A collaboration between About Buildings + Cities and Stories from the Eastern West (@sftewpodcast) — a cool podcast telling little-known stories from Central & Eastern Europe.

We discuss Tomas Bata's modernist shoe-factory Utopia in Zlin, Moravia, his project to create an orderly (and suitably hierarchical) paradise for loyal, productive, clean-living workers, and the spread of his model all over Europe — even as far as Essex!

Thanks a lot to Wojciech and Adam for coming to interview us.

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This is the audio from our ‘In Conversation’ with Adam Caruso, held at Nottingham Contemporary on October the 4th.

You can (and probably should, if you want to know what’s going on) download the slides from the presentation here — https://tinyurl.com/y7gab672

We didn’t get through the whole slideshow, but we’ll talk about what we missed on the second part.

Thanks a lot to Sam, Mercè et al at Nottingham Contemporary…!

And to you, listener, for listening.

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This is the audio from our ‘In Conversation’ with Adam Caruso, held at Nottingham Contemporary on October the 4th.

You can (and probably should, if you want to know what’s going on) download the slides from the presentation here — https://tinyurl.com/y7gab672

We didn’t get through the whole slideshow, but we’ll talk about what we missed on the second part.

Thanks a lot to Sam, Mercè et al at Nottingham Contemporary…!

And to you, listener, for listening.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We discuss the first two volumes of 'Stones of Venice' — the interminable first and dream-like second. Shafts, archivolts, more shafts, rotten and sun-whitened vegetation, encrustation, palaces (Gothic and Byzantine), melancholy ruins, the sound of distant seabirds, and lapis luzuli and gold aplenty.

Thanks for listening — we're gearing up for a productive autumn I hope.

Audio includes — the following site recordings from the Radio Aporee project on archive.org ‘Zadar, Sea Organ - Sea Organ’ by Doro-Koeln (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_8070_23343] ‘In a plane before the flight, 31700 Blagnac, France - Before the flight !’ by claire_sauvaget (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_34599_39770] ‘in the airplane - approaching tokio airport’ by Frank Schulte (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_7538_9283] ’cargo train terminal, Ljubljana - train arrives and stops’ by udo noll (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_15347_17883] ’West Wittering, UK - ships foghorn ... brent geese …’ by david m (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_34620_39791]

Plus music — Chris Zabriskie ‘Cylinder Nine’ from the album ‘Cylinders’ on the (Free Music Archive)[freemusicarchive.org] Waves of the sea — Royal Servian Tamburiza from (archive.org)[https://archive.org/details/78_waves-of-the-sea_royal-servian-tamburitza-orch-savski-volovi_gbia0018162b]

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John Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice’ is one of the monuments of architectural theory in the 19th century. But it’s a hard book to get through, or to get inside. It’s incredibly long, and animated by a kind of moralistic passion that feels a little alien, at best quaint, or childish. Part of the reason is that Ruskin was a Victorian — indeed, one of the great formers of Victorian taste.

We were planning to talk about the first part of the book, but in the end we just spent the whole episode trying to get to grips with what that means. Why was he like this?

We’ll read the first two parts in the next episode. Thanks for being patient!

As usual we got a couple of things wrong — Little Nell is actually in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. Also the number of volumes of ‘modern painters’ isn’t five — there are 7, actually — though often sold as five volumes.

Music — Tita Ruffo ‘Visione Veneziana’

Audio includes — the following site recordings from the Radio Aporee project on archive.org Ksamil, Albanie - Midnight waves / by François-Emmanuel Fodéré (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_25349_29390] 17590 Ars-en-Ré, France - Waves wheeling / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_40307_46036] river Drava, Loka - dry grass, river flow, stones / by OR poiesis (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_25057_29057] larnichtsberg, swallows, crows and insects / by Frank Schulte (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_11544_13596] Venice, Italy - fish market / by Carlos Santos (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_16461_19081] 12230 Nant, France - Nant bells / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_32229_37026] Ksamil, Ksamil island, District de Sarandë, Albanie - Waves and waves / by François-Emmanuel Fodéré (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_30140_34668] Bruges, Belgique - Brugge bells / by Vincent Duseigne (link)[https://archive.org/details/aporee_31798_36523]

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A short post-script to the Space Age episodes — we talked to Fred Scharmen about the mid 1970s NASA Space Settlements design study.

