PAUL KNOX’s London: A History of 300 Years in 25 Buildings (Yale, £25) is a salmagundi of celebration, inquest, polemic and prophecy. 

Each chapter is the biography of a building in which architectural analysis triggers thoughts on fashion, morality, marketing, celebrities, ergonomics, local government and the collision of past and present. These apparently digressive ideas coalesce into a meta-narrative of the city’s evolving identities. 

The oldest building considered is a neoclassical townhouse of the 1750s; the newest is Google’s state-of-the-art UK headquarters (opening in 2025). 

Knox reflects on form, function and the character of the capital when the buildings were designed. In some cases, his assessment covers the impact of “repurposing.” Six eras are discussed: Georgian, Industrial Victorian, Empire Victorian, Metro (interwar), Postwar and Global. 

Knox extols the adaptability and resilience of London’s built environment, but highlights the exploitation of these features in turning public assets into private wealth: for example, a chapter on the Shard laments the loss of affordable housing to the super-prime property market. 

An accessible, meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated work of social and architectural history, this is essential reading for anyone fascinated — or alarmed — by the capital’s evolving streets and skyline.

The re-release of Hidden City, Stephen Poliakoff’s seldom screened but splendid debut feature from 1987 (BFI, £7.99) deserved greater attention than it received. The haircuts, technologies and fashions have failed the test of time, but the fears and ideas the film provokes have become more urgent. 

The plot centres on a mysterious state abduction during WWII, and the contemporary search for a missing reel of film. A running theme is the extent to which cities are haunted by the traumatic events of their past. 

A struggling researcher, Sharon, stumbles upon an apparent government conspiracy, and draws James, a pompous statistician, into an Orphic adventure below the surface of the capital. Their exploration of a maze of tunnels in which restricted films and documents are stored attracts the attention of menacing – but barely competent – government agents. As the story progresses, the inequalities of wealth and lifestyle in Thatcher’s London are exposed, and James’s complacent sense of himself unravels. 

Poliakoff’s crisp dialogue, smart use of the built environment and flair for drawing on a range of cinematic traditions – mythic quest, film noir and black comedy – creates a compellingly paranoid and prophetic vision of the city.

A careless glance at the contents page of Albion’s Eco-eerie (Temporal Boundary, £9.99) suggests a cinematic and televisual nostalgia-fest, focusing on the dark fantasy of the mid-to-late 20th century. I’m pleased to say it's nothing of the kind. 

Writer and academic Phil Smith develops a unique thesis drawing on the fuzzy concept of “hauntology” (the persistence of the cultural past), critical writings on the theme of “folk horror” (the dark aspects of nature) and the late Mark Fisher’s notion of “the eerie” (a forlorn sense of missing knowledge or awareness). 

Smith has three main concerns: humanity’s increasing alienation from nature; shifts in reality and consciousness; and political relationships – between workers and authoritarian leaders, and between “us” and those perceived as “the other.” The range of work discussed includes the Quatermass films, Night of the Demon, The Company of Wolves, O Lucky Man!, classics of children’s TV (The Changes and Children of the Stones), adaptations of MR James ghost stories (Whistle and I’ll Come to You and A Warning to the Curious) and an episode of Gerry Anderson’s Fireball XL5. 

It’s complex, accessible and tremendous fun.