2024-11-21T13:50:42-05:00 https://archinect.com/features/article/40475/utopian-modernism-in-london-a-series-of-drifts Owen Hatherley 2006-06-26T03:00:00-04:00 >2022-03-16T09:16:08-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/v2/v2y6414cnxc74jwd.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>London, as a centre of industry and a magnet for heritage tourists, as a vast metropolis and an obscurantist suburban sprawl, has always been about contradictions. To understand Modernism in London one has to consider a series of antagonisms. The conflict between Empiricism and Formalism as style, between the historicist and the modern, and between socialism and capitalism in this most mercantile of capitals. These oppositions and contradictions are still present in some form, so one way to look at these paradoxes could be to set up a series of oppositions--a weighing up of dreams and realities. We will frequently come down on the side of the former, as against the spurious pragmatism of the Blairite capital. As ever, the best way to do this is to walk through the city itself...</p>