standing
Architecture Review
BRUTALISM.
Architecture for those
who stay when others look away.
The Towers We Love to Hate
Decades of demolition have not erased them from our collective memory. The slab block, the point tower, the deck-access walkway — these forms haunt British social housing the way that Victorian terraces haunt detective fiction.
Read the essay"The buildings that failed
were not the architecture.
The politics failed."
The Archive
All buildings
Recent Writing
History
Park Hill: From Slum Clearance to Grade II*
In 1998, English Heritage listed Park Hill at Grade II* — the highest category for a post-war structure at that time. The decision was not without controversy.
Criticism
Habitat 67 and the Modular Dream
Moshe Safdie designed Habitat 67 as a demonstration that prefabricated concrete modules could produce dignified, affordable housing at urban scale. It produced one of the most expensive addresses in Montreal.
Criticism
Boston City Hall: A Deliberate Monument
Boston City Hall has consistently appeared at the top of "ugliest buildings in America" lists. It has also been described by critics as one of the most important public buildings constructed in the United States since the war.