You can read his essay at Places Journal where you can also see a selection of Rick Guidice and Don Davis’s illustrations.

We’ll have a new full episode out very soon — 

Luke's graphic novel is here

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The second part of our discussion of '2001 — A Space Odyssey'.

At a certain point quite early on we started referring to the Monolith as 'the Obelisk' and neither of us noticed. Oh well.

Thanks for listening and let us know your thoughts.

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Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001 a space odyssey is the iconic depiction of space travel, channeling the optimism and excitement of radical advances in space exploration and technology. It’s an uncompromising, utterly singular film, whose vision of a possible future is carried through comprehensively. Its scope and ambition are still basically unequalled. Kubrick is famous for the obsessiveness of his research — in this case bringing in expertise from leading scientists, cutting edge digital pioneers, animators, makers of special effects. As a result, 2001 seems to capture the imagination of a very particular era of technological optimism in the mid 1960s in America and worldwide.

We talk about the film, its amazing worlds and interiors, the Worlds Fairs in Seattle and New York which were a proving ground for many of those involved, as well as passing references to — Chris Marker’s La Jetee
— Charles and Ray Eames
— Xerox PARC
— Superstudio

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. On this episode's bonus — we're talking Osaka Expo and Space habitats.

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The 1990s were when computers really entered the mainstream of architecture. The rise of personal computing, with wider access to inexpensive machines, the world wide web, advances in software and hardware, all took place against the background of global political transformation that at the time was theorised as the End of History, the breakup of the Soviet Union, democratisation, and the apparent rise of a single, global, liberal capitalist world order.

But the exploration of CAD, rendering, generative design and CNC manufacture would all be theorised through a pre-existing set of ideas and agendas, drawing heavily on ‘French theory’ — Derrida, (and particularly) Deleuze — and a partially pre-digested blend of complexity mathematics. We find ourselves — among the blobs, deformed surfaces, landscapes and evolutionary forms — in a world of ‘affective singularities’, ‘the Fold’, pliancy, Catastrophe Theory…

We talk technology, key actors, and attempt a glossary of key concepts…

Under discussion — 
— Frank Gehry’s fish sculpture
— Revit / BIM
— The F117 and B2 defense projects
— Peter Eisenman
— John Frazer
— MIT Computer Lab
— the Bilbao Guggenheim
— Cardiff opera house
— Yokohama ferry terminal
— NOX’s Freshwater and Saltwater pavilions
— The Affective
— Catastrophe Theory
— D’Arcy Thompson
— The Fold
— Singularity
— Max Reinhardt Haus
— Phallogocentrism & Helene Cixous

Recordings are from Peter Eisenman’s Lecture ‘Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media’ (1993) (AA archive)[https://www.aaschool.ac.uk//VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=737]

Music —
Lee Rosevere ‘Quizitive’
Lee Rosevere ‘Curiosity’
Lee Rosevere ‘Thoughtful’ all from (Free Music Archive)[freemusicarchive.org]

Clips of — Awesome 3 ‘Don’t Go’ (1992)
Liquid ‘Sweet Harmony’ (1992)
2 Bad Mice ‘Bombscare’ (1992)
M.A.N.I.C ‘I’m Coming Hardcore’ (Original Mix) (1991)

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We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode.

Projects like the Villa Stein and Villa Savoye are icons of modernist architecture — among the most famous of all modern buildings — images and symbols of what modern architecture is. Below all the machine age crispness, there's also a certain amount of weird bourgeois sex stuff as well.

This is the second part of the conversation we began in episode 37 — it's best to listen to that one first.

Music — 'Easy Living' Bob Howard and his Orchestra from archive.org

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