The Knight's Move: Owen Hatherley

'Making it Difficult: Constructivism, Chaplin and the Circus'

Thursday 22 November 2012, 8 pm
Location: Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
Entrance: € 5,- (or pay in Time/Bank Hour Notes)
Language: English
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In his lecture 'Making it Difficult: Constructivism, Chaplin and the Circus' Owen Hatherley will talk about the ideas in 1920s Germany and USSR around comedy, machines, slapstick films and the circus as a reading of the avant-garde as populist rather than 'high modernist'.

Owen Hatherley is a writer based in London, and the author of four books and an e-book on architecture and political aesthetics. He received his PhD last year from Birkbeck College, London for a thesis on Americanism in interwar Germany and the USSR.

Owen Hatherley writes primarily on architecture, politics and culture. His first book ‘Militant Modernism' (2009) was described as an "intelligent and passionately argued attempt to 'excavate utopia' from the ruins of modernism" and an "exhilarating manifesto for a reborn socialist modernism". More recently he published ‘Militant Modernism; A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain' and ‘Uncommon', about the pop group Pulp. Hatherley is a regular contributor to different magazines like als Artforum (check out his recent article in the Summer 2012 issue: 'Mod Squad: Owen Hatherley on Neneh Cherry's The Cherry Thing')

Owen Hatlerley maintains a number of blogs like:
- Sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy
- Kino Fist

The Knight's Move
The Knight's Move is a series of lectures by eminent international speakers who stand out by their unusual, enlightening and inspirational visions concerning the city, urbanity, the public domain, and community. Just as the knight moves in an atypical and unusual way across the chessboard, Stroom Den Haag likewise wants to cut across all disciplines and thus stimulate rethinking the city.

Media partner of this lecture series: De Groene Amsterdammer

Season 2012 of The Knight's Move is made possible in part by the Creative Industries Fund NL and is a collaboration with the Flemish Architecture Institute.

Archive The Knight's Move lectures

Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley
Owen Hatherley, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, 2011
Owen Hatherley, Militant Modernism, 2009
Karl Valentin as Schwerer Reiter
photo: © Schloss Wahn
Media partner of The Knight's Move