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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Guardian concrete week

Guardian Cities celebrates the aesthetic and social achievements of concrete, while investigating its innumerable harms, to learn what we can all do today to bring about a less grey world

15 March 2019

  • A concrete seawall at a port in Miyako, Japan

    Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth – podcast

    After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on the planet. But its benefits mask enormous dangers to human health – and to culture itself

2 March 2019

  • The Green House is a pioneering home made of recycled materials with walls insulated with old tyres.<br>A91JE9 The Green House is a pioneering home made of recycled materials with walls insulated with old tyres.

    What you can do to reduce the destructive impact of concrete

    From recycling to divesting from cement firms, here are some ways you can lessen the impact of concrete on the planet

1 March 2019

  • Concrete abstract architecture 3D illustration

    Yes, concrete is harmful but it also has huge benefits for mankind

    Letters: Building on Guardian concrete week, readers debate its advantages and environmental impact
  • Concrete and its key constituent, cement, have been key to modern development. But there are significant downsides to their manufacture and use.

    'We're wholly disappointed': the industry responds to Guardian concrete week

    This week Guardian Cities has focused on the huge impact of concrete on the modern world. Here is some of the industry’s response

    • 'A powerful argument for radical change': readers respond to Guardian concrete week

    • How science fiction can save us from concrete

    • Readers' photos: hideous eyesores or beautiful landmarks? You decide

28 February 2019

  • A worker in an open-air plant in the Gobi Desert, China, that crushes rocks to produce construction materials.

    Hard living: what does concrete do to our bodies?

    The building material has improved some aspects of public health, but it is also linked to a host of respiratory and musculoskeletal problems
  • Ernö Goldfinger’s 27-storey Balfron Tower in Poplar, east London.

    'Delicate sense of terror': what does concrete do to our mental health?

    Concrete tower blocks have become the bogeymen for all manner of ills – but what’s really behind it?
  • Beijing Daxing international airport

    The grey wall of China: inside the world's concrete superpower

    Beijing’s new airport is just the latest megaproject that has seen China pour more concrete every two years than the US did in the entire 20th century

27 February 2019

  • A Soviet era mosaic of a worker on the side of an apartment block in Yuzhno Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin Island 2004<br>AHYBB3 A Soviet era mosaic of a worker on the side of an apartment block in Yuzhno Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin Island 2004

    'Concrete? It's communist': the rise and fall of the utopian socialist material

    From soviet five-year plans to the New Deal in the US and China’s Great Leap Forward to post-war building in Europe, concrete has been the material of choice for revolutionary change
  • Mausebunker Tierversuchslabor, in Berlin, under threat

    Brutalist buildings under threat – in pictures

    Brutalist masterpieces (or eyesores, depending on your point of view) face the wrecking ball in cities around the world
  • Image by Picture Plane for Heatherwick Studio

    Ply in the sky: the new materials to take us beyond concrete

    Concrete is everywhere, but it’s bad for the planet, generating large amounts of carbon dioxide. Creative alternatives are in the pipeline, says Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey

26 February 2019

  • Abandoned vehicles on Morandi Bridge in Genoa after a section collapsed in August last year.

    What caused the Genoa bridge collapse – and the end of an Italian national myth?

    The Morandi bridge tragedy killed 43 and left 600 homeless – but also dealt a hammer blow to Italy’s engineering legacy
  • Construction waste piled up in Shenzhen, China

    Concrete chokes our landfill sites – but where else can it go?

    Most concrete from demolished buildings is simply dumped, much of it illegally. But there’s a better way – and it involves lightning
  • Opened 2015, the civic library of Le Havre is at home in Oskar Niemeyer’s icon “Le Volcan”

    Brutal beauty: how concrete became the ultimate lifestyle concept

    After a generation in the doghouse, concrete is more fashionable than ever. So why don’t we take better care of our brutalist architecture?

25 February 2019

  • Cement factory. Image shot 04/2012. Exact date unknown.<br>F3WXBX Cement factory. Image shot 04/2012. Exact date unknown.

    Concrete is tipping us into climate catastrophe. It's payback time

    John Vidal
  • L-R: Zeitz Museum and the Torre Velasca in Milan.

    Share your photos of beautiful or ugly concrete

  • The strikingly modern-looking concrete dome of the Pantheon in Rome is 1,900 years old.

    A brief history of concrete: from 10,000BC to 3D printed houses

  • A cement factory.

    Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth

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