I’ve had to look up 3 words so far. How’s anyone else doing?
What a great programme.

I’m googling Johnathan Meades.

He posed an initial question about why ‘concrete brutalism’ was so derided.

I said out loud “because it looks shit, mate”.

At this point I thought I might be too much of a philistine to watch this programme.

dannyh – Member

He posed an initial question about why ‘concrete brutalism’ was so derided.

I said out loud “because it looks shit, mate”.

I have a feeling he’s going to say roughly the same thing, only he’ll take a lot longer and whilst wearing some slightly dodgy sunglasses.

I like Jonathan Meades. 😀
I’ll watch that on the iPlayer later, ta for the psa.

Just out of interest, you can now get Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation on BluRay/DVD.
I had no idea this had been released until I found a copy of the DVD in CEX for £6.00 last week.
Watched it when it was repeated a few years ago and it was superb.

He’s my hero. Highly recommend his dvd box set. Unfortunately due to music licencing bullocks there’s loads of his stuff not on dvd.

Excellent. Thoroughly enjoyed his pisstaking (targeted, not least, at himself). Looking forward to part 2.

Don’t worry dannyh, you got a mention too….

Jonathan Meades is the worlds greatest broadcaster. His style and use of language are superb. The antithesis of dumbing down. He’s appearing live in Birmingham on the 9th March, might be worth going if you live anywhere within reasonable travelling distance.

Worth a read: http://m.architectsjournal.co.uk/8658865.article

And another: http://thequietus.com/articles/10502-jonathan-meades-interview

Jonathon Meades is without superlative in his field. A few years back he did three programmes on Scotland. The first one was about Aberdeen. Made me want to live there what with it’s amazing architecture and all. (Ps I have lived in Aberdeen on and off for donkeys years).

I’d like to know what the buildings shown were – is there a list anywhere? particularly the church(?) which looked like a load of pyramids, or wigwams …

EDIT: Gottfried Böhm’s Mariendom, in Neviges, Germany

Jonathan Meades is the worlds greatest broadcaster.

This.

Most excellent programme and again it’s why I don’t mind paying the License Fee.
The narrative he utilises punctuated with wit is subtle to the point of a hammer blow to the right ear. He is without doubt one of this decades best presenters.
I find watching and listening to him liken to him reading out his preparations for a dissertation he’s constructing, for the most part he spouts random words that link, then it all falls together nicely towards the end and you get what the opening sentance was all about and meaning.

Epic.

Huge fan. 8)

@DrJ – some more here: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/13/jonathan-meades-brutalism-a-z

He used to do a series on BBC2, oooh about 20 years ago, I think it was about the UK and it was intelligent, entertaining and dryly funny. I’ve watched some of his stuff since then and I found it a little hard going for me, if im honest. A bit too serious and wordy.

Entertaining but not particularly informative last night – I didn’t feel I learnt much in an hour. Kind of form over content?

Concretopia is a very entertaining and accessible history on British post-war architecture. Highly recommend it,.

He’s always good value, but has probably got higher brow recently. I wonder what sort of house he lives in?

Yesterday I took my daughter into Liverpool to take photos. I was going to show her the University Sports Centre – somewhere I spent a lot of time in the 80s and 90s and textbook New Brutalism. Bold but hard to love. I’d forgotten it’d had a terrifically sympathetic extension. This is why we have architects – to square unlikely looking circles like that.

I wonder what sort of house he lives in?

La cité radieuse in Marseille, according to l’internet. That’d be why the Calanques keeps popping up in the background