When you think about Architecture, you think visual design, something to see or be shown. But there’s plenty to get through once you strip away the aesthetic gloss, revealing the narratives behind buildings and the origin of their existence.
The following podcasts, hand-picked by us just for you, go deeper than the traditional programs you may find on Spotify or iTunes, but they’re chosen by the experts who live, work and breathe architecture, so well-worth your time.
Podcast 1 – Failed Architecture: A Podcast on Architecture and the Real World
Failed Architecture reconnects architecture with the real world. By opening up new perspectives on the built environment, the contributors seek to explore the meaning of architecture in contemporary society. Since 2011, they’ve been providing an inclusive platform for critical urban discourse, fuelled by unconventional narratives from an international network of contributors.
Episodes we recommend: “Modernism Distorted: Selling Utopia From Kleiburg to Keeling House”; “Architects Unionise!
Podcast 2 – Buildings on Air
Buildings on Air is a monthly FM radio show that demystifies architecture through wild speculation, good conversation, a healthy dose of lefty political perspective, and lots of skepticism about the ‘power of design.’ Each show features guests from the many different facets of the architecture world in Chicago and beyond.
Episodes we recommend: “Episode 36 – March 24, 2020”; “Episode 26 – March 16, 2019”
Podcast 3 – Thinkbelt: Interstitial
Each episode features one author on a new book that offers critical ways of understanding the worlds we make. Trans-disciplinary perspectives from across the arts, social sciences, and humanities every Tuesday. Produced by David Huber.
Episodes we recommend: “Architecture in Global Socialism by Łukasz Stanek”; “After Geoengineering by Holly Jean Buck”
Podcast 4 – Scratching the Surface
Scratching the Surface began as a part of Jarrett Fuller’s MFA thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. Jarrett was interested in the intersection of design criticism and practice and began interviewing people who operated in both spaces.
Episodes we recommend: “Alexandra Lange”; “Kate Wagner”; “Henry N. Cobb”
Podcast 5 – Scaffold
Scaffold hosts fortnightly interviews with architects, artists & designers.
Episodes we recommend: “Barbara Penner”; “Geoff Manaugh”; “Shumi Bose”
Podcast 6 – The Arc
Casual, unscripted, and intimate, The Arc episodes present themed discussions that investigate existing contemporary ideas and attitudes around architecture, juxtaposing them with disciplines and topics outside of architecture.
The Arc is a venue for conversation, recorded at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles, and led by SCI-Arc faculty and History + Theory Coordinator Marrikka Trotter.
Episodes we recommend: “Lines”; “Roughness”
Podcast 7 – About Buildings + Cities
A podcast about architecture, buildings and cities, from the distant past to the present day. Plus detours into technology, film, fiction, comics, drawings, and the dimly imagined future.
With Luke Jones and George Gingell. Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts.
Episodes we recommend: “Reyner Banham”; “The Reactionaries”
