunday Times
'A book of finespun rage - this is a book that had to be written.' --Rowan Moore, Observer
'Fear and loathing in lost Albion.' Independent; 'Bold and original, it may change how you see British cities.' Andy Beckett, Guardian; 'A sardonic snapshot of the parlous state of our built environment.' Hari Kunzru, New Statesman Books of the Year; 'Wonderfully provocative.' --Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph
'A book of finespun rage - this is a book that had to be written.' --Rowan Moore, Observer
'Fear and loathing in lost Albion.' Independent; 'Bold and original, it may change how you see British cities.' Andy Beckett, Guardian; 'A sardonic snapshot of the parlous state of our built environment.' Hari Kunzru, New Statesman Books of the Year; 'Wonderfully provocative.' --Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph
About the Author
OWEN HATHERLEY is the author of the acclaimed A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain and Militant Modernism, a defense of the modernist movement. He writes regularly on the political aesthetics of architecture, urbanism and popular culture for a variety of publications, including Building Design, Frieze, the Guardian and the New Statesman. He blogs on political aesthetics at nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By Tarquin
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This a superbly well written book in which Hatherley visits a series of UK cities in the manner of a 21st century Pevsner with strong hints of Meades, Priestly and Nairn, commenting with wit, disdain and sometimes pleasure on the good, the bad and the frankly awful buildings he finds. Much of the text is devoted to the badly designed, poorly specified and shoddily built - yet extremely expensive - tat that has disfigured so many cities in the last 20 - 30 years. Thatcherite greed followed by, er, Blairite greed. Will there be a Cameron-Clegg architecture? Let's hope not. Hatherley heaps derision on bar coded windows, stuck-on metal panels and the microscopic size of most new housing. He slates the sheer nastiness of the malls and the out-of-town sheds and pulls no punches when discussing who is to blame for all this. There are spirited defences, too, of the better buildings from the post war period and a passionate (sorry for the cliché) appeal to the idea of the city. How sad it is to see that the Olympic opening ceremony (always rubbish, I agree) is to represent Britain as some sort of puerile rural fantasy!
The only criticism I can make is that of the book itself. I mean here, the physical object and not the text. The pictures are atrociously printed; the paper cheap and why is it that a writer who so clearly believes in Britain as a `maker' has had his book printed in Sweden? That aside I wait eagerly for the next book.
The only criticism I can make is that of the book itself. I mean here, the physical object and not the text. The pictures are atrociously printed; the paper cheap and why is it that a writer who so clearly believes in Britain as a `maker' has had his book printed in Sweden? That aside I wait eagerly for the next book.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By F. Alexander
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Hatherley's journeys highlight the vacuousness of much of the current British architecture and planning, but unlike some of his other writing this book more than hints at a more interesting past and possible future.
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