A Sunday Afternoon Walk. On the Hernalser Hauptstrasse there is a Turkish baker’s that sells the most delicious bread rolls and Mohnkuchen. The inside of the bread is as fluffy as one imagines a cloud to be. The outer crust just the right amount of crisp. I slice through the bread rolls and spread thickContinue reading “Josef Wiedenhofer Hof”
Category Archives: Housing
Goethehof, Vienna: First Impressions
What follows is just a word-sketch of an afternoon visit to Goethehof in Vienna. I have flawed conversational German, have never visited any archive in Vienna (although I would like to) and have access to only a small number of books while I’m staying in the city. But sometimes impressions can be useful in termsContinue reading “Goethehof, Vienna: First Impressions”
Serendipity in the Rabenhof
To walk around Rabenhof is to step into an imagined world of what London could have been. Instead, London has been taken over by big capital; capital from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, the Kuwaiti Sovereign Wealth Fund, Chinese companies, and a whole layer of global criminals that use the London property market toContinue reading “Serendipity in the Rabenhof”
Solve the housing crisis? Tax the Rich
The mantra of the right wing press in Britain is low taxation. But in reality this low taxation only really applies to the rich. Global organisations investing in large developments in London are given tax exemptions. There are many companies which pay low or no tax by using shell companies, tax havens and expensive lawyers.Continue reading “Solve the housing crisis? Tax the Rich”
The Domination of Capitalist Relations of Production over the Spontaneous Possibilities of Life
Did London once feel like a more proletarian city? There are still many proletarians. But where is the new working class in the new proletarian city? There are no large organised industries in manufacturing or warehousing. The public sector retains some union organisation, universities too; and transport. But there is little sign of organisation orContinue reading “The Domination of Capitalist Relations of Production over the Spontaneous Possibilities of Life”
Bon Weekend
The train from Reims to Nancy moves in a dream-like state through the French countryside. Waves of hills and hedgerows, yellow fields of rape crop, clusters of trees on the horizon, deep greens of ripening wheat and barley. There are low lying clouds and as the train hits them at speed they burst and fillContinue reading “Bon Weekend”
The Hallucinatory Nature of the Expansion of Capital
Emerging from Vauxhall station is to be switched rather rapidly from the modernism of electrical underground travel to…..what exactly? Wide six lane roads with cars moving in all directions. It is a giant conveyor belt of motorism and stretches all around the world. From the edge of the road it appears to be a swirlingContinue reading “The Hallucinatory Nature of the Expansion of Capital”
Ramsgate, the welfare state and a new born baby
Early Saturday morning. I’m talking to one of the people who works at the station. We are always comparing notes as to when we might be able to retire.‘I just want to go now’, she says, ‘I like my job, but there’s too much politics and too much unfairness’.I totally agree with her. And byContinue reading “Ramsgate, the welfare state and a new born baby”
Siedlung Schillerpark
Most of the good stuff about housing, urban topographies, planning, environments, living space has already been written. Jane Jacobs, Catherine Bauer, Christopher Alexander, Raymond Unwin, William Morris, Bruno Taut, Camillo Sitte and many others. I doubt anyone is going to improve much on that substantial mass of work. And if even 10 percent of whatContinue reading “Siedlung Schillerpark”
Pimlico, revisited
I walked through Pimlico several times earlier this year. Before more war had started. There was the brink of a new war then in those nervous days in January and early February. Threats and violations. No one was sure that it would happen. When it did, I remember thinking, ‘so this is how it starts’.Continue reading “Pimlico, revisited”
Commodity Fetishism 