A is for Architecture Podcast

• Sir Charles Saumarez Smith: John Vanbrugh and building as theatre.

  For the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I spoke to architectural historian, writer and curator, Sir Charles Saumarez Smith CBE about his forthcoming book, John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture, which is due out with Lund Humphries in November this year. Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) was an English dramatist turned architect, best known for designing Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace, two of the most ambitious Baroque buildings in Britain. A member of the Whig elite and the Kit-Cat Club, Vanbrugh’s work can be read through the social forms of his times but, as Sir John suggests, more importantly in the context of his unique theatrical imagination as it was revealed through his collaborations with professional architects, like Nicholas Hawksmoor. Mocked in his own life, Vanbrugh is now celebrated as one of England’s most original and daring architects.Sir Charles was chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts (2007-2018), director of the National Gallery (2002 – 2007) and before that, director of the National Portrait Gallery (1994 – 2002). He can, as such, be found everywhere online. You may seek him on LinkedIn and his personal website. The book is linked above.In our own time we are #blessed with #Heatherwick. But back then, they had #Vanbrugh.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Anna Kostreva: Science fiction and architecture.

  For this week’s episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I spoke to Berlin-based writer, architect and activist Anna Kostreva who, with Alex Head, leads Plural Studio, ‘a studio for critical inquiry, publishing and architectural design’. We met to talk about Anna’s novel, Seeing Fire | Seeing Meadows, which she published in 2023.Seeing Fire | Seeing Meadows uses architecture – and an architect narrator - as a way to explore the growing digitisation of everyday urban and spatial life. We talk about this, about the book’s imperative but also about writing, [science] fiction and drawing as a routes to a sort-of triangulated and more shrewd understanding of the world around us.Seeing Fire is linked above. Anna can be found at Plural Studio here, on Instagram here and on LinkedIn here.Have a listen: see things differently.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Holly Smith: High-rise housing in Britain.

  In Episode 167 of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Holly Smith, historian and Research Fellow at/ in St John’s College, University of Cambridge, discuss bits of her forthcoming book, Up in the Air: A History of High Rise Britain, which is out with Verso towards the end of October this year.In Up in the Air, Holly charts the story of Britain’s multistorey council housing—from the post-war construction of estates like Sheffield’s Park Hill to the modern battles to defend them. In the face of the much-publicised failures of high-rise housing to produce the utopian social logics that underpinned them - and punctuated by disaster and explicit tragedy, as at Grenfell - that defence has seemed largely a forlorn one. But were Britain’s high-rise estates really architectural failures? Or were they rather sites where welfare-state ideals were built, contested, and reimagined, as enduring battlegrounds for housing justice?Holly can be found at work here, on Instagram and X. The book is linked above.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: © Bishopsgate Archive/Tower Blocks UK

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• Charlotte Malterre-Barthes: Unmaking architecture.

  In this new episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes spoke with me about her recent book, A Moratorium on New Construction, published by Sternberg Press in 2025 as part of their Critical Spatial Practices series.If a book starts with, ‘To build is to destroy’, things are liable to get pretty exciting (for an architecture fan).  As the bumf puts it – and our chat opens out  - Charlotte’s provocation for a moratorium is in pursuit of a reimagined productive building culture: ‘To pause new construction—even if momentarily, creates a radical thinking framework for alternatives to the current regime of space production and its suspect growth imperative.’Sound good? Yes. It does.Charlotte has a personal website, as well as space at EPFL. She’s on Instagram too.  +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Wayne Hemingway: The housing crisis.

  In this week’s release of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Wayne Hemingway MBE logged on to discuss one of his latest initiatives, The Housing Assembly, a growing movement seek paths out of the housing crisis by amplifying the voices of folk excluded from secure, affordable homes. Aiming to transform lived experiences into influential action and through grassroots initiatives The Housing Assembly is building from the bottom up a collective platform to demand well-built, affordable homes in good places.For those who don’t know, Wayne is a renowned British designer, co-founder with his wife Gerardine Hemingway of the iconic fashion label Red or Dead which delivered affordable, socially conscious design in the 1980s and 1990s. Wayne and Gerardine later establishing HemingwayDesign, a multi-disciplinary design team dedicated to creating positive social impact through culture-led regeneration, urban design, placemaking, branding, and community collaboration. In short Wayne is something like a national treasure, but edgier and more purposeful. An icon of mine since I first encountered his work – and bought a pair of Red or Dead shoes to go on a date - this was a genuine privilege to record. HemingwayDesign can be found here and on Instagram, The Housing Assembly is linked above and is on Instagram and all over SM. Wayne can be found on LinkedIn.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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