logo
episode-header-image
May 14
50m 41s

Owen Hopkins: Home made manifestos.

Ambrose Gillick
About this episode

In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, author, curator and currently director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University, Owen Hopkins discuss his recent book, The Manifesto House: Buildings that Changed the Future of Architecture, published by Yale University Press two days ago.

The Manifesto House explores the history of architecture through the lens of individual houses that have acted as manifestos for new ideas, movements and ways of living.

Looking at twenty-one houses from the 16th through to the 21st century, the book presents a compelling narrative of how individual homes can influence architecture's evolution, and perhaps even answer some of the challenges we're faced with in the built environment today.

Owen is also currently one fifth of the team who have curated this year's British Pavilion exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia 2025, which can be read about here. Owen can be found on Instagram and LinkedIn and the book is linked above. 

Listen, think, click, buy, read. Wow!

#ArchitecturePodcast #ManifestoHouse #OwenHopkins #FarrellCentre #BuildingsThatMatter #ArchitecturalHistory #RadicalHomes #BiennaleArchitettura2025 #ArchitectureAndSociety #DesigningTheFuture #AisforArchitecturePodcast

+

Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 


Image credit: Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, exterior view towards entrance platform. Library of Congress, USA.

Up next
Jun 25
Christian Schmid: Henri Lefebvre and the space of the city.
In this, the 160th episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I was joined by Professor Christian Schmid, geographer, sociologist, urban researcher and until recently Professor of Sociology in the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. Christian’s scholarship is wide and de ... Show More
1h 25m
Jun 11
Azza Aboualam: Food, culture, architecture.
In the this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Emirati architect and co-founder of Holesum Studio, Azza Aboualam discusses her curation of Pressure Cooker, the National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates' 2025 contribution to the 19th International Architecture Exhib ... Show More
40m 11s
Jun 4
Paul Chatterton: The social city.
In the newest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Paul Chatterton, Professor of Urban Futures at the University of Leeds, discusses parts of his quite recent book Unlocking Sustainable Cities: A Manifesto for Real Change (2019), published by Pluto Press. In the book, Pa ... Show More
47m 46s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 21
John Barr, "1960s University Buildings: The Golden Age of British Modern Architecture" (Lund Humphries, 2025)
The 1960s continue to hold an almost mythical place in Western culture, particularly in Britain, where change was widespread and infiltrated many aspects of life. This included architecture, whose role in a modern democracy and the form it should take were hotly debated. 1960s Un ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 2024
London Feeds Itself: Jonathan Nunn & Owen Hatherley
Born in the pandemic lockdown of 2020, when Britain’s restaurants had closed their doors, Jonathan Nunn founded the online newsletter Vittles, which rapidly established itself as the premier platform for exploring food cultures in Britain and around the world. Out of Vittles was ... Show More
1h 7m
Aug 2023
Flora Samuel, "Housing for Hope and Wellbeing" (Routledge, 2022)
Housing and neighborhoods have an important contribution to make to our wellbeing and our sense of our place in the world. Housing for Hope and Wellbeing (Routledge, 2023), written for a lay audience (with policy makers firmly in mind) offers a useful and intelligible overview of ... Show More
59m 32s
May 2024
Talking Practice: Pier Vittorio Aureli
In this episode of Talking Practice, host Grace La interviews Pier Vittorio Aureli, architect, educator, and co-founder of Dogma, an architecture and research-based practice in Brussels. Pier Vittorio reveals early beginnings of Dogma, which started as an academic comradery and b ... Show More
47m 59s
Aug 2023
Christian Parreno, "Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Boredom is a ubiquitous feature of modern life. Endured by everyone, it is both cause and effect of modernity, and of situations, spaces and surroundings. As such, this book argues, boredom shares an intimate relationship with architecture-one that has been seldom explored in arc ... Show More
35m 6s
Apr 2024
... with Yussef Agbo-Ola
... with Yussef Agbo-Ola In the newest episode of WAS MIT KUNST, Johann König speaks with the artist and architect Yussef Agbo-Ola. In his practice, Agbo-Ola addresses artistic, architectural, and anthropological issues by creating experimental spaces, such as pavilions, that reo ... Show More
44m 12s
Mar 2025
Simona Valeriani, "The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences" (Brepols, 2024)
The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences (Brepols, 2024) by Dr. Simona Valeriani takes one of London’s most iconic buildings and deconstructs it to offer new insights into the society that produced it. As part of the new cultural quarter built in South Kensington on ... Show More
1 h
Oct 2024
Merve Erme on Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf
I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the writer, critic, and author, Merve Emre. Currently the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University – and the Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism – ... Show More
49m 21s
Sep 2021
Susanna Phillips Newbury, "The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Underlying every great city is a rich and vibrant culture that shapes the texture of life within. In The Speculative City: Art, Real Estate, and the Making of Global Los Angeles (U Minnesota Press, 2021), Susanna Phillips Newbury teases out how art and Los Angeles shaped one anot ... Show More
40m 6s