Paris Marx is joined by Kate Wagner to discuss the goals behind Saudi Arabia’s architectural megaprojects, the incentives for major architects to work on projects for despotic regimes, and how architecture’s relationship to tech is driven by profits and PR.Kate Wagner is an architecture critic and journalist. She’s also the creator of McMansion Hell. Follow Kate on Twitter at @mcmansionhell.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.Also mentioned in this episode:Kate wrote about Saudi Arabia’s big architecture projects, the problem with PR-chitecture, the ethical failings of modern architecture, and why utopian architectural projects suck.In 2020, Bjarke Ingels met with Jair Bolsonaro about a tourism plan for Brazil.Workers in the architecture industry have begun to unionize.Support the show

If you have ever caught even one minute of the history channel, you have seen fraktur. You’ve seen the font on Nazi posters, on Nazi office buildings, on Nazi roadwork signs. Today in Germany, blackletter typefaces are frequently used by Neo-Nazi groups and for many Germans, they bring to mind the dark times of the country’s fascist past. This is ironic because fraktur has a long and strange history that includes the font actually being banned by the Nazis. Plus, we get an opinion from Kate Wagner (McMansion Hell) about “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” Fraktur Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

In this episode, guests Adam Shatz and Kate Wagner discuss the uses of critical theory in understanding contemporary culture. They explore topics such as social media's impact on discourse, the influence of the Frankfurt School on cultural criticism, the separation of architecture from building, and the role of cultural criticism in representing working class struggles.