London mayoral election programme announced

John Lanchester in conversation with Rowan Moore

3 May 2016, Frobisher Auditorium 1 

In the week that Londoners go to the polls to elect a new mayor, two of the most perceptive observers on the city’s development, John Lanchester and Rowan Moore, discuss the issues at stake.   John Lanchester has addressed the recent socio-economic transformation of London both as a journalist and as the author of Capital (2012), an epic novel set during the 2008 financial crisis which was recently adapted into a BBC television series.  Rowan Moore is the architecture critic of The Observer and the author of Slow Burn City: London in the Twenty First Century (2016).  Chaired by Professor Fran Tonkiss, the director of the LSE Cities Programme.

John Lanchester, author

Rowan Moore, The Observer 

City Architects

6 June 2016, Frobisher Auditorium 1

Unlike many of the world’s leading cities, London has no City Architect.  Nobody is actively steering the transformation of London’s skyline or the development of its riverfront or taking a strategic view of countless other planning considerations of relevance to the entire city.   A month after London’s mayoral elections, this event explores what it is that City Architects do and asks whether London could benefit from the creation of such a post.  Speakers include Kristiaan Borret, the City Architect of Brussels and  Seung H-Sang, the city architect of Seoul.  The event will be chaired by Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and has been generously supported by the Norman Foster Foundation.