About Buildings + Cities

Latest Episodes:

55 — Katsuhiro Otomo's 'Akira' — 3/3 — Good for Health, Bad for Education May 30, 2019

Show notes

In this concluding part of our discussion, we interview Anna Mill, artist of ‘Square Eyes’ about Akira from the point of view of an illustrator, and also discuss the feature length Akira anime (1988), and the wonderful soundtrack by Geinoh Yamashirogumi.

You can find more about Square Eyes here.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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54 — Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira — 2/3 — Exploding Neo-Tokyo Twice May 15, 2019

Show notes

In the second part of our discussion, we talk through the whole, incredibly epic six-volume manga 'Akira' from start to finish.

Music is from the soundtrack to the film 'Akira' by Geinoh Yamashirogumi.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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53 — Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira — 1/3 — Radio School May 01, 2019

Show notes

Katsuhiro Otomo’s vast magnum opus ‘Akira’ (1982-90) is one of the landmarks of late 20th century science fiction — a story of psychic battles, youth counterculture and technology run out of control — all set in Neo-Tokyo, a vast megastructure in the Tokyo bay.

If you’ve only ever heard of one manga, it’s probably this one. We’ve been reading the definitive black and white version — worth getting hold of if you can.

Actually we didn’t even get to start talking about the book proper because we went on about context too long. We talked a bit about the earlier works ‘Fireball’ and ‘Domu’, the documentary ’God Speed You Black Emperor’, manga as a genre, and a load of other stuff.

The bonus will look at the early work in more detail.

This episode is sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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52 — Nicholas Hawksmoor's Churches — 2/2 Apr 15, 2019

Show notes

We conclude our discussion of the churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor in London, featuring discussion of church politics, 'the primitive church of the early Christians' and wet and windy site recordings from St George in the East, Shadwell (1714-29), Christ Church Spitalfields (1714-29), and St Mary Woolnoth (1716-27).

Sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses Plus

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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51 — Nicholas Hawksmoor's Churches — 1/2 Mar 25, 2019

Show notes

Nicholas Hawksmoor, born in 1661, built six churches in London between 1711 and his death in 1736. Vast, white, monumental and enigmatically detailed, the Hawksmoor churches are a looming and mysterious presence in the architectural consciousness and mythic history of London, somehow both of time and out of it. Bombed, burned, spurned by popular taste before they were even completed, they have nevertheless survived to become objects of fascination, speculation and obsession. Created on the threshold of modernity, they reach back toward an imagined (and distant) past when the Church was young, and the worship was pure.
We’ve recorded a series of observations of the churches on site, and attempted to locate them in the world of early 18th century England.
On a forthcoming bonus we’ll be exploring the fictional Hawksmoor — as time-magician, cabbalist, summoner of Egyptian gods and more. Our editor Matt Loyd Roberts has joined us for this one —

Music is by Ketsa 'Rain stops play' from the Free Music Archive Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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50 — 19th c Machine Utopias — 2/2 — Looking Backwards Mar 11, 2019

Show notes

The second part of our discussion of the utopias and dystopias of the late 19th century 'machine age'.

Including a discussion of Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backwards: 2000-1887' (once incredibly famous and now almost unknown), William Morris's 'News From Nowhere: Or, and Epoch of Rest' and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Moving the Mountain.'

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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49 — 19th c. Machine Utopias 1/2 — Darwin Among the Machines Feb 26, 2019

Show notes

We start a two-part discussion of the utopias and dystopias of the late 19th century 'machine age,' when new technology seemed to be remaking the world, and society along with it.

What sort of world would the machines bring? In this episode we discuss Samuel Butler's novel 'Erewhon' and the extraordinary speculation on machine life that it contains. We also talk about Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 'Vril' — to which it was initally (erroneously) thought to be a sequel — and Nikolai Chernyshevsky's 'What is to be done'.

Music — Chris Zabriskie 'Is that you or are you you?' from the Free Music Archive.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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48 — OMA 1989 — Going Big Feb 11, 2019

Show notes

Rem Koolhaas and the firm he founded with three partners in 1975 — Office of Metropolitan Architects, OMA — are fascinating, critical and provocative presence within the architectural culture of the 1970s and 1980s, riding the wave of the crisis of modernist collapse while positioning themselves outside or against all of the main tendencies in the post-modern.

In this episode we’re focussing on a particular, transitional moment, in which the early ‘paper’ projects start to be replaced by real buildings and large scale competition entries, culminating in three fascinating competition entries from 1989 — the Zeebrugge Sea Terminal, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) and Très Grand Bibliothèque (TBG).

Lee Rosevere ‘Baldachin’ from the album ‘Music for Podcasts 3’ on the Free Music Archive

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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47 — Venturi Scott-Brown & Learning From Las Vegas Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

We continue our discussion of the theoretical works of Robert Venturi with this episode on ‘Learning from Las Vegas — The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form’ — researched and written with Denise Scott-Brown and Steven Izenour, and published in 1972.

The book, which examines the architecture of the Vegas strip, is the origin of the famous ‘Duck vs Decorated Shed’ comparison, and contains a lot else besides, including denunciations of the cult of Space, praise for the ‘ugly and ordinary,’ a certain amount of ostentatiously-wielded erudition, and so on.

Music: Al Smith 'Road House' https://archive.org/details/78_road-house_al-smith-a-smith-c-carter_gbia0054635a

This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus — a streaming learning service with video lectures by experts in all sorts of fields. Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/BUILDINGS to get a month of free access to thousands of courses.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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46 — Robert Venturi's 'Complexity & Contradiction' — Valid Banalities Jan 14, 2019

Show notes

For the first AB+C of 2019 we’re tackling one of the seminal texts of the 1960s, and an iconic moment in the stylistic overthrow of the postwar modernist order — Robert Venturi’s ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’ (1966). It’s a slim, lavishly illustrated volume, which seems lucid and straightforward, but upon closer reading turns out to be much more elusive. What are complexity and contradiction, where are they found, and what are architects supposed to do with them?

On the bonus we’ll be discussing the early projects of Venturi and Rauch.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.