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Shannon Mattern
@shannonmattern.bsky.social
director of creative research @ the metro ny library council; faculty @ a 🫣 conglomerate (2004-22: @thenewschool) architecture, archives, 🎨, cities, 🐕, infrastructure, libraries, 🗺️, sound++ nyc + philly wordsinspace.net
7.7k followers4.2k following8.4k posts
SMshannonmattern.bsky.social

Back in 2018 I wrote a piece for a British architecture magazine about the state of the UK's public libraries. Not good. So many austerity causalties. I just brushed up for this current project. Holy hell. It just keeps getting worse. The Conservatives have sabotaged the UK's public institutions.

Meanwhile, conservatism in another guise — austerity — has deeply wounded the UK’s libraries: since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, the country has lost roughly 800 council-supported institutions. In a recent stem-winder for Prospect magazine, Richard Ovendon, Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford, recalled a quip from actor/author/comedian Alexei Sayle; “Austerity is the belief that the 2008 global financial crisis was caused by their being too many public libraries in Wolverhampton.” Well, austerity did manage to cull public services in Wolverhampton – and in countless cities and towns all over the UK, where many libraries were closed or sustained by volunteer labor. In 2013, as other cities were struggling, Birmingham welcomed its brand new Mecanoo-designed central library, which garnered awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects (including a nomination for its premium Stirling Prize), the Royal Town Planning Institute, Constructing Excellence (a cons
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SMshannonmattern.bsky.social

Oops -- that's a 2005, not a 2025, House of Commons report.

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Shannon Mattern
@shannonmattern.bsky.social
director of creative research @ the metro ny library council; faculty @ a 🫣 conglomerate (2004-22: @thenewschool) architecture, archives, 🎨, cities, 🐕, infrastructure, libraries, 🗺️, sound++ nyc + philly wordsinspace.net
7.7k followers4.2k following8.4k posts
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