A Walk Through Berlin
To arrive at Berlin Hauptbanhof on a train that started in London is to enter the epicentre of the 20th century. In the imagination can be conjured up the Kaiser and his entourage on horseback, decorated like Christmas trees, intrigue noted in scraps of paper that the courtiers hold. Cheering crowds wave fragments of silk…
Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin
The Carl Legien estate was built between 1928 to 1930 with originally 1149 flats. The two architects were Bruno Taut and Franz Hillinger and the project manager was Martin Wagner. Some brief biographical details: Bruno Taut (* 4 May 1880 Königsberg – † 24 December 1938 Istanbul) Taut was an artist and architect and influenced…
London Notes
The journey started at the coast. The never ending sailing of the world’s cargo fleets, container ships, oil tankers, liquid natural gas carriers, specialist, technical craft. Warships, aircraft carriers, nuclear armed submarines beneath the waves. Shadow fleets evading sanctions, funding wars, killing children. As the train emerges from the tunnel under the Thames an industrial…
Bed 22
The nurse places her hand gently and firmly on the patient’s back. She pushes to help him stand up from his sitting position on the hospital bed. As she does so she holds his forearm to provide more support. He manages to rise half way and then drops back onto the bed. “Let’s try again”,…
Suffragettes, Selfridges & Surgical Instruments
This is a walk that takes in a little of Oxford Street, a visit to Selfridges and a meander through parts of Marylebone. There is much to see in this area and several different walks could be created and each would be unique. As with all Radical Walks it’s not just the big ticket stuff,…
Edinburgh; inner life within the city
The bus pulls into Princess Street. I consider how it is that the blue of the sky that I noticed the day before had made its presence felt in my dreams. A blue silk and movement and something so close and yet; a phantom, not real, to try and touch, an impossibility. In the street.…
Duncan Hallas at 100
Duncan Hallas was born on the 23rd December, 1925 into a working class family in Manchester. I shared a flat with Duncan for 2 – 3 years at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. He was a good flat mate; democratic, fair and egalitarian. And of course, if you wanted a discussion about…
The Merchant’s House
It is an occasion to catch up with oneself, to determine the location of here and now, the recent past; the future is always a shadowy blur. One wishes for magic, illusion, enigma, the mystery of light and shade in both harmony and tension draped over the stone and flint of a medieval church. Digital…
Ella Briggs, Karl Marx & Modern Housing
The starting point for this walk is Spittelau U-Bahn. My starting point to get to Spittelau was one of the original Stadtbahn stations designed by Otto Wagner. It was a good introduction. If you take the U-Bahn to Spittelau look for the exit to Heiligenstädter Straße. As you approach this you will see the walkway…
The Radical Housing of Meidling, Vienna
This walk illustrates the scale of the house building by the Red Vienna council between 1919 to 1933. Several of the buildings were designed and constructed in the mid 1920s. There is a feeling here of confidence and optimism. Many of the changes which had been implemented by the social democratic council – a progressive…
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Commodity Fetishism 