Archive
4 pieces on the buildings others dismiss, the architects others forget, and the politics that decided what got built and what got torn down.
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.
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.
James Fairweather · May 28, 2025
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.
Vera Okonkwo · May 10, 2025
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.
Priya Shetty · April 22, 2025
