Looking back today

‘Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s’ at the Barbican Art Gallery; 13 Sep 2012 – 13 Jan 2013. Reviewed by Pauline Hadaway | 27 September 2012 From iconic portraits of Dylan, Che and Martin Luther King, to history making shots of civil rights marchers, students on the barricades and draft card burning, many of the images that we think of as defining sixties and seventies radicalism remain part of...

Getting planners off our backs

By Alastair Donald | 22 September  ‘This Government means business’ announced David Cameron recently, and that starts with ‘getting planners off our backs’. But as highlighted by recent initiatives which attempt to use design to make us fitter and healthier, planners are meddling more than ever in our personal affairs and lifestyle choices.  There are many aspects of the coalition government’s recent statement on Housing and Growth...

How to win the long jump

Martin Earnshaw | 17 September 2012 Who now regards Athens as a world beating Olympic city? Today, the horror stories of abandoned stadia and rubbish strewn swimming pools, though disputed, are commonplace in media accounts of what happened to the Olympic site. The fear that the Olympic Park of 2012 may too become a wind-swept and neglected wasteland in the heart of a stubbornly run-down East London dominates the never ending debate...

Whatever happened to Utopia?

FILM: ‘Utopia London’ by Tom Cordell, 2010 Reviewed by Rowan Morrice | 14 September 2012 It’s not often we hear about Utopia these days. An idea which used to be identified with the future, is now a purely historic phenomenon. Today when it seems we can only imagine a dystopian future, this film presents a nostalgic look back at the Modern movement in 20th Century London.  The film charts, through a series of key...

FROM THE FUTURE CITIES ARCHIVE

Lost in Space’ by Greg Klerkx: A review by Martin Earnshaw Neil Armstrong, who died last month, encapsulated humanity’s desire for exploration and discovery, and is believed to have been dismayed at NASA’s diminished ambitions. Here Martin Earnshaw assesses Klerkx’s claim that NASA is the main barrier to realising a human future in space.  ‘Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age’...

As China is getting bolder the West is losing confidence

Austin Williams | Monday 3rd September 2012 LIVING and working in China – where I teach urban design to eager architecture students – is a constant adventure. Unlike the UK, where we seem to spend our time discussing what, how or even whether to build, it is exciting to be in a country that is actually doing it. China is building 20 cities a year. Britain hasn’t built a city in the last 50 years, instead imbuing existing towns with...

The Olympics… as seen from the other side of the world

Xu Xiangru | 01 September 2012 Despite the pessimism in advance of the games, in the UK they have been widely viewed as a success. Here a Chinese student reflects on what the Olympics mean to the Chinese at a special period in their history.  From Sun Yang’s world record in the 1500m freestyle to Ye Shiwen in the women’s 400m individual medley, shocking news has never been far away from the media coverage of these Olympics in China....

Emerging Africa

‘Emerging Africa: how 17 countries are leading the way’ by Steven C. Radelet; Center for Global Development, 2010. 169pp Reviewed by Joel Cohen | 22 August 2012 On the 50th anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe was asked “Are things really falling apart or are they starting to come back together in Africa?” His reply was incisive: “It’s always happening both of them. It depends on where you...

Video test

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CHINA The progress of an emerging superpower undergoing the largest urbanisation project in human...