DIGEST: Reviews, interviews, appearances

The Architect’s Newspaper: “C. G. Beck’s The Labor of Architecture is a clarion call to office unionization, and a defense of architecture’s social potential”, by Michael Allen

There is a specter haunting the field of architecture, and that specter is called “Fuck the bosses”—or class consciousness. This year began with a few powerful instances highlighting the complicity of architectural firms in schemes of exploitation and oppression. This wave may finally be delivering the necessary permission structure for architectural workers to rise up together and reclaim the power of creativity in delivering social change. At least there seems to be a systemic recognition that architects not only can be, but actually are, workers, despite whatever illusions of prestige and authorship their project managers tell them now and their studio professors proposed back in their education…. Read more…

Financial Times’ best books of 2025? A new release from MRP about architects as workers

The Financial Times just listed the newly released book The Labor of Architecture as one of its chosen titles among the Best Books of 2025 in the category of Art, Architecture and Design! How odd. Many congratulations to author C.G. Beck for getting the word out to new audiences about the efforts of architects to be recognized as workers. We don’t know what it means for the word “Marxist” to be mentioned in such a publication in a positive sense, but we would like to acknowledge it can be quite a feat. See below:

Live with Rick Wolff at The People’s Forum:

This fall  C. G. Beck hosted Democracy at Work’s Professor Richard D. Wolff for a conversation about labor and democracy at The People’s Forum. Building off the success of the Zohran Mamdani campaign for mayor of NYC, they discussed the role of unions in shaping workplaces and strengthening democracy in a moment of profound historical change. Stay tuned for a recording of the dynamic talk, which you will find here.

(Or, if you would rather listen to a Billy Bragg song while pondering the words of Marx directly, watch this short clip above or head to the MR YouTube page).