About Buildings + Cities

First announced in 1931, the project for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow evolved into a staggeringly vast and bizarre proposal which stalled during WWII when only the foundations had been completed. A 400m tall neoclassical fantasy topped with a vast statue of Lenin; the Palace would probably, if completed, have still been the tallest building in the world in the year 2000. Forming a counterpart of sorts to our discussion of the Chicago Tribune — the Palace is another worldwide competition of the interwar period in which the battle over architectural style and ideology played out in the process of selection and development, as the old 1920s avant grade felt the ground shift under them and the ideology of Stalinist architecture began to solidify. A couple of helpful listener corrections (here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxAq2FLaj/] (and here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxB0vlmnJ/] We discussed — Joze Pleçnik Edwin Lutyens (neither in the competition) Russian Avant-gardists — Ivan Leonidov Konstantin Melnikov Mosei Ginzburg The League of Nations Competition entries of Le Corbusier & Hannes Meyer Foreign modernists in Russia Ernst May And the entries of —  Le Corbusier Walter Gropius Erich Mendehlson Hans Pölzig Auguste Perret The winners —  Boris Iofan Vladimir Shchuko Hector Hamilton Plus the later designs of — Ilya Golosov’s Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh Alabian, Kochar and Mordvinov’s Simbirtsev Alexander Brodsky’s Reminiscences Anatole Kopp ‘Foreign architects in the Soviet Union during the first two five-year plans’ Sonia Hoisington ‘Even Higher: The Evolution of the Palace of the Soviets’ Music —  ‘A1’ from the album ‘ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΚΟΚΚΑΛΑ’ by Kοκκαλα, from the Free Music Archive ‘Bolshevik Leaves Home’ (1918) by D. Vasilev-Buglay, Demyan Bedniy Soviet National Anthem, Stalin version Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Don’t listen if you haven’t seen the movie yet! We discuss Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. It’s pretty formless and we forgot the names of most of the characters, actors, significant plot entities. You’ll get who we’re talking about it you’ve seen it. We refer in passing to —  Moebius & Jodorowsky ‘The Incal’ Vladimir Nabokov ‘Pale Fire’ Robert Louis Stevenson ‘Treasure Island’ Outro —  Dharma — Plastic Doll (1982) Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

As a postscript to our discussion of Cyberpunk in episodes 20-21, and vaguely looking ahead to the release of the upcoming sequel, we talked about Ridley Scott’s 1982 film ‘Blade Runner’. We were really winging it on the research for this one and as a result it marks a high point for getting key facts completely wrong, including — the name of a key character (see if you can guess which one!), various attributions of ethnicity, dates, names, places, the ending of the book on which it’s based, and a bunch of other things. Oh well. I edited out what I could… some moments deserve to be lost in time & without any tears being shed over it… Things we mentioned —  Nicholas Røeg Peter Sloterdijk's book ‘Terror from the Air' Dashiel Hammet’s ‘The Thin Man’ Akira Kurosawa ‘Stray Dog’ (again) Some great photos of the model shop for the film Caravaggio ‘The Calling of St Matthew’ Antony Burgess ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Richard Jeffries ‘After London’ Yvegeny Zamyatin ‘We’ (discussed in episode 3)  T.S. Eliot ‘The Wasteland' Johannes Vermeer Wilhelm Hammerschoi Jan van Eyck ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ Vernon Shetley, Alissa Ferguson ‘Reflections in a Silver Eye: Lens and Mirror in ‘Blade Runner’, in Science Fiction Studies Mar 2001, Vol 28 Issue 1 Michel Haneke ‘Caché’ Music and sound effects are from the film. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We conclude our discussion of the 1922 Chicago Tribune competition, going through a few of the less favoured entries, and discussing how it’s been seen and understood in the years since. Apologies for some clipping on the audio – we’ve tried to edit most of it out but some is still left. As before, you can see all the entries in this book We discuss the entries of – Walter Gropius (197) Adolf Loos (196) Paul Gerhardt (159 & 160) Saverio Dioguardi (248) Vittorio Pino (252) Alfred Fellheimer & Steward Wagner (158) – the big pyramid Emile Pohle & Adolf Ott (200) – the bridge Walter Fischer (221) Bruno & Max Taut (231, 229) Gerhardt Schröder (228) Fritz Sackermann (225) Anonymous (281)  Plus anonymous entries by –  Hans Scharoun Wassili Luckhardt Manfredo Tafuri’s 'The Disenchanted Mountain' — published in ‘The American City’ (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1979) Ludwig Hilberseimer’s unentered design Hugh Feriss’s Envelope Drawings Pier Vittorio Aureli’s ‘The Barest Form in which Architecture Can Exist’ The book of ‘Late Entries’ can be found here Diana Agrest ‘Architectural Anagrams’ in Oppositions 11 Music includes Collins and Harlan ‘The International Rag’ King Olivers Creole Jazz Band ‘Just Gone’ …both from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

