Open City

About Open City

Open City is a charity dedicated to making architecture and built heritage more open, accessible and equitable. Providing you with essential listening, inspiring voices and built environment insights – the Open City Podcast covers news and current events as well as in depth studies of landmark buildings, and cities around the UK and world. At the centre of our line-up is our flagship show The Brief – an award-winning review of the big stories in architecture, planning and housing news – hosted by Sahiba Chadha and Fran Williams on a fortnightly basis. Alongside this is Deconstructed – a monthly podcast hosted by Matthew Lloyd Roberts taking apart the architecture of individual buildings and InterCities (https://shows.acast.com/opencity/episodes) – a monthly podcast hosted by Owen Hatherley exploring municipal transformation around the world. All three shows profile new, expert and diverse voices from across industry, journalism, academia and beyond. The Open City Podcast is produced by Hunter Charlton and Paige Reynolds. The commissioning editor is Merlin Fulcher. The Open City Podcast is supported by Bloomberg Connects (https://www.bloombergconnects.org/), the free arts and culture platform and produced in association with the Architects’ Journal, London Society, C20 Society and Save Britain's Heritage. The Open City Podcast is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau (https://designdistrict.co.uk/for-you/hot-desk). To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City Friend (https://opencity.squarespace.com/friends). Photo credit: Owen Hatherley portrait © Antonio Olmos Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Open City

Category

arts · arts · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Aug 2020

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 285 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Deconstructed: BBC Broadcasting House - Palace of the Ether

   In this episode, Matthew Lloyd Roberts was joined by Elizabeth Darling to discuss 'Palace of the Ether', her new book about BBC Broadcasting House published by Lund Humphries. The Grade II* listed Broadcasting House, iconic headquarters of the BBC, was completed in 1932, with a substantial number of architects and other designers were involved in the process of its creation, including the architect G. Val Myer and the engineer Marmaduke Tudsbery, Edward Maufe, Raymond McGrath, Serge Chermayeff and Wells Coates. Its position as the first purpose-built headquarters of the national broadcaster means the building has much to tell us about interwar architecture, media history and the institution itself. This episode was supported by Lund Humphries. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   24 Sept 2026

   Deconstructed: Lloyd's Building - Inside-Out Architecture

   In this episode, Matthew Lloyd Roberts was joined by Graham Stirk, Senior Director at RSHP, to discuss Lloyd’s of London, the first building Stirk worked on when he joined the Richard Rogers Partnership as an architecture graduate in 1983. The Lloyd’s Building is the Grade I-listed home of the oldest continuously operating insurance market in the world. It was designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership and is an icon of High-Tech architecture, a work of industrial craftsmanship covered in a dense network of pipes and ductwork and dramatic glass elevators. The building was designed from 1978, with construction completing in 1986, it was given listed status in 2011. Graham Stirk is an architect and Senior Director at RSHP. Graham’s career with the practice began in January 1983, when he joined the Richard Rogers Partnership as an architecture graduate, where he worked on the services of the Lloyd’s Building. Since he joined the firm, which is now known as RSHP, Graham has worked on many of their high-profile projects, six of which have been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, and he led the design for the Leadenhall Building opposite Lloyd’s. At the moment he is heading up the design of an extension to the British Library and the redevelopment of two groups of listed gasholders into residential apartments in East London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   20 Aug 2026

   Deconstructed: Vanbrugh Castle - Crenellations in Greenwich

   In this episode, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by the architect Piers Gough, co-founder of CZWG and a major figure in post-modern British architecture. They discussed Vanbrugh Castle, one of the few surviving buildings in London designed by John Vanbrugh, a hugely important English baroque architect, whose tercentenary is being celebrated this year #Vanbrugh300. The ‘Castle’ itself is a curious and precocious piece of medieval revival architecture, built by Vanbrugh towards the end of his life in 1719 alongside a compound of small buildings on the edge of Greenwich for his extended family. Piers suggests the connections between Vanbrugh’s approach to architectural language and the post-modern architecture pursued in his own practice. For more information about John Vanbrugh, check out: https://www.vanbrugh300.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Inside a recent episode

Rethinking London's Green Spaces

Published 24 Sept 2020 · Transcript excerpt

[…] I mean, to put that in context, you know, the biodiversity, Road and Square is five acres, and it's pretty much grass, a holy hedge, and some mature trees, which are amazing, but they're nearly all London plain trees. You know, there's been a lot of reporting recently, you know, there's a crisis in biodiversity, the world over, and, you know, the solution lies not just elsewhere or in the countryside, but everywhere, and we need to make the most of every square inch that exists and create habitats in every possible location. […]

Who has been a guest on Open City

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Sarah Carrington
• Yair Wallach
• Sharon Giffen
• Dr Dawn Pereira
• Billy Reading

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

4.6 / 5

48 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

83

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

92

Contact Open City

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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