About Buildings + Cities – Details, episodes & analysis

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About Buildings + Cities

Luke Jones & George Gingell Discuss Architecture, History and Culture

Arts

Frequency: 1 episode/23d. Total Eps: 160

A podcast about architecture, buildings and cities, from the distant past to the present day. Plus detours into technology, film, fiction, comics, drawings, and the dimly imagined future. With Luke Jones and George Gingell.

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Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - visualArts
28/08/2026
#15
🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
28/08/2026
#14
🇺🇸 USA - visualArts
28/08/2026
#59
🇨🇦 Canada - visualArts
27/08/2026
#27
🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
27/08/2026
#13
🇩🇪 Germany - visualArts
27/08/2026
#84
🇺🇸 USA - visualArts
27/08/2026
#55
🇬🇧 Great Britain - visualArts
26/08/2026
#23
🇩🇪 Germany - visualArts
26/08/2026
#65
🇺🇸 USA - visualArts
26/08/2026
#73

Spotify

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http://aboutbuildingsandcities.org/
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https://pinecast.com
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https://plus.google.com/u/0/104384327113725304822
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https://www.instagram.com/about_buildings
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https://patreon.com/about_buildings
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https://www.patreon.com/about_buildings
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https://www.patreon.com/c/about_buildings
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Score global : 53%

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*Preview* — Soane's Reputation Bonus Episode

Season 1

Tuesday, August 27, 2024 • Duration 09:26

This is a cilp from our latest Patreon bonus episode, a discussion of Soane's contemporary reputation, particularly satirical and critical writing in the periodical press, not least by his estranged son George!

You can listen to this episode in full on our Patreon feed: https://www.patreon.com/about_buildings

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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116 — John Soane 6 — Monuments

Season 1

Tuesday, July 30, 2024 • Duration 39:10

In the sixth part of our series on John Soane, we discussed some major monumental buildings in and around London. We began with Dulwich Picture Gallery, perhaps the first purpose-built public art gallery in the world. Then we discussed his church buildings in Marylebone, Southwark and Bethnal Green respectively.

Watch on YouTube to see the images as we discuss them: https://youtu.be/8IFQjALMaW8

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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Bonus Unlocked — 97.5 — Neom

Season 1

Monday, August 28, 2023 • Duration 56:36

This is an unlocked Patreon bonus episode from last year. To get access to all our bonus content and support the show, please subscribe for just £3 a month: https://www.patreon.com/about_buildings

In this bonus episode we discussed Neom, the sci-fi project of the Saudi Arabian government to totally reshape the north-west of the country, including a 170km linear city in the desert. We talked a little bit about the history of linear cities from Leonidov to Superstudio, and reflected on what the point of these fantastical publicity projects might be.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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28 – Le Corbusier – 3 – Towards a New Architecture

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 • Duration 01:02:21

A new epoch has begun! Le Corbusier’s ‘discovery’ is that the style of future architecture is to be found new inventions of the machine age — planes, cars, ocean liners. But ‘Towards a New Architecture’ is, at its heart, an argument for a fusion of timeless values and contemporary technology — provocatively encapsulated in its juxtaposition of a sports car and the Parthenon.

We went through the book in order, focussing on the chapters:

The Engineer’s Aesthetic
Three Reminders to Architects
- Regulating Lines
Eyes Which Do Not See
The Pure Creation of the Mind
Architecture or Revolution

Mentioning along the way: LC’s early books

‘Etude sur le mouvement d’art décoratif en Allemagne’, ‘Apres Le Cubisme’, ‘L’Art decoratif d’aujourdhui’, ‘La peinture moderne’
Adolf Loos
Piranesi’s ‘Campo Marzo’
The Ecole des Beaux Arts
Poché as a heuristic
Christopher Alexander’s ‘A Pattern Language’
Rob Krier ‘Architectural Design’
Greek temples in Athens and Paestum
Michelangelo
Patrick Schumacher’s ’Autopoiesis of Architecture’
at the end I sort of talked rather half-heartedly about Full Luxury Communism

Music is by Lee Rosevere
From the albums ‘Music for Podcasts’ and ‘Music for Podcasts 2’ ‘Musical Mathematics’, ‘Biking in the park’, ‘Featherlight’, ‘Places Unseen’

The outdo is by Mde. Ed. Bolduc ‘J’ai un bouton sur la langue’ archive.org

27 – Le Corbusier – 2 – Oyster and Breezeblock Years

Monday, November 27, 2017 • Duration 42:09

We’re in Paris, 1917, where Charles-Edouard Jeanneret is making friends, thinking about sex (and writing enormous letters about it), designing the occasional mechanised abattoir / concrete garden terrace, going bankrupt, trying to sell concrete blocks to postwar society, inventing a new style of painting, launching a highly costly art magazine, and (finally!) acquiring the name under which he would become famous — Le Corbusier!

One of us had a very creaky chair in this episode. Also we were drinking again. Apologies for both.

We discussed —

The breeze block plant at Alfortville
Societe d'Applications du Beton Arme
a Slaughterhouse at Challuy, near Nevers
(for no good reason) Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ (1906)
- Unbuilt project for a dam
a Water Tower in Podensac
- his meeting and collaboration with Amedée Ozenfant
- Purism as a style in Art — the Tate has a good definition
- Fernand Léger
- L’Esprit Nouveau
Pierre Jeanneret

We’ve been reading —

Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
Oppositions 15-16 (1980)
Catherine de Smet ‘Le Corbusier: Architect of Books’ (2004)

Music —
Charles Trenet ‘Le Retour des Saisons’ archive.org
Victor Marching Bank ‘French Reel’ (1918) archive.org
Jean Sablon ‘Sur Les Quais de Vieux Paris’ (1941) archive.org
Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ (1940)

26 – Le Corbusier – 1 – Have Formwork, Will Travel

Monday, November 13, 2017 • Duration 01:10:19

We’re taking on the origin story of (for better or worse) the most important architect of the 20th century — Charles-Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier. His origins — petit bourgeois, Swiss, provincial — can make his eventual rise to world-enveloping notoriety and era-defining influence seem all the more unlikely. We’re digging into his childhood, family, education and travels as a young man before taking on a couple of early projects.

We discuss —

La Chaux de Fonds
Charles L’Eplattanier, his teacher
Jugendstil & Art Nouveau

Early projects —

Villa Fallet
Villas Stotzer & Jacquemet
Villa Jeanneret
Villa Favre-Jacot

Travels, and meetings with —

Otto Wagner
Josef Hoffmann
Vienna Secession Building
Auguste Perret
Rue Franklin Apartments
Peter Behrens
Mount Athos

And a more detailed look at —

Villa Schwob (including Colin Rowe’s ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’)
Maison Domino

We've been reading —

Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
Oppositions 15-16 (1980)

Music —
The final part of Beethoven’s 9th — the Ode to Joy

An excerpt from — Mahler: Symphony No. 3: iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast from archive.org

Britt Brothers — ‘Alpine Milkman Yodel’ (1933) from archive.org

25 – Palace of the Soviets – Wedding Cake Stalinism

Monday, October 30, 2017 • Duration 01:25:57

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’

24.5 – Blade Runner 2049

Monday, October 23, 2017 • Duration 36:03

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)

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

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24 – Blade Runner – Do You Like Our Owl?

Saturday, September 16, 2017 • Duration 53:40

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.

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23 – Chicago Tribune – 2 of 2 – Honourable Mentions

Saturday, September 2, 2017 • Duration 56:13

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

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About Buildings + Cities – Details, episodes & analysis

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About Buildings + Cities – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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Publication history

Latest published episodes

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