Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances

Praise

Praise for Owen Hatherley:

“Owen Hatherley’s eye is so acute, his architectural expertise so lightly deployed, his sympathies so wide and generous, that reading Landscapes of Communism is like a tour of a whole world of unsuspected curiosities and richnesses conducted by a guide whose wit is as refreshing as his knowledge is profound.”
—Philip Pullman

“A brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies.”
—Will Self

“Demonstrates the qualities of empathy and social conscience, combined with acute judgment, that confirms Owen Hatherley to be the only true heir today of the great architectural critic Ian Nairn.”
—Gavin Stamp

“Owen Hatherley brings to bear a quizzing eye, venomous wit, supple prose, refusal to curry favour, rejection of received ideas, exhaustive knowledge and all-round bolshiness. He travels, selfconsciously, in the famous footsteps of J. B. Priestley and Ian Nairn, and there can be no higher praise than to suggest that he proves himself their peer.”
—Jonathan Meades

“No one else writes so clearly yet with such elegiac intensity about the symbiosis that exists between history and the built environment, or the lives that are caught, mangled and realised in its midst.”
—Lynsey Hanley

“The clear-sighted vision, analysis and optimism of a writer like Hatherley shines through when we need it most.”
—Wallpaper

“An antidote to the market-dominated colonisation of our cities. [Hatherley] celebrates the civic values that drove politicians, civil servants and architects to build good quality affordable homes, well-stocked public libraries, hospitals and schools, where people had universal access to healthcare and education.”
—Eoin Ó Broin, Irish Times

“A valuable exploration of the many modernist projects that have defined our society and politics.”
—Esmond Sage, Morning Star

“Modernism’s most prolific and persuasive contemporary advocate … One of the joys of Hatherley’s writing is that he so often focuses on the unusual and eccentric.”
—William Whyte, Literary Review