Ivan Leonidov’s City of the Sun
An unexpected opportunity to see images from Ivan Leonidov’s City of the Sun series at The Design Museum’s Imagine Moscow exhibition.
An unexpected opportunity to see images from Ivan Leonidov’s City of the Sun series at The Design Museum’s Imagine Moscow exhibition.
When brilliant Soviet cyberneticist Viktor Glushkov designed a blueprint for a computerised planning system, the Soviet Union looked on track to become web pioneers. In the end, however, there was to be no digital network.
The Chaplin Machine: Slapstick, Fordism and the Communist Avant-Garde by Owen Hatherley explores the Soviet intelligentia’s fascination with the America of the early 20th century, a mythic land of technological wonders, vast mechanised industries, spectacular cityscapes and the startling new medium of cinema.
The Battle for Home: The Memoir of a Syrian Architect by Marwa al-Sabouni is a profound, understated meditation on architecture’s capacity both to civilise and destroy, written while the author witnessed first-hand the destruction of her native city of Homs.
Some time in the mid-1970s a student came to London from Iraq with a vision of how architecture could remake the world. Remarkably – and eventually – she succeeded.
Johan Cruyff, who died last week, was the most influential figure in the history of modern football. Nobody has had a comparable impact as both a player and manager.
During last week’s Roman excursion I was able to make a brief visit to a part of the city I’ve wanted to see for some time, the EUR district located a few underground stops south of the centre.