Yes, Ukraine Is a “Real Country”
The borders of Ukraine are no more arbitrary than those of Poland, Greece, Italy, or Germany.
32 Articles by: Owen Hatherley
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Owen Hatherley is the culture editor of Tribune. He is the author of several books, including Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London.
The Foreman
Mark E. Smith of the Fall was one of the late 20th century’s great working-class musicians, but his music suffered from his overwhelming resentment of his middle-class audience.
Twitter May Be Dying. It’s Time to Build Our Own Social Network.
For all its problems, Twitter served as a public town square — and now, Elon Musk seems determined to drive it into the ground. It’s past time to build a democratic, noncommodified alternative.
Mike Davis Was the Best Socialist Writer of the Last Half Century
Mike Davis forced himself to look at the very worst of our society and world. What he found wasn’t pretty. Yet he never abandoned the search for seeds of positive change — and for socialism.
King Charles Has Some Very Strange Ideas About How Cities Should Look
For many years, Charles Windsor has foisted his opinions about urban design on the British public. The bizarre projects that the new monarch has sponsored, from Dorset to Transylvania, speak volumes about his cloistered and conservative worldview.
War and Instagram in Ukraine
For the last few years, enthusiasts have documented Ukraine’s Soviet buildings online. Since February, they’ve been bombed and shelled. What happens next?
Spaghetti Junctions
How did New York become the only metropolis in the world to insist that its transit map reflect the layout of the city above?
The Left Must Stand With the Ukrainian People and Against Putin’s War
Socialists’ first task in Vladimir Putin’s appalling war on Ukraine: provide unconditional solidarity with its victims.
The Tenured Radical on the Telly
The 1980s BBC series The History Man was a venomous takedown of academic pseudo-radicals. How does it stand up today?
Planned Paranoia
There’s a reason why urban housing developments and suburban subdivisions can seem threatening and unwelcoming to outsiders: they’re planned that way, in order to “design out crime.”
Lee “Scratch” Perry (1936–2021)
Lee “Scratch” Perry, who died last week at the age of 85, wasn’t just a sonic genius — he was also a politicized producer whose work was full of demands for justice.
Anthem of the Commoners
Pulp’s 1995 hit “Common People” isn’t just a Britpop classic — it’s a more honest and brutal analysis of class than you’ll hear in the media today.
The Socialist Architecture of Svetlana Kana Radević
Svetlana Kana Radević was one of the great architects of socialist Yugoslavia — her emphasis on public space showed what architecture can achieve when liberated from the constraints of the property market.
International Solidarity Rebuilt Postwar Vietnam
During the Vietnam War, the city of Vinh was almost destroyed by US bombing. Socialists around the world helped rebuild it. Today, Vinh’s architecture stands as a monument to that internationalist solidarity.
More Fun for More People
The architect, planner, and landowner Clough Williams-Ellis dedicated his estate to an experiment in “propaganda for architecture.” How did it become best known as the cutest of all the fictional dystopias?
Willi Münzenberg Was the Marxist Rupert Murdoch
In the 1920s and ’30s, German publisher Willi Münzenberg built a network of magazines, newspapers, and film studios that terrified big business interests. It became the largest left-wing media operation in history.
Workers Deserve Beautiful, Renovated, Even Luxurious Public Housing
This year’s Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture, went to French architects who rejected the demolition of public housing. Instead, the architects insisted on renovating and expanding public units to make working-class residents’ homes more modern, humane, and attractive.
When Paris Was Red
In the twentieth century, socialists and communists used municipal power in Paris to build some of Europe’s most ambitious social housing projects — housing that was not only beautiful but made for and by the city’s working class.
We Can’t Lose the Collective Experience of Going to the Movies to This Pandemic
Going to the movies feels fundamentally different from simply streaming videos: it’s a collective experience, and often inspires discussion and argument. In 2021, when the pandemic finally recedes, we should build socialist film clubs.
From Your House to Our House
America’s experiment with public housing was far less successful than Europe’s — but this hasn’t made it any less influential.