In 1922, to coincide with its 75th birthday, the Chicago Tribune set out to endow the city with ‘the world’s most beautiful office building’. The results of the design competition have been seen in retrospect less as ‘the ultimate in civic expression’ than as an expression of aesthetic and theoretical crisis within architecture. Hugely varied, bizarre, ingenious and occasionally grotesque, the entries provide a window into a discipline in transformation, as well as into the politics of a new American metropolis. Apologies for some slight issues with the sound. A book showing all the competition entries has been uploaded to Monoskop — if you download it you will be able to see what we’re talking about… https://monoskop.org/File:Tribune_Tower_Competition_vol_1_1980.pdf We discuss the entries by John Mead Howells & Raymond Hood (plate 1) Eliel Saarinen (13) Holabird & Roche (20) John Wynkoop (90) Ross & Sloan (84) Hornbostel & Wood (91) Daniel Burnham (44) Jarvis Hunt (118) William Drummond (134) Sjostrom & Eklund (190) Music includes — Arthur Fields ‘How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?’ Jockers Dance Orchestra ‘The Royal Vagabond’ The Columbians ‘Just Like a Rainbow’ Victor Dance Orchestra ‘The Great One Step’ …all from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Leaving the waste-strewn Earth behind, we follow the team on their run all the way to its conclusion in orbit. On the way, we cast our eyes over the weed-smelling shanty-hulk of Zion, the sunlit Condé Naste-styled resort-perfection of Freeside, and the gloomy, Victorian-styled warren of the Villa Straylight. Fewer mattresses, more carpets. Music – ‘Heliograph’ ‘CGI Snake’ ‘Wonder Cycle’ and ‘Oxygen Garden’ from the album ‘Divider’ by Chris Zabriskie – from the Free Music Archive Outro – Hypnosis ‘Pulstar’(1984) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We’re back in dystopia, soaking up the glamour, danger and decadence of the cyberpunk city. We’re reading William Gibson’s seminal science fiction novel Neuromancer (1984), which combines the pace of a thriller with a vivid and almost archaeological view of the technological and material fabric of the near future city – glue, chipboard, broken TVs, epoxy resin, dirty water, and a strange profusion of foam mattresses. Gibson has spoken about the city as a ‘compost heap’ – and we’re sifting through it alongside Case, Molly, Armitage, the AI Wintermute, and the rest of the misfit expedition – and considering Noir, technology, desire, fear of the suburbs, and the vast consensual hallucination you’re plugged into right now. Some topics – – Chiba – Kowloon walled city – White flight – Noir – Paris review – William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211 Music from Chris Zabriskie 'Cylinder Seven’ from the album ‘Cylinders’ And from Three Chain Links ‘Demons’, 'The Chase’, ‘Phantoms’, 'Magic Hour’ all from the album ‘Phantoms’ both from the Free Music Archive Outro music is from the Neuromancer computer game (1988) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

During the 1960s and 70s, the French architect Jean Renaudie designed and built a series of projects in which he attempted to upend the staid and formulaic model of postwar slab-block mass housing. Architecture, for Renaudie, had to acknowledge and enshrine human being's 'Right to Difference'. But this didn't mean discarding the achievements or social ideology of modernism – rather, as part of a wider European project of dissent, critique and reformation, he formulated his own daring formal solution to the problem of uniting the needs and image of the individual with those of the collective. And how did he do it? Well, for a start, the rooms are mostly triangular… We discussed – slab blocks and Le Corbusier's Unite d’habitation in Marseilles 'Jean Renaudie: A Right to Difference' by Irénée Scalbert CIAM (Congress Internationaux d'Architecture) George Lucas's 'THX 1138' Team X and the ‘Mat Building' Renaudie's theory of 'structuralism' The Projects The New Town of La Vaudreuil Ivry-sur-Seine The Jean Hachette Building, Flats 4, 16 and 9 Town Plan at Vitrolles Housing at Givors Music by – Chris Zabriskie – The House Glows With Almost No Help from The Dark Glow of Mountains from the Free Music Archive Robert Cogoi - Pas une place pour me garer (1966) We've posted some pictures on our twitter and instagram feeds – addresses for these at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

A fuzzy empire of blur, a low grade purgatory, a perpetual Jacuzzi with millions of your best friends… We're discussing Junkspace (2001), Rem Koolhaas's notoriously elliptical wander through the dystopian and formless morass of early 21st retail architecture that seems gradually to be devouring the city, and the world. In keeping with the essay, the episode is radically unstructured, only barely makes sense, and is held together largely by hyperbole. We discussed – – Rem Koolhaas and OMA – The books SMLXL and Delirious New York – Exodus: The Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture – Frederic Jameson's review of Junkspace in NLR 21 (2003) – Jameson's Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) – Walter Benajmin's Passagenwerk or Arcades Project Music – 'Ruca' and 'Agnes' from the album 'Teal' by Rod Hamilton and 'Curiosity', 'Quisitive' and 'Biking in the Park' from the album 'Music for Podcasts' by Lee Rosevere; both from the Free Music Archive Blue Gas 'Shadows From Nowhere' (1984) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Michelangelo’s incredibly long career meant that he was old for a very long time, and the idea of death, and of what comes afterwards, hang over many of the projects he worked on late in life. We discuss his pivotal role in the design of St Peter’s in Rome, the sombre and terrible ‘Last Judgement’ in the Sistene Chapel, and a series of fragmentary late drawings, designs and sculptures which seem to be pointing to the future and the past at the same time. It’s been about four hours of solid Michelangelo now, and it’s time to send him (and the other cast of characters) into the tender arms of our Lord & Saviour. It'll be back to late Capitalism next time. Please let us know what you think – tweet us @about_buildings or email aboutbuildingsandcities@gmail.com – you can also find links to subscribe to the podcast, and all our social media profiles at our website – aboutbuildingsandcities.org Music – Gervaise 'Bransles de Bourgogne' from Gothic and Renaissance Dances at https://archive.org/details/GOTHICANDRENAISSANCEDANCES Vocal Ansambl Gordela ‘Zinzkaro’ Lee Rosevere ‘Dream Colours’ from the album Time-Lapse Volume 4 Sleep Music at the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere Ago ‘Trying Over’ (1982) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.