Modernism – Collectaholics S2 E1 – BBC
April 30th, 2015
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A clip I found by accident while changing channels on the TV one morning. A quick precis of 1950s architecture.
“Certainly for me understanding more about the history behind this architecture has given me a deeper appreciation and respect for their vision of a brighter tomorrow” – Jasmine Harman
Buy back right to buy leaseholds
April 26th, 2015
Perched in London is somebody I have a lot of time for. Working in the housing sector and with extensive knowledge of the problems faced by the elderly who undertook right to buy while being poorly advised in many cases, @cityeyrie is acutely aware of the problems faced as councils routinely land leaseholders with bills for thousands of pounds at the wrong end of their lives when many if not all would have been better off remaining as council tenants.
Architectural Review – C20th Housing
April 25th, 2015
This article is worth reading
“As large housing estates are being demolished and the age of great social democracies recedes, taking with it any notion of an architecture for the public, OMA partner Reinier de Graaf asks if there is any alternative to building capital”
Cressingham Gardens: ITV London News
April 16th, 2015
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Last night ITV devoted their programme to the London housing crisis in the course of which they visited Cressingham Gardens Estate. That clip is linked above and the 30m programme from the link below.
Sorry the clips are no longer on Youtube. If you have access to them please let me know and I will re-link them.
Labour has allowed the Conservatives to frame its politics
April 15th, 2015
George Monbiot is well worth reading in today’s Guardian, here are a few extracts . . .
In reality, the deficit should rank somewhere in the low hundreds on the list of political priorities. It’s a con; an excuse for redrafting the social contract on behalf of the elite. But Labour has meekly acquiesced to this agenda, disputing only the extent of its application.
By accepting your opponents’ frame, you reinforce their power, allowing them to pull the entire polity into their own arena. No Labour capitulation has been as extreme and catastrophic as the one with which it begins this year’s manifesto.
[…]
Five more years of Tory rule?
April 14th, 2015
Update 2017 Volunteers help preserve London’s parks as funding withdrawn
Tax the rich: an animated fairy tale
A while back when I was still on Twitter (yes I know) I came across this animated video about unrestrained neo-liberalism. Despite retweeting it at the time it didn’t take off. I was surprised because to me it is an accurate graphic representation of what is and has been happening to our society in the UK since 1979.
It ties in with an analysis I did a while back of a Stuart Hall paper where he examines what will happen if neo-liberalism is allowed to continue to dictate policy in public life.
Thatcher reviewed in the Architects Journal
April 14th, 2015
High Rise Dreams
A good article from the 11th in the AJ which makes good if uncomfortable reading for those of us who remember the years before it was all dismantled.
The biggest impact on the profession was the closure of the vast majority of public sector architect departments. In-house council teams had employed thousands of architects across the country.
What Uk Labour ought to do – Guardian
April 10th, 2015
The first clear chance for years to differentiate themselves, to renounce austerity and commit to a genuine Labour manifesto, sod the Mail, renationalise, reunionise, tax the rich, protect the poor, FIGHT FOR THE WORKING CLASS WHICH IS TECHNICALLY THEIR ****ING PURPOSE and all they can offer is the Vegetarian Option
I don’t read the Guardian in order to be told what to think, I read it because their editorial views are the most closely aligned with my own. In most cases. This applies today where they summarise responses from a readers’ survey leading to a list of 10 things their readers think ought to be in the manifesto but which are not:-
Right to buy replacement costs
April 8th, 2015
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