Militant Modernism

By: Owen Hatherley

Narrated by: Toby Longworth

Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Militant Modernism is a defense against modernism's many detractors. It looks at design, film, and architecture - especially, architecture - and pursues the notion of an evolved modernism that simply refuses to stop being necessary. 

Owen Hatherley gives us new ways to look at what we thought was familiar - Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, even Vladimir Mayakovsky. 

Through Hatherley's eyes, we see all of the quotidian modernists of the 20th century - lesser lights, too - perhaps, understanding them for the first time. Whether we are looking at Britain's brutalist aesthetics, Russian constructivism, or the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich, the message is clear. There is no alternative to modernism.

©2008 Owen Hatherly (P)2019 Watkins Publishing

More of this please!

I hope this is the start of audible making all Owen Hatherley's work available to listen too. A small but good introduction to Hatherley's main themes, utopian modernism in Britain and Eastern Europe with odd references to The Human League thrown in. An accessible text but with a wealth of references for those who wish to delve deeper.

One major advantage of having this as audio book was that I was able to simultaneously look up pictures of the projects he was discussing. The only disadvantage being the narrator's fulfilling what I assume is their contractual obligation from audible, to mispronounce one in ten words (Mytholmroyd anyone?!) and do terrible impressions wherever possible (Jarvis Cocker,really?) Doesn't detract from the quality of the book though.

Can we have Trans-Europe Express next please audible?