Writing and research

Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past

Robert’s recent book Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past is proving a critical success. The book examines the politicisation of the historic environment and reminds us why material evidence matters so much. It has been a book of the year in the Financial Times, the Art Newspaper and elsewhere. Robert is undertaking a tour of US universities and the Getty this September. A paperback edition will follow.

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“One of the most compelling progressive voices in the heritage world ... Using his nuanced knowledge of architectural history, he is attempting to unpick some of the myths and straight lies deployed when architecture is weaponised.”

– Eddie Blake, Tribune

“From statues of slave traders to pictures of medieval town centres offered as evidence of "cultural superiority", architecture and public art are everywhere in a coarsened discourse. Robert Bevan...navigates the territory delicately and brilliantly”

– Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times, Best Books of 2022

“This close reading of the city is a potent response to the culture wars because it deals in precisely the historical honesty that culture warriors have no stomach for. Righteous but always nuanced, Bevan is the perfect guide to the way urban iconography distorts history and entrenches power.”

– Justin McGuirk, Senior Curator, Design Museum

Robert writes internationally about architecture, cities, heritage and cultural travel. He is the architecture critic for the London Evening Standard.

Architecture

Heritage

Cultural Travel

He has previously been editor of Building Design and the architecture critic for two other daily newspapers The Australian and the Australian Financial Review. He has written for design, art and travel magazines around the world as well as for national bodies such as Historic England.

"Passionate, original…he writes with powerful eloquence.”

Neil Ascherson – author

Robert is the author of essays and books including The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War (2006/2015) and is a member of (ICOMOS), the body that advises UNESCO on world heritage. He has qualifications in architecture, planning, urban design and journalism, and experience in both news and features.

For Robert Bevan, it is all about having a strong sense of place; this is what connects his work as a writer, architectural historian and consultant. He can critique a city’s newest architecture, research its history, reveal its symbolic meaning or set out its appeal to today’s cultural traveller.

Among the many other titles Robert has written for are: Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Observer magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, The Economist, Art Newspaper, Architectural Review, and Wallpaper*/Wallpaper* City Guides.

Articles

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All
Architecture
Cultural Travel
Heritage

Me London

Can hi-tech architecture create the perfect hotel bedroom?

Iconoclasm as genocide warning

Attacks on buildings conveying cultural identity can be a warning of incipient ethnic cleansing or genocide. (more…)

World Heritage Convention at 40

Is the world heritage convention having a midlife crisis? Published as: World Heritage at 40: success or mess? in THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 240, November 2012

Neues Museum, Berlin

David Chipperfield's masterpiece used Bevan's book, The Destruction of Memory as a guide to its critical reconstruction. (more…)

Minaretphobia

Racism is behind the fight against building minarets in the West.

The Destruction of Memory

One of the ten best architecture books says The Independent. This analysis of attacks on architecture helped define a new field of study.

9/11 Memorial

High finance and low politics undermines commemoration at Ground Zero.

Common Ground

An essay on Islamophobia and the stand-off between heritage and the avant-garde commissioned for a critical reader accompanying the 2012 Venice Biennale.

Heritage Journalism

Journalism about historic architecture and places and issues relating to material culture, including looting and provenance and human rights, is a consistent element of Robert Bevan's heritage advocacy.