The Aesthetic City

Professor Robert Adam has over 40 years of experience as an architect, specialised in Classical architecture. In 1992 he founded ADAM Architecture, having been a partner at an architectural firm since 1977. He authored numerous publications including the well known 'Classical Architecture, A Complete Handbook' and was the founder of INTBAU, the International Network of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Senior Fellow of the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment and a visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde. In 2017, he won the prestigious Driehaus Prize, for “the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society”. In this episode we discussed various topics, from myths surrounding modernity, the value of beauty in our built environment to the importance of identity.  He recently launched his new book, Time for Architecture, which is available here: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-4597-7 Visit his website: https://www.robertadamarchitect.com/ Find a list of his publications here: https://www.robertadamarchitect.com/about#PUBLICATIONS ------ For more information about this platform and podcast on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city?fan_landing=true Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Sarah Bannister is a promising urban planner from Bath, studying for her masters at the Bartlett School of Planning in London. She has a diverse range of experience, from working for the Swindon Borough Council to working for CreateStreets and the Bath preservation trust. Currently she works for Meristem Design, a company that aims to make our cities more liveable and healthy through urban greenery. Sarah's website can be found on https://sarahbannister.co.uk/ She wrote an excellent article on Medium about the lost buildings of Bath: https://sbannister234.medium.com/the-lost-buildings-of-bath-f7306b11baed Connect with her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/scb_planning Learn more about Meristem Design: https://www.meristemdesign.co.uk/ ----- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city?fan_landing=true Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Coby Lefkowitz is an urbanist, developer and writer living in New York City. He was a real estate analyst, but left his company to co-found Backyard, a real estate startup. He studied urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia and writes for the Metropolis column for Medium. In this second interview with Coby we discuss the topic of highrise in various contexts, NIMBYism and densification, organic growth of cities as complex systems versus planned developments, the value of building beauty and the involvement of communities in building places they love, and much more. Find Coby on Medium: https://cobylefko.medium.com/ Follow Coby on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cobylefko ---- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city?fan_landing=true Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Michael Spicher is a writer and philosopher, who is specialised in art and aesthetics. He is based in Boston and earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina. He currently teaches at Massachusetts College of Art & Design and Boston Architectural College. Apart from that he also founded the Aesthetics Research Lab in 2016, with an excellent website that showcases a lot of fascinating research and projects that showcase the importance of aesthetics in our everyday lives. He is currently co-editing a book about digital fashion for Bloomsbury Publishing. This episode dives deep into the questions of what aesthetics are, why they are important, the difference between beauty and taste and the great value of what can be achieved when various fields of research are combined. Visit Michael's website here: Aesthetics Research Lab Social Media: Twitter  |  LinkedIn  | PhilPeople Michael is the Aesthetics Area Editor of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Books In this episode, Michael talks about the following books: The survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff The Abuse of Beauty, Arthur C. Danto Beauty: A Quick Immersion, Crispin Sartwell The Aesthetic Brain, Anjan Chatterjee Feeling Beauty, G. Gabrielle Starr ------ For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Building Culture creates wonderful structural brick masonry, something not common in current construction practice (to put it very mildly). Their work is beautiful, of excellent quality and above all, authentic. This authenticity sparks a passion and lingering desire for beauty in many who see their work. Starting Building Culture has been a life changing experience for its founder Austin Tunnell, who is as passionate as it gets about building. Listen to his inspiring story in this episode! Find the website here: https://www.buildingculture.com/ Follow them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildingculture/ Follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Build_Culture --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Steve Wright is a storyteller, educator, advocate and planner with four decades of expertise in planning, urban design, engineering and universal design. His key focus is on how to make our cities and buildings more inclusive and accessible to all. He co-created a universal design course at the University of Miami School of Architecture, together with his wife of 33 years, who has used a wheelchair for mobility her entire adult life. Find his website here: http://urbantravelandaccessibility.blogspot.com Follow Steve on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevewright64 A couple of stories on Universal Design: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.muckrack.com/portfolio/items/9954710/WINTER_WRIGHT_2.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.muckrack.com/portfolio/items/9954710/USoA_newsletter_feature_on_UD_course.pdf https://www.nar.realtor/on-common-ground/inclusion-equity-and-accessibility Why Universal Design is critical to CNU --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Samuel Hughes is a research fellow at Oxford University and senior fellow at Policy Exchange and Create Streets. He has a background in philosophy, as he completed his PhD in Philosophy in 2020 in Cambridge. He spent time as a visiting researcher at many other universities and served as research assistant to the British governments’ Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. In this episode, we talk about a variety of topics: we hear about Samuel's work with the Building Better, Building Beautiful committee for the UK government, about how 'beauty' is being spoken about again and how it is more important than we think, how to intensify urban areas and much more. Samuel Hughes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SCP_Hughes Find more information on the Building Better, Building Beautiful commission and its work here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/building-better-building-beautiful-commission Strong Suburbs paper with the street votes principle: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/strong-suburbs/ CreateStreets' website: https://www.createstreets.com/ --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Ben Southwood has worked for KPMG, was head of research at the Adam Smith Institute and the head of Housing, Transport and Urban Space at the UK think tank ‘Policy Exchange’. He has also assisted CreateStreets as head of research. Currently he is editor at Stripe, for the online journal Works in Progress. An excellent source for high quality, optimistic articles on scientific progress, innovation and other topics. In this episode he talks about the StreetVotes concept, how it can gently transition low density areas into beautiful, denser neighbourhoods, offering more housing units in overheated markets, giving more power to local communities and enabling them to reap the benefits of this  densification. The concept is a true win-win solution that is now being tested out in the UK on a small scale. Visit Works in Progress here: https://www.worksinprogress.co/ Find the StreetVotes concept and whitepaper here: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/strong-suburbs/ --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Marjo Uotila is the founder of INTBAU Finland, connecting Finland to the International Network of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, and Arkkitehtuurikapina, the Finnish architectural uprising. The Nordic Architectural Uprising groups have more than 100.000 members altogether and are achieving real impact in the Scandinavian countries.  Marjo also works as an elected Member of City Council and the Chair of the Urban Development Committee at the town of Kaarina in Finland. In this podcast, we talk about the most common fallacies about traditional architecture, driving change towards more beauty in cities, the Finnish architectural uprising and much more. Find INTBAU Finland here: https://www.intbaufinland.org/ Connect to Marjo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marjouotila/ Become a member of the international Architecture Uprising group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ArchitecturalUprising --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Milly Main is a consultant at a global business strategy firm by day, but late last year she founded an organisation called StreetLevel in Australia. With StreetLevel, the aim is to build a grassroots movement in Australia being led by regular local people for more attractive and liveable cities and buildings, while trying to change things from the top down too. Her outstanding work to promote better forms of urbanism and architecture 'at street level' is a model for other people to follow in other countries. With a professional, well thought out organisation with local chapters that offers clear communication, they do a stellar job at making our world a bit of a more beautiful place. For more information, visit https://www.streetlevelaustralia.org/ Follow Street Level on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/streetlevelaustralia/ ---- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city?fan_landing=true Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/