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Loading... A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain (2012)| 55 | 2 | 474,484 | 
(4.5) | 1 | This is what austerity looks like: a nation surviving on the results of what conservatives privately call "the progressive nonsense" of the Big Society agenda. In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, but takes in Belfast, Aberdeen, Plymouth and Brighton, Hatherley explores modern Britain's urban landscape and finds a short-sighted disarray of empty buildings, malls and glass towers. Yet while A New Kind of Bleak anatomizes "broken Britain," Hatherley also looks to a hopeful future and discovers fragments of what it might look like. Illustrated by Laura Oldfield Ford, author and artist of Savage Messiah.… (more) |
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| Epigraph |
... We wanted something new, and we
Would sacrifice most anything
(Well, decorum definitely)
To get our gawky, sky-jostling
Ruck with nature set in knifey
Portland stone. Of course, I know
Time hasn't widened out the way
We reckoned all those years ago.
You plan for that, allow for that.
I know the building might have housed
The odd careerist democrat
Or two, and yes, we missed
Our chance to make a truly ideal
Hive, a fair organic whole.
That too was calculable.
Facts played their usual role.
What niggles like a buzzing clock
Are certain Belgian sightseers,
How they so leisurely mock
Our bid to level with the stars,
How smiling artisans can stare
Me dead in the eye, ecstatically
Perplexed when I say future.
We wanted something new, you see.
- Alex Niven  | |
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It is always difficult to return to Britain. One of the most painful places to arrive is via Luton Airport; or, to give it its full title, 'London Luton Airport', demoting a town of over 100,000 people to a mere adjunct of the Great Wen. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English (1)
▾Book descriptions This is what austerity looks like: a nation surviving on the results of what conservatives privately call "the progressive nonsense" of the Big Society agenda. In a journey that begins and ends in the capital, but takes in Belfast, Aberdeen, Plymouth and Brighton, Hatherley explores modern Britain's urban landscape and finds a short-sighted disarray of empty buildings, malls and glass towers. Yet while A New Kind of Bleak anatomizes "broken Britain," Hatherley also looks to a hopeful future and discovers fragments of what it might look like. Illustrated by Laura Oldfield Ford, author and artist of Savage Messiah. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
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