Architecture and Power

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2002

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role which architecture has played in our public life throughout history, whether in homage to an individual or as a monument to an institution or ideology, has always been a potent symbol of wealth, status and power. From castles to cathedrals, from the pyramids to Canary Wharf, architecture has always served to glorify in some way the animating ideal of the time. Why is architecture such a powerful form of expression? Have architects concerned themselves mainly with the masses, or restricted their designs to the demands and aspirations of the elite? What can a country's buildings tell us about its ideas of its own past and present identity? With Adrian Tinniswood, Architectural historian; Gavin Stamp, Senior Lecturer, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art; Gillian Darley, Architectural historian and biographer of John Soane.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast.
0:39.0	For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy
0:46.5	the program. Hello in today's in our time I'll be discussing the role which architecture's played in public life.
0:54.5	Whether in homage to an individual or as a monument to an institution or ideology, architecture
0:59.6	has always been a potent symbol of wealth, status and power. From castles to cathedrals, from the pyramids to
1:05.8	canary wharf, architecture has served to glorify and often exemplify in some way the
1:10.7	animating idea of the time. So why is architecture such a powerful form of
1:15.1	expression? How much can buildings tell us about a country's idea of its past and
1:20.2	its present identity? And what does the architectural history of London in particular reveal about our own country?
1:27.0	With me to discuss this is Adrian Tinizwood, architectural historian and author of visions of power and his invention so fertile a life of
1:35.2	Christopher Wren. Gavin Stamp, senior lecturer at the McIntosh School of
1:39.4	Architecture in the Glasgow School of Art, and Darlie architectural historian and biographer of Sir John
1:45.4	Stone.
1:46.4	Kevin Stamp, why do you think that public architecture is such a powerful form of expression? Because architecture can be big and it lasts.
1:55.0	Other things fade away, but the dictators and emperors have built for centuries, if not millennia.
2:01.0	So you think the reputation of architecture, the reason we're talking
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