Max Bouttell (M.C.)

I am an architectural historian, primarily interested in how ideas and practices pertaining to the design of the built environment co-develop alongside those in politics and science.

I was awarded NWO's PhDs in the Humanities grant (2024-2029) to write a social history of Anglofuturist architecture. The project focuses on a cohort of neo-avant garde architects, critics, historians, and sympathisers in the latter half of the 20th century. This group were a insurgent force in 1960s London, and permanently marked British architectural culture with their insistence that technological and adaptive alternatives were a necessary antidote to the stifling buildings and cities of the  post-war years. This project is the first attempt to historicise in its entirety one of the most infamous moments in 20th century architectural culture. In doing so, it mines the grey-space between countercultural and avant-garde design, industrial and alternative technologies, and activist and institutional politics.

At Maastricht University, I am a member of the Department of History and the Science and Technology Studies research cluster. I have a background in Political Theory and Philosophy.