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Nottingham - A Reluctant City
Historic patterns and new technology - there's something in thatAfter ‘The Killing’ Birger Larsen has moved the action of ‘Murder’ from Copenhagen to Nottingham. He thinks Nottingham is exotic. Well,...
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Self Build & the Amsterdam School
The Amsterdam School - too brilliant for wordsIn 2010 the new Planning Minister Nick Boles pronounced that he and the Coalition leaders did not believe planning can work: ‘chaotic in our vocabulary is...
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Hackney Hipsters
Broadway MarketHackney is one of the best places to observe the dramatic changes brought by the age of triumphant neo-liberalism to London and British society. Here on the edge of the City of London,...
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Big City Brum
Keep the ZigguratBirmingham is Britain’s second city in a statistical sense – its largest local authority with a population of over a million. But it doesn’t feel like Britain’s second city. How can it...
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Clerkenwell Cool
A visual delight at Golden LaneClerkenwell was cool before Hoxton was hip. It is stuffed full of architects, designers and creative types and has a minimalist self confidence rather different from...
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High Speed 2 Nowhere
"Bend an ear and listen to my version...."I s’pose I’d better admit that I used to be a train spotter, although you’ve probably guessed that already. I was in short trousers when I ‘copped’ Evening...
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Elephant & Cynicism
Modernism & road engineeringWhen my parents first took me to London we got the Bakerloo line from Paddington and as the tube train came thundering out of the tunnel I saw its name was ‘Elephant’....
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Naples Funiculi, Funicula
Cities alien to one another can share similar circumstancesA few days spent in Napoli give cause for some reflections on similarities and differences with Blighty. At first sight you may think there...
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Bristol Fashion
With Bristol it’s difficult to know where to begin. Here is a place with probably the finest architectural legacy of any city in England outside London, a superb location, thrilling townscape, Georgian...
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Exeter Phoenix
Exeter is a smaller version of Bristol without the attitude. Or rather it has the comfortable, complacent sense of a town which has done well for itself. Sited at the head of the Exe Estuary, quite...
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Civilising London Spaces
Tackling oligarchy: wider pavementsLondon is the richest city in the country and its wealth is conspicuously, often obscenely, displayed. At the same time public spending per capita is higher in London...
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Leith - Sea town mirage
"Hope for me, I hope for you..."Edinburgh in the Festival is at once magnificent, tawdry, chaotic and wonderfully enjoyable. This riotous collision of artistic creativity, street bonhomie,...
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The Universities of Leicester
By Chris MatthewsLeicester is a red brick city and appropriately home to the last of the “red brick” universities. It is also home to De Montfort University, named after the alleged progenitor of...
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Glasgow - city of misguided ambitions
The power of the grid - St Vincent StreetI find geology hard to grasp – those incomprehensible time scales all in three dimensions. But I have just about got the concept of continental drift, which...
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Lincoln – a success story
By Adrian Jones & Chris MatthewsLincoln contemporary - The TerraceLincolnshire, the second largest historic county, is the English equivalent of a fly-over state. Agricultural, sparsely populated...
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Burton upon Trent
by Chris MatthewsBurton on Trent is synonymous with beer. By the late C19th the scale of the brewing industry was global and the industry’s unique historical fabric still shapes the character of the...
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Huddersfield Town
Queensgate Market - one of the great sights of Modernist BritainA generation ago Ian Nairn refereed an architectural and townscape match between Huddersfield Town and close rivals Halifax. His final...
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Glasgow Revisited
You can stick your Englishman's castle - Camphill AvenueWith Scottish secession a distinct possibility we face the horrifying prospect of a permanent Tory Westminster. Even worse, the ex-industrial...
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Bankside, Borough & Bermondsey
Vulliamy's sturgeon - the origin of municipal design in LondonThe annoying thing about exploring London these days is that in virtually all long views the Shard will pop up. It is like an irritating...
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Hull: City of Culture
Distinctive and brilliantSo, Hull – City of Culture 2017 - Cinderella shall go to the ball. Hull, forever propping up the league tables of social and economic failures (the latest for ‘inner city urban...
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