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.
41 Articles by: Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley is Jacobin’s culture editor and the author of several books, including Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London.
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.
It Came From Canada!
David Cronenberg’s first three films track the progress of epidemics “from the perspective of the disease.” What they reveal is a North American society already on the brink of disaster.
I Want My BBC
British television has increasingly become an arm of the Conservative Party — yet many on the Left nostalgically remember an earlier, more open media landscape. Was the BBC ever ours?
All Dad’s Armies
British politics have become a strange form of World War II cosplay, where the European Union are the Nazis, 1945 is a betrayal, and Boris Johnson is the newWinston Churchill.
Rebuilding the Social City
To solve the housing crisis, we may have to go back to the future.
Our Very Own Albert Speer
The architect Philip Johnson had some good qualities. He was also talentless, a fascist, and a liar.
Life Without Buildings
In the late sixties, radical architects expressed their scorn in satirical utopias, where the world’s landmarks and landscapes are eaten up by the power of capital.
Green Islands
When eco-socialism in one city becomes a gated community.
In Defense of the High-Rise
Elite arguments against tower blocks aren’t about safety — they’re about contempt for public housing.
Charlie Chaplin in Moscow
Early Soviet filmmakers took great inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, but his critique of mass production put him at odds with them.
Designing the Soviet Union
Soviet architecture had diverse and ambitious ideas for transforming the spaces people live, work, and travel in.
Imagining the Socialist City
We will not go into the socialist city blindly, but with lessons from a century of experiments.