The Modernist #51: Neighbourhood

Description

In this issue of the modernist we would like to invite you to our NEIGHBOURHOOD.

We won’t be visiting our own neck of the woods on this occasion. Instead, our contributors are taking us all around the world to various places that look into the very notion of a ‘neighbourhood’.

From a social club in Hackney to a social experiment in Turin, visiting Berlin, Edinburgh, Vienna, Lyon and Charleroi along the way, this issue is truly a global adventure. That said, each article remains within the confines of a neighbourhood.

Writer Jon Riley and photographer Tom Lombard take a very personal look at the wonderful Mildmay Club in Newington Green while demonstrating that it is the people, as well as the buildings, that define a neighbourhood. Amber Roberts takes us around the pioneering social housing of the Red Vienna period, while Craig Austin shows us around the SPAN housing at Parkleys. On the flip side, a neighbourhood isn’t always about housing; with transport playing a key role in developing any neighbourhood, Adam Paluch tells us about the troubled history of Charleroi’s metro system.

A neighbourhood whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, and whilst the architecture and buildings are key components in creating a neighbourhood, it is the inhabitants that create atmosphere, community and a sense of place.

We hope, in this issue, we have struck that balance of bringing you interesting stories about not just the architecture of a neighbourhood, but also the people who live and work in them.

Welcome to the ‘hood.