A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain

A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain PDF Author: Owen Hatherley
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678571
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
An anatomy of failed-state Britain, by the author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. In A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley skewered New Labour’s architectural legacy in all its witless swagger. Now, in the year of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, he sets out to describe what the Coalition’s altogether different approach to economic mismanagement and civic irresponsibility is doing to the places where the British live. In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, Hatherley takes us from Plymouth and Brighton to Belfast and Aberdeen, by way of the eerie urbanism of the Welsh valleys and the much-mocked splendour of modernist Coventry. Everywhere outside the unreal Southeast, the building has stopped in towns and cities, which languish as they wait for the next bout of self-defeating austerity. Hatherley writes with unrivalled aggression about the disarray of modern Britain, and yet this remains a book about possibilities remembered, about unlikely successes in the midst of seemingly inexorable failure. For as well as trash, ancient and modern, Hatherley finds signs of the hopeful country Britain once was and hints of what it might become.

A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain

A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain PDF Author: Owen Hatherley
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678571
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 435

Get Book Here

Book Description
An anatomy of failed-state Britain, by the author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. In A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley skewered New Labour’s architectural legacy in all its witless swagger. Now, in the year of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, he sets out to describe what the Coalition’s altogether different approach to economic mismanagement and civic irresponsibility is doing to the places where the British live. In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, Hatherley takes us from Plymouth and Brighton to Belfast and Aberdeen, by way of the eerie urbanism of the Welsh valleys and the much-mocked splendour of modernist Coventry. Everywhere outside the unreal Southeast, the building has stopped in towns and cities, which languish as they wait for the next bout of self-defeating austerity. Hatherley writes with unrivalled aggression about the disarray of modern Britain, and yet this remains a book about possibilities remembered, about unlikely successes in the midst of seemingly inexorable failure. For as well as trash, ancient and modern, Hatherley finds signs of the hopeful country Britain once was and hints of what it might become.

Wild Ruins

Wild Ruins PDF Author: Dave Hamilton
Publisher: Wild Things Publishing
ISBN: 9781910636022
Category : Castles
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Discover and explore Britain's extraordinary history through its most beautiful lost ruins. From crag-top castles to crumbling houses lost in ancient forest, and ivy-encrusted relics of industry to sacred places long since over-grown.

Landscapes of Communism

Landscapes of Communism PDF Author: Owen Hatherley
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1620971895
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
When communism took power in Eastern Europe it remade cities in its own image, transforming everyday life and creating sweeping boulevards and vast, epic housing estates in an emphatic declaration of a noncapitalist idea. The regimes that built them are now dead and long gone, but from Warsaw to Berlin, Moscow to postrevolutionary Kiev, the buildings remain, often populated by people whose lives were scattered by the collapse of communism. Landscapes of Communism is a journey of historical discovery, plunging us into the lost world of socialist architecture. Owen Hatherley, a brilliant, witty, young urban critic shows how power was wielded in these societies by tracing the sharp, sudden zigzags of official communist architectural style: the superstitious despotic rococo of high Stalinism, with its jingoistic memorials, palaces, and secret policemen’s castles; East Germany’s obsession with prefabricated concrete panels; and the metro systems of Moscow and Prague, a spectacular vindication of public space that went further than any avant-garde ever dared. Throughout his journeys across the former Soviet empire, Hatherley asks what, if anything, can be reclaimed from the ruins of Communism—what residue can inform our contemporary ideas of urban life?

A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain

A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain PDF Author: Owen Hatherley
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1844677001
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Back in 1997, New Labour came to power amid much talk of regenerating the inner cities left to rot under successive Conservative governments. Over the next decade, British cities became the laboratories of the new enterprise economy: glowing monuments to finance, property speculation, and the service industry—until the crash. In A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Owen Hatherley sets out to explore the wreckage—the buildings that epitomized an age of greed and aspiration. From Greenwich to Glasgow, Milton Keynes to Manchester, Hatherley maps the derelict Britain of the 2010s: from riverside apartment complexes, art galleries and amorphous interactive “centers,” to shopping malls, call centers and factories turned into expensive lofts. In doing so, he provides a mordant commentary on the urban environment in which we live, work and consume. Scathing, forensic, bleakly humorous, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain is a coruscating autopsy of a get-rich-quick, aspirational politics, a brilliant, architectural “state we’re in.”

Walking the Great North Line

Walking the Great North Line PDF Author: Robert Twigger
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1474609074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Robert Twigger, poet and travel author, was in search of a new way up England when he stumbled across the Great North Line. From Christchurch on the South Coast to Old Sarum to Stonehenge, to Avebury, to Notgrove barrow, to Meon Hill in the midlands, to Thor's Cave, to Arbor Low stone circle, to Mam Tor, to Ilkley in Yorkshire and its three stone circles and the Swastika Stone, to several forts and camps in Northumberland to Lindisfarne (plus about thirty more sites en route). A single dead straight line following 1 degree 50 West up Britain. No other north-south straight line goes through so many ancient sites of such significance. Was it just a suggestive coincidence or were they built intentionally? Twigger walks the line, which takes him through Birmingham, Halifax and Consett as well as Salisbury Plain, the Peak district, and the Yorkshire moors. With a planning schedule that focused more on reading about shamanism and beat poetry than hardening his feet up, he sets off ever hopeful. He wild-camps along the way, living like a homeless bum, with a heart that starts stifled but ends up soaring with the beauty of life. He sleeps in a prehistoric cave, falls into a river, crosses a 'suicide viaduct' and gets told off by a farmer's wife for trespassing; but in this simple life he finds woven gold. He walks with others and he walks alone, ever alert to the incongruities of the edgelands he is journeying through.

