Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley was born in Southampton, .

Owen Hatherley is a renowned writer, cultural critic, broadcaster, and editor whose career focuses on culture, architecture, politics, and cities. He works freelance and contributes to publications such as Sidecar, Architectural Review, Tribune, and The London Review of Books.

His research and writing have taken him outside the borders of the United Kingdom, as he has written about architecture and cities across North America and Europe.

As an editor, Hatherley edited the culture section of the Tribune before he was appointed commissioning editor at Jacobin. He was also the editor of the annual Open House festival’s Alternative Guide to the London Boroughs. He has also introduced and edited works by other authors.

Owen Hatherly writes and presents a podcast about political change and urbanism known as Inter-Cities. He also created and hosted The Story of Solent City for BBC Radio 4 in addition to making short documentary films about urban development and architecture.

Earlier on, he ran blogs about politics, cities, and architecture. While he no longer actively participates in political and social media debates, he still shares film, photography, and other interests online.

Owen Hatherley has also appeared on radio programs and podcasts and given lectures and talks at bookshops, galleries, and universities worldwide.

Owen Hatherley published his debut work, Militant Modernism, in which he defends modernism as a cultural and political project, as opposed to simply an architectural style.

He explores modern architecture, design, popular culture, and film, challenging how modernism has been turned into luxury or heritage aesthetics. Hatherley discusses prominent figures such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Le Corbusier, and Bertolt Brecht, while also examining less prominent modernists.

The work delves into Brutalist and British industrial design, the work of Hanns Eisler and Brecht, Wilhelm Reich’s Sexpol movement, and Russian Constructivist architecture. The author connects all of these to technology, sexual politics, and socialism.

In the 2015 book Landscapes of Communism, the author explores the architecture and cities created during communist rule in the former Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe.

He draws on transport systems, buildings, monuments, streets, and housing estates to trace the evolution of political ideas and how they shaped urban life. Owen explores the changing styles of communist architecture from early modernist and Constructivist to later concrete and Stalinist grandeur.

His journey takes him from Kyiv to Warsaw, Prague to Berlin, and then to Moscow, as he considers what the collapse of communism left behind, with a particular focus on the approach to city planning, housing, and public spaces.

Moving to London, Owen Hatherley published Red Metropolis, in which he examined municipal socialism in London over the years and its impact on the English capital’s public life, services, and buildings.

The author looks at how local governments turned socialist, from Herbert Morrison and the London County Council to Ken Livingstone and the Greater London Council.

Hatherley explores urban planning, council housing, public services, and public transport, as well as efforts to create a more inclusive and democratic city.
It also examines the 1986 abolition of the Greater London Council and how this changed London's role from then to the present day.

Related Authors

Readers who follow Owen Hatherley also follow these authors:

1. Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower Series.
2. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series.
3. Harlan Coben, author of the Myron Bolitar Series.
4. Daniel Silva, author of the Gabriel Allon Series.
5. Karin Slaughter, author of the Will Trent Series.

Owen Hatherley: F.A.Q