The Urbanist

We take a tour of six distinctive East London churches designed by 18th-century English architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, tracing their history from the first brick to their influence on US postmodernism and UK brutalism.

We take a tour of six distinctive East London churches designed by 18th-century English architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, tracing their history from the first brick to their influence on US postmodernism and UK brutalism.

How do you design and develop spaces for specific groups and activities? And how do these spaces affect the urban fabric of our cities? The use of public areas guides the way we connect with one another, so it’s important to get it right. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We visit a collection of buildings in the Slovenian capital with an intriguing history and an equally compelling present. Metelkova, once a military stronghold, now exists as a countercultural epicentre and, although it’s officially a squat, is actively supported by the mayor and city council. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Purpose planned and purpose built, the new-towns movement sought to let some air out of congested industrialised centres after the Second World War. But how have these towns fared and could a fresh wave of them be the cure to some of the 21st century’s urban ailments? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We take to the water in Bangkok to explore the khlongs, a vast network of canals that crisscross the Southeast Asian city. Home to bustling commuters, tottering tourists and floating markets, these still-thriving waterways are the city’s ancient lifeblood. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With an influential audience of city mayors, urban planners and architects, this is Monocle’s guide to making better cities, be it new technology, state-of-the-art subways or compact apartments. Nominee in the Smartest Podcast category of the 2019 British Podcast awards. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We visit Thomas Heatherwick’s often lambasted Vessel, in New York’s Hudson Yards development, to see whether pointed prose or people power is a better judge of character when it comes to unusual structures. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We decamp to Prague to join the 1,000+ attendees at this year’s reSITE conference. Exploring the theme of regeneration, we bring you conversations and contemplations from some of the most interesting names in the urban-planning world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re off to Moscow to look at one of the best-known examples of Constructivist architecture: Moisei Ginzburg’s iconic Narkomfin building. Designed to embody the early-Soviet ideal of communal living but soon falling out of favour with the Kremlin, the building fell into disrepair until Ginzburg’s grandson Alexei led much-needed renovations in 2017. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.