For a Socialist Architecture

Over the summer of 2019, as part of ASH’s research fellowship with 221A, we took up a month’s residency in Vancouver, Canada. Over four lectures held on Friday afternoons between 19 July and 9 August, we presented our thoughts about the necessity and possibility of a socialist architecture under capitalism. 221A invited individuals based in Vancouver to co-present with us at each of these lectures, each of which attracted around 50 visitors. These lectures were conceived as a forum in which we could present to and hear from residents, campaigners, academics, students, architects, environmentalists, planners, economists, developers, politicians and others affected by or involved in the housing crisis, both local and global.

In tandem with these lectures, and by the end of the residency, ASH produced the draft text for a book to be titled For a Socialist Architecture. Our aim, with the financial support of 221A, is to publish this book, and make it available not only to people who are threatened by the crisis of housing affordability, but also to policy-writers looking for alternatives to the selling off of public land and housing to private investors, as well as to architects looking for an alternative to the orthodoxies of contemporary architectural practice.

The texts published here are based on and expanded from the recordings by 221A of the four lectures we gave in Vancouver, taking into account some of the questions and comments made by the audience, as well as the contributions of our co-presenters. These included Am Johal, the director of community engagement at Simon Fraser University’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement; Daniel Roehr, who teaches landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia; and Ross Gentleman, the former Chief Executive Officer for CCEC Credit Union, a community development credit union in Vancouver. Since each lecture was delivered to a changing audience, there are some repetitions in the text that, given its length and complexity, we have thought it best to retain. We have also responded to developments in housing and architecture since our return to the UK.