Description
This is what austerity looks like: a nation surviving on the results of what conservatives privately call "the progressive nonsense" of the Big Society agenda.
In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, but takes in Belfast, Aberdeen, Plymouth and Brighton, Hatherley explores modern Britain's urban landscape and finds a short-sighted disarray of empty buildings, malls and glass towers. Yet while A New Kind of Bleak anatomizes "broken Britain," Hatherley also looks to a hopeful future and discovers fragments of what it might look like.
Illustrated by Laura Oldfield Ford, author and artist of Savage Messiah.
The urban state of the nation-from Olympic dreams to broken Britain
About the Author
Owen Hatherley was born in 1981. He writes regularly on architecture and cultural politics for Architects Journal, Architectural Review, Icon, Guardian, London Review of Books and New Humanist and is the author of several books.
Reviews
A humanely barbed Nikolaus Pevsner for our times ... This book should be required reading for planners, developers and architects. * Independent *
Hatherley has busily constructed a cult reputation as the angry young man of architectural criticism. * Guardian *
Engaging, fearless and startlingly intelligent polemicist. * Time Out *
Essential reading for anyone who ever feels their blood start to boil when they hear the word 'regeneration.' -- Hari Kunzru
Owen Hatherley brings to bear a quizzing eye, venomous wit, supple prose, refusal to curry favour, rejection of received ideas, exhaustive knowledge and all-round bolshiness. -- Jonathan Meades
Fierce and original. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *
He writes with venom and flare ... [It is] refreshing to see politics reintroduced to the architectural debate. -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times *
[A] bracing antidote to the faux-chumminess of so much British cultural discourse. -- Sukhdev Sandhu * Icon *
A timely counterpoint to Britain's jubilee and Olympics self-congratulation ... observed with a precision and fury to force you to open your eyes. * Metro *
Book Information
ISBN 9781781680759
Author Owen Hatherley
Format Paperback
Page Count 434
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 556g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 140mm * 3mm
In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, but takes in Belfast, Aberdeen, Plymouth and Brighton, Hatherley explores modern Britain's urban landscape and finds a short-sighted disarray of empty buildings, malls and glass towers. Yet while A New Kind of Bleak anatomizes "broken Britain," Hatherley also looks to a hopeful future and discovers fragments of what it might look like.
Illustrated by Laura Oldfield Ford, author and artist of Savage Messiah.
The urban state of the nation-from Olympic dreams to broken Britain
About the Author
Owen Hatherley was born in 1981. He writes regularly on architecture and cultural politics for Architects Journal, Architectural Review, Icon, Guardian, London Review of Books and New Humanist and is the author of several books.
Reviews
A humanely barbed Nikolaus Pevsner for our times ... This book should be required reading for planners, developers and architects. * Independent *
Hatherley has busily constructed a cult reputation as the angry young man of architectural criticism. * Guardian *
Engaging, fearless and startlingly intelligent polemicist. * Time Out *
Essential reading for anyone who ever feels their blood start to boil when they hear the word 'regeneration.' -- Hari Kunzru
Owen Hatherley brings to bear a quizzing eye, venomous wit, supple prose, refusal to curry favour, rejection of received ideas, exhaustive knowledge and all-round bolshiness. -- Jonathan Meades
Fierce and original. -- Andy Beckett * Guardian *
He writes with venom and flare ... [It is] refreshing to see politics reintroduced to the architectural debate. -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times *
[A] bracing antidote to the faux-chumminess of so much British cultural discourse. -- Sukhdev Sandhu * Icon *
A timely counterpoint to Britain's jubilee and Olympics self-congratulation ... observed with a precision and fury to force you to open your eyes. * Metro *
Book Information
ISBN 9781781680759
Author Owen Hatherley
Format Paperback
Page Count 434
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 556g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 140mm * 3mm
