About Buildings + Cities

To get full access to this episode, please consider supporting us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/about_buildings

Taking cues from the 'Show and Tell' main episode, Editor Matt joined us for a bonus and brought along a couple of interesting buildings to discuss. The first, Santa Maria del Naranco, in Asturia Northern Spain, was built as a summer palace for King Ramiros I in 842 CE. It is a surprising building in many ways, precociously Romanesque and highly resolved by 9th-century standards, its proportional logics give the building a profound presence, especially its end facades. We then discussed the sprawling, accretive mass of Frank Lloyd Wright's House and Studio in Oak Park, Chicago. This was his home and place of business from the late-1880s until the mid-1900s, and it grew substantially from modest gable-ended suburban cottage to hulking compound as his family and business grew. We also discussed the surrounding neighbourhood of Oak Park, which contains many idiosyncratic domestic designs from the pen of this erratic giant of American architecture.

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

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This episode takes a new format! Instead of fitting into a larger series or a particular theme, Luke and George simply chose two interesting pieces of architecture each that they wanted to discuss and draw out particular ideas or themes from. Let us know if you liked this format, and we will consider doing more of them in between regular episodes!

In this episode, we discussed the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, the Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga, the Mausoleum of Theodoric at Ravenna and Lutyens' Mercantile Marine War Memorial at Tower Hill, London.

You can follow along with images of the buildings dicussed on our Instagram feed or on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N9o4-pz4dM0

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

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In our final episode of 2025, we discussed William Golding's 1964 novel 'The Spire', a deeply psychological portrayal of the construction of a cathedral spire in the 14th century, heavily influenced by Salisbury Cathedral. One of the great architectural novels, this episode contains extensive spoilers, so we recommend reading it or listening to the audiobook before you listen to this episode!

Find this episode on YouTube to follow along with the images: https://youtu.be/Z2bjd950HOQ?si=yZ0nUn31nYVtLkvg

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

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We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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In the finale of our series on Sigfried Giedion, we discussed the bait-and-switch coda of the book, where Giedion unexpectedly addresses questions of urbanism and town planning, via Haussmanisation, designs for Lyon by Tony Garnier, the Garden City movement, slab block modernism and Manhattan.

Follow along with images on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1d8rDIt0mIw

We hope you enjoyed this series. We will be back soon with a discussion of William Golding's 'The Spire'!

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

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We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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Some clips from our Patreon bonus episodes on Sigfried Gideion's 'Mechanisation Takes Command'.

If you've enjoyed the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon for full access to these bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/c/about_buildings

Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.

Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us!

Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.