As head of speech programming on BBC Radio 3, Abigail Appleton is used to tackling architecture in shows such as Night Waves. Here she talks to BD about her approach to the subject.

There’s no single approach — we tackle some architectural issues for example, through studio discussion, and others by recording on location. Location recording can be hugely evocative and of course there’s nothing like it for inspiring your presenter or contributor to find the most revealing way to describe something. The sounds of a particular location, even the quality of silence in a space, can also be hugely evocative, but you need to be wary of radio cliches. Certainly, when producing, I was sometimes guilty of including rather too many echoing footsteps in a recorded walk around.   

Sometimes the very simplest radio format, the interview, can be incredibly effective. Radio 3 recently broadcast a 45-minute interview with Richard Rogers in Night Waves, ranging widely over his cultural influences and sense of European identity as well as probing his thinking about some of his iconic projects. I think it’s an excellent example of how a simple conversation can sometimes reveal more than a globe- trotting, complex recording.

We’ve just broadcast a fascinating feature on the building boom in Moscow.  In Missing Moscow, LSE professor Ricky Burdett visited the city to investigate claims that its architectural treasures, including important early modernist buildings, are being destroyed or ignored in the rush to modernise and forget a painful past. 

For me, one of the key things is to put your theme, whether it’s the work of a particular architect or a broader issue, into the wider human and cultural context. Architecture on the radio comes to life when you explore the personal stories behind a building or consider the profound ways in which architecture and the built environment affect people’s lives. In this spirit it can often be fascinating to bring architectural perspectives together with voices from other disciplines. We did this recently in Night Waves in a discussion of the architecture of theatre. And later this year, Night Waves is planning a collaboration with the London Festival of Architecture. 

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