Architecture and buildings

Oct 19, 2022
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London in Bits
Mapping London, from Brutalism to Birch trees
There are two independent publishers we consistently turn to go when we want to buy gifts for other Londoners. One is Cafe Royal Books, who publish incredible titles like Notting Hill Sound Systems and Spitalfields 1977. The other is Blue Crow Media who have been producing gorgeously designed and thoughtfully curated maps of London for…
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2 years ago · The LiB team
London in Bits
Lights. Camera. Gentrification!
A few weeks ago, we wrote two issues about the Curzon cinema being unceremoniously elbowed out of its Mayfair home by its landlords (by the way, the petition to save the Curzon has jumped up by a few thousand signatures in that time, but if you haven’t signed it yet, there’s still time…
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2 years ago · 2 likes
London in Bits
The curse of the Curzon
A quick note before we get into today’s issue. Initially this was due to be a brief article on another of London’s cultural institutions closing (and an excuse to moan about the dreadful London press). But then we started pulling at the threads and it just kept unraveling. We tried to get it all finished in time and under a reasonable word count, but in order to do it justice we have decided to split it across two issues…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
The curse of the Curzon... continued
In Monday’s issue we started to look at the reasons behind the closure of the Curzon Mayfair cinema, and why the framing of that as ‘good news’ by certain parts of London’s press felt like laziness at best and misdirection at worst. What we know so far is that, in 2016, a development company called 38 Curzon Ltd tried to force the cinema out by complaining about the…
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2 years ago · 1 like · The LiB team
London in Bits
Storey time
Welcome to a new week in London and another free edition of London in Bits. If you enjoy this issue then please feel free to share it on whichever channels you like. We don’t advertise, so people only really find out about us through word of mouth. The other way you can support us is by liking this issue - just click the heart at the top of the email. Thanks…
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2 years ago · 13 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
Making the London of the future
A couple of years ago, writer, editor and communications consultant, Rob Fiehn, discovered a hundred-year-old book published by The London Society that attempted to predict the future of London though a collection of essays. The book suggested such bold and innovative ideas as a city-centre airport and something called a ‘channel tunnel’; but it also attempted to tackle some of the big concerns of the day, like pollution, housing and access to public space…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
John Grindrod on Docklands, the Dome and giant eggcups
This is the second part of our interview with John Grindrod, the author of the books Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain, Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt and the brand new Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain…
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3 years ago · 4 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
John Grindrod on the suburbs, the grey plague and post-pandemic architecture
John Grindrod’s first book, Concretopia, (subtitled ‘A journey around the rebuilding of postwar Britain’) was both an alternative guidebook and a sideways history lesson, one that seemed more interested in the paving stones than the beach which supposedly lies beneath them. It was one of those books that made you look at the city in an entirely different way (plus, it was charming and funny…
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3 years ago · The LiB team
London in Bits
Who decides how London gets built?
In our first conversation with Jenna Goldberg from London Communications Agency we talked about who actually runs London and why that’s such a complicated question to answer. In this second part we dig into a bit more about the processes and politics that surround London’s shifting ‘built environment’. It’s a continuous and controversial conversation in London …
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3 years ago · The LiB team
London in Bits
Okay, let's talk about secret tunnels
There comes a time in the life of every London-based publication where you have to write about secret tunnels. It’s just inevitable. We were hoping to go at least a few more months before we had to put on our high vis jackets and descend into the depths, but circumstances have conspired against us and here we are. Although, to be totally honest, writing about secret tunnels is a bit of a welcome break from some of the more upsetting topics we’ve written about in recent weeks (and we’re not just talking about Salt Bae…
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3 years ago · 3 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
Talking tall buildings, sky pools and kebab fiction with novelist, Will Wiles
This is the second part of our chat with the author and journalist, Will Wiles. In part one we talked Mounds, Plazas and Psychogeography. In the second part of our conversation we dive into sky pools, tussle with tall buildings and the issue of ‘poor doors’, and discuss Will’s new book as well as his latest bit of tasty short fiction…
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3 years ago · 3 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
Talking Mounds, Piazzas and London lit with novelist, Will Wiles
We got to know Will Wiles when he became a regular contributor to Londonist in the very early days. His writing on architecture and design has appeared in a variety of magazines (he was deputy editor of ICON magazine) and he’s also the author of four novels. His first…
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3 years ago · 1 like · The LiB team
London in Bits
What is a 15 minute city anyway?
This is a paid-subscriber only edition of LiB. If you’re receiving this as a full issue then thank you very much for supporting independent writing about London. If you’re not a subscriber already and you want to read the full thing, please subscribe for £5/month or £50/year…
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3 years ago · 1 like · The LiB team
London in Bits
The only way is up... Unless you can afford a basement conversion
Today’s the day we finally get to write about Brian May. Honestly, the only reason we started this newsletter was to bang on about Mr Anita Dobson, but the Queen guitarist and badger fragrance magnate just hasn’t been as involved in London’s political and cultural life as we’d hoped… until now…
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3 years ago · 2 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
The only way is up... Unless you can afford a basement conversion
Today’s the day we finally get to write about Brian May. Honestly, the only reason we started this newsletter was to bang on about Mr Anita Dobson, but the Queen guitarist and badger fragrance magnate just hasn’t been as involved in London’s political and cultural life as we’d hoped… until now…
Read more
3 years ago · 2 likes · The LiB team
London in Bits
It's a Women's Centre on the site of a women's prison. Why would we let women design it?
Ask someone to name a former inmate of Holloway Prison and you’ll likely get the answer ‘Oscar Wilde’. The answer’s not wrong (Wilde was on remand there) but it’s a bit strange nonetheless, because Holloway prison was only a mixed-sex prison for the first fifty of its 164 years. After 1903 Holloway became a female-only prison and it stayed that way until it closed in 2016…
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3 years ago · 4 likes · The LiB team