London

  • The Old White Bear, Hampstead, London (D. Saitta)

    Spare The Bear, For Sustainability’s Sake

    One of the joys of teaching and researching urban issues in London—at least for some of us—is experiencing pub culture and partaking of its liquid assets.  Thus it was with great concern that I read an article in yesterday’s New […]

     
  • Revisiting Post-Olympics Regeneration in London: Is Chobham Manor the New Pruitt-Igoe?

    Revisiting Post-Olympics Regeneration in London: Is Chobham Manor the New Pruitt-Igoe?

    In preparing a report for my university’s Office of Internationalization on last winter’s trip to research Post-Olympics regeneration in London (some preliminary notes are here), I came across this review in The Guardian by Oliver Wainwright.  His piece is pretty critical […]

     
  • View of Shard from Farringdon Road (D. Saitta)

    Mr. Kimmelman Goes to London

    Having just returned from the English capital I was intrigued to learn that the New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman also recently visited London to consider the high rise building craze that we previously discussed here. Mr. Kimmelman’s piece […]

     
  • Built Environment and Culture: Notes Upon Leaving London

    Built Environment and Culture: Notes Upon Leaving London

    LONDON 12 January 2013  A visit to the English capital never disappoints.  Tomorrow I head home to Denver further enriched by what London has to offer. The goal this time was to research the status of post-Olympics East End regeneration and […]

     
  • Credit: Nick Brown

    The Towers of London

    LONDON 4 January 2013.   London is currently experiencing a relative frenzy of high rise building. The existing and proposed structures are known locally by their shapes, including “The Shard,” “The Cheesegrater,” and “The Walkie-Talkie” (or—better in my view—“The Pint”).  Just […]

     
  • A Happy (London) New Year!

    A Happy (London) New Year!

    LONDON, 1 January 2013.  It’s great to be back in the English capital. Last night we celebrated the new year with a few thousand others from a vantage point on Primrose Hill, one of our favorite places in the city.  […]

     
  • London Calling: Investigating Post-Olympics Regeneration in the East End

    London Calling: Investigating Post-Olympics Regeneration in the East End

    An earlier post about London on this blog was inspired by that city’s August 2011 riots.  In reporting the results of Hackney borough research by my former student Kiley Dowling I wondered if the urban improvements promised by London’s “Regeneration Games” […]

     
  • Olympic Stadium, View from Hackney

    A Victory for London’s 99%?

    Last August we wondered, in the course of writing about the London riots, whether that city’s 2012 Olympic Games would live up to their billing as the “Regeneration Games” for the blighted East End where they’ll be located. Michael Powell, […]

     
  • Why is London Burning?

    Why is London Burning?

    Criminologists offer up an array of usual suspects, including social exclusion, poverty, racism, and cultures of violence combined with weak policing.  In an inspired move, The Architects Journal asked a group of architectural thinkers and urbanists whether architecture could have anything […]