This year’s Friday Lecture Series by London Consortium faculty member Mark Cousins concerns the destruction of cities and urban objects. It is not a material history of such destruction, but rather an investigation of why the city is central to the issue of destructiveness. It concentrates upon the stories and fantasies of such destruction and the reasoning about their causes.

A sequence of case histories leads to an investigation (in the second term) of the issue of destruction in modernity. Behind the optimism of the Enlightenment has fallen the shadow of a distinctly modern relation to destruction, one which defines a contemporary melancholy. The series concludes by opposing such melancholy as well as by guarding against any optimism.

They are held at 5pm in the Lecture Hall at the Architectural Association,  36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES.

Autumn dates:
7 November, The Destruction of the Library at Alexandria
14 November, The Fall of Rome
21 November, The Earthquake in Lisbon

Spring dates and themes will be announced at a later date.

Click here for details.