Paul Dobraszczyk

I'm an architectural writer, photographer and artist based in Manchester, UK. I'm also a lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. I'm currently completing a book, 'Animal Architecture', to be published by Reaktion Books in 2023.

I'm the author of 'Architecture & Anarchism' (Paul Holberton, 2021); 'Future Cities: Architecture & the Imagination' (Reaktion, 2019); 'The Dead City: Urban Ruins & the Spectacle of Decay' (IB Tauris, 2017); 'Iron, Ornament & Architecture in Victorian Britain' (Ashgate, 2014); 'London's Sewers' (Shire, 2014); and 'Into the Belly of the Beast: Exploring London's Victorian Sewers' (Spire, 2009). I'm also co-editor of 'Manchester: Something Rich & Strange' (Manchester University Press, 2020); 'Global Undergrounds: Exploring Cities Within' (Reaktion, 2016); and Function & Fantasy: Iron Architecture in the Long Nineteenth Century (Routledge, 2016).

My writing and research broadly covers architecture and cities since the 19th century, with particular interests in ecology, urban futures, underground spaces and ruins, print culture, and industrial architecture. I've published many articles on such diverse topics as drowned cities, the ruins of Chernobyl, neo-Victorian horror cinema, gardening catalogues, census forms, London guidebooks, sewage pumping stations and information for cab passengers. I am also a visual artist and photographer and created the website www.stonesofmanchester.com in 2018.

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