Open City

InterCities is a six-part podcast series from Open City. In it, we travel to a number of cities and boroughs around the world that have transformed over time to discover what we can learn from these places’ achievements, struggles, successes and mistakes.In this episode, our host Owen Hatherley is joined by the Ukranian architect and urban historian Ievgeniia Gubkina. Gubkina was born in the northeastern Ukranian city of Kharkiv and lived there until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after which she fled with her teenage daughter and now lives in London in exile. Today, she talks to us about her upcoming publication “Kharkiv Architectural Guide” and we use it as a lens through which to explore the city’s changing architectural iterations. From a university hub to the capital of Soviet Ukraine​, the avant-garde scene in the 1920s to the Stalinist-era "reconstruction" of Kharkiv's modernist buildings, we get a deep insight into the city’s past and a sober reminder of its present.TW: The content of this episode can be distressing for some people as it mentions suicide. If this affects you, contact the Samaritans, a free and confidential service available 24 hours a day. https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos

In this episode, host Fran Williams is joined by the architect Daniel Innes, committee member of Architecture LGBT+ to discuss: The Mayor of London concedes to green belt housing  // Five competing visions for a new Queen Elizabeth II memorial revealed // New plans announced to upgrade the Barbican Centre  // And a sneak peek inside LGBT+ issue of the Architects’ Journal’sTo help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City friend by clicking here.The Brief is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate. To book a free day pass follow this link.The Brief is produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, and the C20 Society.Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.The Brief is also supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.

In this episode of Deconstructed, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by Calvin Po, Strategic Lead at Dark Matter Labs, Unit Master at the Architectural Association and architecture critic at The Spectator. They discuss 159 Marlborough Road, a house on a typical suburban street in Romford, which was the scene in 1954 of a tragic death resulting from Compulsory Purchase powers created by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act.The content of this episode can be distressing for some people as it mentions suicide. If this affects you, contact the Samartians, a free and confidential service available 24 hours a day. https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.

In this episode, host Fran Williams is joined by Stella Mutegi, founding director of Cave Bureau and co-curator of the British Pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Architecture and ‘colonial afterlives’ take centre stage in this year’s British Pavilion at Venice // Gaza’s reconstruction hangs in the balance as Israel vows 'indefinite' military occupation // Proliferating space debris threatening to leave Earth’s orbit an impenetrable junkyard // And a new space dedicated to tackling climate change at Kew GardensTo help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City friend by clicking here.The Brief is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate. To book a free day pass follow this link.The Brief is produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, and the C20 Society.The Brief is also supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.

InterCities is a brand new podcast from the team at Open City. In this six-part series, we travel to a number of cities and boroughs around the world that have transformed over time to discover what we can learn from these places’ achievements, struggles, successes and mistakes.In this episode, our host Owen Hatherley is joined by the author and academic Dubravka Sekulić. Sekulić was born in one of Serbia’s lesser-known cities Niš but today, she’s walking us through the capital of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and current capital of Serbia, Belgrade. As we find out, the history of Belgrade’s built-environment is influenced not only by attempts at constructing a socialist state, but also by its notable role in the Non-Aligned Movement, a forum of 120 countries not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc that sprung up after the Second World War. It’s also been shaped by Energoprojekt, an engineering firm which built an enormous number of projects across Serbia and other non-aligned countries in Africa and Asia in the latter half of the 20th century. Ultimately, we learn it’s the city’s historical and political status as a regional outlier that makes it the complex, yet often overlooked, place it is today. Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos

In this episode of Deconstructed, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by Ewan Harrison, architectural historian and lecturer at the Manchester School of Architecture, University of Manchester. They discuss Euston Station, designed by William Robert Headley and Ray Moorcroft of British Railways in the early 1960s, in consultation with Richard Seifert, who later designed the commercial office scheme which surrounded the concourse on the south side.Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.

On The Brief this week, host Fran Williams is joined by Peter George, Strategic Director of Economy and Sustainability at Ealing Council. Government announces a £2 billion pound boost for affordable and social homes // Design Council warns ‘typical’ approach to new homes may derail zero carbon goals // Studio Egret West reveals plans for the UK’s largest office-to-residential conversion in Croydon // And the London homes pushing raw sewage directly into the Thames To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City friend by clicking here.The Brief is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate. To book a free day pass follow this link.The Brief is produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, and the C20 Society.The Brief is also supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.

InterCities is a brand new podcast from the team at Open City. In this six-part series, we travel to a number of cities and boroughs around the world that have transformed over time to discover what we can learn from these places’ achievements, struggles, successes and mistakes.In our second episode, our host Owen Hatherley is joined by the broadcaster, writer and photographer Johny Pitts. Johny is a Sheffield-native and has witnessed first-hand the huge social and architectural change the city has undergone since the early 1990s. Today, we use photographs from "After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024" a roving exhibition Johny has curated, to track the cities shifting identity from the so-called Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire to a city where leisure and comfort are the new guiding principles. Subscribe to the Open City Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud or iTunesThe Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage.The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau. Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate.To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend.Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos