Articles by Owen Hopkins

Deconstructivism was one of the most significant architecture styles of the 20th century with proponents including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. This overview by Owen Hopkins kicks off our series exploring the movement. While for most of the 20th century, the experimental, the innovative and the new had driven architectural culture forwards, by the late 1970s postmodernism had

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Designed to make the prime minister appear more presidential, the defunct Downing Street briefing room highlights Boris Johnson’s insecurity, says Owen Hopkins. The curtain came down before it was even raised on the Downing Street media briefing room as we learned this week that the government had abandoned its plans for White House-style press briefings. We got our

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A new transitional architecture movement, dubbed Multiform, has emerged as modernist ideals gives way to digitally dominated thinking, says Owen Hopkins. Economics is often talked about in terms of cycles. There are periods of economic growth followed by stagnation and recession. Then after a time the economy starts growing again and the cycle repeats. It’s the natural

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The Architectural Association must reinvent itself following the dismissal of its director Eva Franch i Gilabert, with the school at risk of becoming irrelevant in the modern world, writes Owen Hopkins. Most famous architects have been here (sooner or later) – notes a blue plaque created to hang outside the Architectural Association’s home at 36

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High-tech was the last major architecture style of the 20th century. This overview by Owen Hopkins kicks off our series exploring the high-tech movement. In 1971, a press conference was held at the Élysée Palace to announce the winners of the competition to design a new multidisciplinary arts centre on Paris’ vacant Plateau Beaubourg. On one side stood

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Landscape architect, critic and founder of Maggie’s Centres, Charles Jencks, died this week. With populism on the rise, the pluralism of postmodernism – a term he coined – is needed now more than ever, argues Owen Hopkins. ‘Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32 p.m. (or thereabouts) when the

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