Nairn's Paris

Ian Douglas Nairn (1930-1983) was a British architectural critic and topographer. He coined the term 'subtopia' for the areas around cities that had in his view been failed by urban planning, losing their individuality and spirit of place. Andrew Hussey is Professor of Cultural History at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He lives in Paris.

"You could see that Nairn was made of equal parts of amiability and disagreeableness, that he could swoon, but only over the very finest things; that he could take joy in the most ordinary streetscape if it could be shown to make daily life better; and that he could always be counted on to prefer the work of an eccentric genius like Nicholas Hawksmoor over that of a sane and rational architect like Christopher Wren.”