1922: The Birth of Now

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Documentaries

Factual

Factual: History

Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism.

Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today.

BBC Radio 4 FM

1922: The Birth of Now: The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin, The Criterion, The True Story of Ah Q, Louis Armstrong goes to Chicago

The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin, The Criterion, The True Story of Ah Q, Louis Armstrong goes to Chicago

BBC Radio 4 - 1922: The Birth of Now, The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin, The Criterion, The True Story of Ah Q, Louis Armstrong goes to Chicago

An omnibus edition of four things from 1922 with an impact a century later.

Four things in 1922 that have an impact a century later: The Shabolovka Tower in Moscow; Criterion Magazine; The True Story of Ah Q; Louis Armstrong Leaves New Orleans for Chicago.

1922: The Birth of Now - Ten programmes in which Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today. An omnibus edition of four programmes broadcast this week 

1. The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin. In 1922 Vladimir Shukhov built a tower in Moscow radically modernist in purpose - to transmit radio - and in design. He used a diagonally intersecting framework, his diagrid system, which uses less steel and requires no columns. This was a catalyst of Soviet modernism. Norman Foster describes the Shabolovka Tower as “a structure of dazzling brilliance and great historic importance.” Inspired by it he used Shukhov's diagrid system in the design of 30 St Mary Axe - The Gherkin - from the top of which Matthew looks at the streets and churches T. S. Eliot mapped in The Waste Land. 

2. The Criterion. T. S. Eliot founded this literary magazine in which The Waste Land first appeared. The Criterion also published Yeats and Proust, who were both interested in the occult. Matthew Sweet explores the forgotten preoccupations of Modernism: intellectuals and the masses, and antisemitism, that are still potent a century later. 

3. The True Story of Ah Q, by Lu Xun. Matthew Sweet and writer and film-maker Xiaolu Guo and academic and author Gregory Lee, explore the first Chinese modernist short story. This text was to influence modernist literature in China and Britain, helping to shape the aesthetic style of poets such as Ezra Pound. 

4. Louis Armstrong leaves New Orleans for Chicago in 1922. Kevin Legendre likens Armstrong’s journey from New Orleans to Chicago to James Joyce’s from Dublin to Paris, from entrenchment to cultural emancipation. 

Producers: Eliane Glaser and Julian May

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

1922: The Birth of Now

The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin, The Criterion, The True Story of Ah Q, Louis Armstrong goes to Chicago

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4