Foyles

What happened to the future? Verso authors Owen Hatherley and Douglas Murphy seek to explode the distortions of history that obscure our present and future in their new respective books 'The Ministry of Nostalgia' and 'Last Futures'. Excavating the lost archeology of the present day, Douglas Murphy’s 'Last Futures' is a fascinating, mind-bending cultural history of the last avant-garde. Through a cast of architects, dreamers, thinkers, hippies and designers, Murphy diagnoses the source of our current situation and steers us towards powerful alternative futures. In a sharp, witty polemic, Owen Hatherley skewers the contemporary nostalgia for a utopian past that never existed. Why, in an age of austerity, have we adopted the gospel of luxurious poverty, from ubiquitous 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters to the ‘artisinal’? The Ministry of Nostalgia reaches across a depleted cultural landscape to demand more for our society—after all, Hatherley argues, why should we have to 'Keep Calm and Carry On'? Chaired by Shumi Bose, architectural writer, historian, editor and teacher at Central St Martins responsible for coordinating Contextual Studies for BA Architecture: Spaces and Objects, covering architectural history, theory and broader cultural issues. This event was organised in association with New Humanist.