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Thamesmead Town
Chris said he preferred Misfits to A Clockwork OrangeThe marshlands of the Thames estuary are bleak and exotic landscapes which allow your imagination and megalomania to flourish. Dickens evoked their...
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Woolwich Equitable?
The American colonies grew restless - Dial ArchSouth East London is another country, off the Frank Pick mind map. South East Trains like to keep it that way with their obtuse and lethargic rail...
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Berlin, Baugruppen & Mental Walls
Will we survive the impending anniversary of World War One? Can I stand any more of Michael Gove’s lectures on patriotism, Dan Snow poncing about in old army uniforms, VAD romances on the telly and...
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Book Launch: Towns in Britain by Jones the Planner
Five Leaves Publishing, Adrian Jones and Chris Matthews are pleased to invite you to the book launch of:Tuesday 24th June 2014, 6.30–8.00pmNottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB...
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Sheffield: This is Hardcore
Sheffield is heroic. It’s like a boxer struggling back to his feet after a series of knock-down blows; down but not out. Sheffield is masculine, raw and powerful. But it is Pittsburg, not Detroit,...
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Three Scandinavian Cities
by Chris MatthewsEven the dead have better welfare – SkogskyrkogårdenA social democratic get-away-from-it-all. Stockholm and Copenhagen were on the itinerary but Malmö was the happy accident. The...
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Wakefield, West Riding
There is a lot to like about Wakefield and a lot to admire, but a visit there will also make you despair about the impotence of planning and architecture in the face of the unbridled power of...
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Hamburg – green, blue and red
Hamburger treat - Landungsbrücken StationIf you want to see waterside regeneration done well, go to Hamburg. If you want a masterclass in sustained and sustainable long term strategic planning, go to...
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We are Leeds!
Broadcasting Place 10, Bridgewater Place 0Leeds is something of a paradox. A sublime city destroyed, if you believe Alan Bennett, whose timbre instantly evokes the city of his childhood, like a foggy...
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Manchester Metropolis
The Alchemist’s Elements, Hans Tisdall Manchester invented the industrial city and in a sense invented the English post-industrial city. Its business today is much about lifestyle and ‘creative...
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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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Bradford Impresses
A classical civilisationBradford impresses. Here, unexpectedly and nestling in the most glorious countryside, is one of the grandest and most distinctive of English cities, a city of fine honey...
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Stockport, Cheshire
Stockport, Cheshire. Well actually Greater Manchester for the last 40 years, although to historians, estate agents and most of its inhabitants it will always be Cheshire. But the town is not situated...
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Garden Cities – An English Illusion
The late night Great Northern trains lull me to sleep in my Finsbury Park pied a terre. As I eat my breakfast I watch the packed commuter trains from places like Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City,...
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Brave New World - Stevenage, Hatfield & the future
A town based on a technological future... now there's a planWe all know the script – garden cities are good, new towns are bad. Garden cities look backwards to the security of nostalgia; new towns...
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Three Scandinavian Cities
by Chris MatthewsEven the dead have better welfare – SkogskyrkogårdenA social democratic get-away-from-it-all. Stockholm and Copenhagen were on the itinerary but Malmö was the happy accident. The...
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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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