Tristan Quinn
Capital In Flux
Factory
By Gillian Darley
Reaktion Books 224pp £14.95
WHAT A DIFFERENCE a few years make. Just after Fiat closed the Lingotto car plant in Turin in the mid 1980s, the celebrated architectural critic Reyner Banham made a pilgrimage to its hallowed roofiop test track. Identifjrlng with the modernist pioneers who had come to praise the factory as the embodiment of their love of speed, automobiles and mechanisation sixty years before, Banham took a drive on the circuit - anything else would have been 'almost a blasphemy'. Finding himself at the tail end of an era, Banham could only look back. He feared the hture, doubting that post-industrial Lingotto would live up to its illustrious past.
In her curious cultural history of factories, Gillian Darley also pays a visit to Lingotto, ths time taking a stroll up on the track. where Banham roared around with the ghosts of Marinetti and Le Corbusier, Darley, a former Observer architecture correspondent, watches jogging executives taking a break &m conferences
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
The era of dollar dominance might be coming to an end. But if not the dollar, which currency will be the backbone of the global economic system?
@HowardJDavies weighs up the alternatives.
Howard Davies - Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up
Howard Davies: Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up - Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent...
literaryreview.co.uk
Johannes Gutenberg cut corners at every turn when putting together his bible. How, then, did his creation achieve such renown?
@JosephHone_ investigates.
Joseph Hone - Start the Presses!
Joseph Hone: Start the Presses! - Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books by Eric Marshall White
literaryreview.co.uk
Convinced of her own brilliance, Gertrude Stein wished to be ‘as popular as Gilbert and Sullivan’ and laboured tirelessly to ensure that her celebrity would outlive her.
@sophieolive examines the real Stein.
Sophie Oliver - The Once & Future Genius
Sophie Oliver: The Once & Future Genius - Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade
literaryreview.co.uk