The Alienation Effect

In the 1930s, tens of thousands of central Europeans sought sanctuary from fascism in Britain. While the rainy, seemingly quaint island they discovered on arrival was a far cry from the dynamism of Weimar Berlin or Red Vienna, it was safe, and it became home. Yet the émigrés had not arrived alone: they brought with them new and radical ideas, and as they began to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, they transformed the face of Britain forever.

In the resulting clash between European modernism and British moderation, imaginations were fundamentally realigned and remade for the better, as Hatherley argues. In casting what Bertolt Brecht called, in a new German word, a Verfremdungseffekt, an ‘alienation effect’, on Britain, the aliens made the Brits a little bit alien too.

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With: Owen Hatherley, writer and journalist based in London who writes primarily on architecture, politics and culture; owenhatherley.co.uk

Moderation: Michael Klein / ÖGFA