argumentation (and architecture) done right: Modernist architecture: (SOCIALIST) utopias in the sky

Modernist architecture: utopias in the sky
illustration by Tim Sanders

Owen Hatherley argues that modernist architecture was born out of 
socialist revolution, and the left should reclaim its pioneering spirit
....
‘It looks like a concrete spaceship from the planet Crap.” This quip 
from a member of the public in the Channel 4 programme Demolition, about 
Cumbernauld town centre, is our typical reaction to the naive utopianism 
of British modern architecture.

Nowadays we supposedly know better than to try to create new 
architectural forms. So we let the destruction of our cities hide behind 
pitched roofs and redbrick facades, in endless shopping centres and 
interminable Barratt Homes suburbia.

Modernism in architecture is often dismissed by the left as much as by 
the right. In these pages last year, Stirling Howieson argued that the 
theories of the notorious modernist architect Le Corbusier were akin to 
those of Baron Haussmann, who famously redesigned Paris to prevent 
insurrection.
....

cont'd....
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8438