Wordsmiths and Warriors

Wordsmiths and Warriors PDF Author: David Crystal
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191645117
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
Wordsmiths and Warriors explores the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. It unites the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the poets, scholars, reformers, and others who helped create its character. The book relates a real journey. David and Hilary Crystal drove thousands of miles to produce this fascinating combination of English-language history and travelogue, from locations in south-east Kent to the Scottish lowlands, and from south-west Wales to the East Anglian coast. David provides the descriptions and linguistic associations, Hilary the full-colour photographs. They include a guide for anyone wanting to follow in their footsteps but arrange the book to reflect the chronology of the language. This starts with the Anglo-Saxon arrivals in Kent and in the places that show the earliest evidence of English. It ends in London with the latest apps for grammar. In between are intimate encounters with the places associated with such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth; the biblical Wycliffe and Tyndale; the dictionary compilers Cawdrey, Johnson, and Murray; dialect writers, elocutionists, and grammarians, and a host of other personalities. Among the book's many joys are the diverse places that allow warriors such as Byrhtnoth and King Alfred to share pages with wordsmiths like Robert Burns and Tim Bobbin, and the unexpected discoveries that enliven every stage of the authors' epic journey.

The Spiritual Traveler

The Spiritual Traveler PDF Author: Martin Palmer
Publisher: Hidden Spring
ISBN: 9781587680021
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Here is a unique guide book that takes us on a journey across the rural and urban landscapes of Britain, and helps us to discover and explore a multitude of sacred sites: ancient stone circles and tombs, Christian and pre-Christian shrines, medieval synagogues, small country churches and much more.

Militant Modernism

Militant Modernism PDF Author: Owen Hatherley
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780997353
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Militant Modernism is a defence against Modernism's many detractors. It looks at design, film and architecture - especially architecture — and pursues the notion of an evolved modernism that simply refuses to stop being necessary. Owen Hatherley gives us new ways to look at what we thought was familiar — Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, even Vladimir Mayakovsky. Through Hatherley's eyes we see all of the quotidian modernists of the 20th century - lesser lights, too — perhaps understanding them for the first time. Whether we are looking at Britain's brutalist aesthetics, Russian Constructivism, or the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich, the message is clear. There is no alternative to Modernism.

English Ruins

English Ruins PDF Author: Jeremy Musson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781858945439
Category : Abandoned buildings
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The English landscape is steeped in ruins. Markers of the nation’s rich and often turbulent history, ruins represent not only the passing of time but also the constant presence of the past. In English Ruins, renowned architectural historian Jeremy Musson explores some of England’s most evocative derelict and abandoned buildings, from churches, castles and forts to country houses, industrial works and even entire villages. Following a wide-ranging introduction examining the role of the English ruin in defining the nation’s identity, Musson surveys each of the featured sites, revealing its past, present and future in fascinating detail. Lavishly illustrated throughout with stunning images by Paul Barker, one of the country’s foremost architectural photographers, English Ruins is an invaluable guide to a much-loved aspect of English history.

DK Eyewitness Road Trips Great Britain

DK Eyewitness Road Trips Great Britain PDF Author: DK Eyewitness
Publisher: DK Eyewitness Travel
ISBN: 9780241670514
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
With its idyllic market towns, romantic castle ruins and stunning natural landscapes, Great Britain is the perfect destination for a leisurely road trip. It's yours to explore with Road Trips Great Britain, which contains 25 drives across the country, from the sweeping sandy beaches of Cornwall to the dramatic peaks of the Scottish Highlands. Packed with insider tips and information, this easy-to-use guide reveals Great Britain at its best: spectacular sights, hidden gems and authentic local experiences. DK Eyewitness Road Trips Great Britain is your ticket to the trip of a lifetime. Inside DK Eyewitness Road Trips Great Britain you will find: - 25 easy-to-follow driving tours, each lasting one to five days, including sleepy Cotswold villages, the majestic unspoiled waters of the Lake District and scenic Brecon Beacons National Park - A laminated pull-out road map of Great Britain helps you navigate with ease - Ideas for discovering the character of each area en route: great views, delightful detours along peaceful back roads, walks through historic towns and villages, wine tours and boat trips, and activities such as hiking, cycling and kayaking. - Best local experiences with our pick of the most authentic places to stay, eat and shop - All the British rules of the road, postcodes for use with satnav and detailed directions for easy navigation, information on road conditions and parking tips - Covers: Cornwall, Devon, the Jurassic Coast, Salisbury, Bath, Glastonbury, the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the South Downs, Brighton, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, the Brecon Beacons, West Wales, Snowdonia, Offa's Dyke, the Peak District, Yorkshire, the Lake District, Northumbria, Edinburgh, Fife, the Scottish Highlands, the Scottish Lochs, Aberdeen, Inverness, and more Looking for even more inspiration for your trip to Great Britain? Try our DK Eyewitness Great Britain. About DK Eyewitness: At DK Eyewitness, we believe in the power of discovery. We make it easy for you to explore your dream destinations. DK Eyewitness travel guides have been helping travellers to make the most of their breaks since 1993. Filled with expert advice, striking photography and detailed illustrations, our highly visual DK Eyewitness guides will get you closer to your next adventure. We publish guides to more than 200 destinations, from pocket-sized city guides to comprehensive country guides. Named Top Guidebook Series at the 2020 Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards, we know that wherever you go next, your DK Eyewitness travel guides are the perfect companion.