New East Digital Archive

Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley writes regularly on aesthetics and politics for, among others, the Architectural Review, The Calvert Journal, Dezeen, the Guardian, Jacobin, the London Review of Books and New Humanist. He is the author of several books, most recently Landscapes of Communism (Penguin 2015), The Ministry of Nostalgia (Verso, 2016) and The Chaplin Machine (Pluto, 2016), the last of which is based on a PhD thesis accepted by Birkbeck College in 2011. A book on European cities, Trans-Europe Express, will be published by Penguin in spring 2018.

From Tallinn to Turkmenistan, is there more to post-independence architecture than big business and ‘exotic kitsch’?

From Tallinn to Turkmenistan, is there more to post-independence architecture than big business and ‘exotic kitsch’?

Letter from Boris Gleb: Owen Hatherley uncovers the peculiar history of a Soviet enclave in Norway

Letter from Boris Gleb: Owen Hatherley uncovers the peculiar history of a Soviet enclave in Norway

The heavens underground: the Soviet Union’s opulent metro stations, from Belarus to Uzbekistan

The heavens underground: the Soviet Union’s opulent metro stations, from Belarus to Uzbekistan

Lake Sevan Writers’ Resort: Owen Hatherley uncovers the history of Armenia’s modernist masterpiece

Lake Sevan Writers’ Resort: Owen Hatherley uncovers the history of Armenia’s modernist masterpiece

Odesa’s literature museum is a radical tribute to the city’s multicultural, revolutionary history

Odesa’s literature museum is a radical tribute to the city’s multicultural, revolutionary history

What next for Eastern Europe’s mass housing heritage? Owen Hatherley on the past and future of the tower block

What next for Eastern Europe’s mass housing heritage? Owen Hatherley on the past and future of the tower block

Capital punishment: can Minsk move beyond its post-Soviet architectural malaise?

Capital punishment: can Minsk move beyond its post-Soviet architectural malaise?

Eastern promises: Owen Hatherley takes a tour of Kazan’s architectural multiculturalism

Eastern promises: Owen Hatherley takes a tour of Kazan’s architectural multiculturalism

Round the block: discover Yekaterinburg’s Constructivist treasures with this walking tour

Round the block: discover Yekaterinburg’s Constructivist treasures with this walking tour

Owen Hatherley on the Armenian capital’s fusion of the ancient and the Soviet

Owen Hatherley on the Armenian capital’s fusion of the ancient and the Soviet

Modernist Kharkiv: behind the battle to protect avant-garde architecture in post-Maidan Ukraine

Modernist Kharkiv: behind the battle to protect avant-garde architecture in post-Maidan Ukraine

Letter from Yekaterinburg: can Yeltsin’s city rebrand itself as the capital of Constructivism?

Letter from Yekaterinburg: can Yeltsin’s city rebrand itself as the capital of Constructivism?

No stone unturned: Owen Hatherley on what monuments to the Revolution tell us about 1917

Follow of the week

No stone unturned: Owen Hatherley on what monuments to the Revolution tell us about 1917

Letter from Kaunas: Lithuania’s interwar capital steps into the 21st century

Calvert travels

Letter from Kaunas: Lithuania’s interwar capital steps into the 21st century

Minsk: Owen Hatherley on the world’s most complete, and most surprising Soviet city

Minsk: Owen Hatherley on the world’s most complete, and most surprising Soviet city

Concrete clickbait: next time you share a spomenik photo, think about what it means

Concrete clickbait: next time you share a spomenik photo, think about what it means

Letter from Brest: Owen Hatherley goes in search of the Soviet power structures of Belarus

Letter from Brest: Owen Hatherley goes in search of the Soviet power structures of Belarus

Letter from: Owen Hatherley visits Zaporizhia, Stalinist city on the Dnieper

Letter from: Owen Hatherley visits Zaporizhia, Stalinist city on the Dnieper

Letter from: Owen Hatherley explores Dnipropetrovsk, power base of the Ukrainian elite

Letter from: Owen Hatherley explores Dnipropetrovsk, power base of the Ukrainian elite

Letter from: Owen Hatherley looks behind the facades of tourist-friendly Lviv

Letter from: Owen Hatherley looks behind the facades of tourist-friendly Lviv

The long view: should Kiev erase its Soviet past or learn to live with history, asks Owen Hatherley

The long view: should Kiev erase its Soviet past or learn to live with history, asks Owen Hatherley

Postcards from the east: Owen Hatherley on the art of everyday communist life

Postcards from the east: Owen Hatherley on the art of everyday communist life

Radical suburbs: Owen Hatherley on the secret history of Moscow’s mass housing experiment

Radical suburbs: Owen Hatherley on the secret history of Moscow’s mass housing experiment

Aisles of plenty: reading Moscow’s history through its shopping mall design

Aisles of plenty: reading Moscow’s history through its shopping mall design

Paradise lost? The enduring legacy of a Soviet-era utopian workers’ district

Paradise lost? The enduring legacy of a Soviet-era utopian workers’ district

Modern matter: Owen Hatherley asks, what does Constructivism mean today?

Modern matter: Owen Hatherley asks, what does Constructivism mean today?

Block party: Owen Hatherley celebrates a much-maligned housing project

Block party: Owen Hatherley celebrates a much-maligned housing project

New build: Russian planned towns and the foreign architects who build them

New build: Russian planned towns and the foreign architects who build them

Other voices: Owen Hatherley on a lost generation of Yiddish writers

Other voices: Owen Hatherley on a lost generation of Yiddish writers

Tall tales: Owen Hatherley on Moscow’s skyscrapers

Tall tales: Owen Hatherley on Moscow’s skyscrapers

Good, bad and ugly: the strange career of sculptor Zurab Tsereteli

Good, bad and ugly: the strange career of sculptor Zurab Tsereteli

Buried treasure: Owen Hatherley on the splendour of the Moscow Metro

Buried treasure: Owen Hatherley on the splendour of the Moscow Metro

New East Digital Archive