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,A" 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.A"
| ISBN | 1844677001 | | Pages | 408 | | ISBN13 | 9781844677009
(What's this?) | | Weight (grammes) | 499 | | Publisher | Verso Books | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Verso Books | | Height (mm) | 210 | | Format | Paperback | | Width (mm) | 140 | | Publication date | 22 Jun 2011 | | Spine width (mm) | 33 | | DEWEY | 720.94109051 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY edition | DC22 | |
|
|
|
In this angry, fiercely funny book, Owen Hatherley steps forward as the Pevsner of the PFI generation, an erudite, urbane guide to the Ballardian wreckage of millennial Britain. Essential reading for anyone who ever feels their blood start to boil when they hear the word 'regeneration'.A" Hari Kunzru, author of My Revolutions An exhilarating book. Owen Hatherley brings to bear a quizzing eye, venomous wit, supple prose, refusal to curry favour, rejection of received ideas, exhaustive knowledge and all-round bolshiness. This book is as much a marker for an era as English Journey and Outrage were.A" Jonathan Meades
Be the first to write a
customer review
Enlarge
