Talking Art, Acid, and Architecture with Filmmaker Jonathan Meades

A cult figure in Britain, journalist and documentary filmmaker Jonathan Meades has never run with the pack. He specializes in a provocative kind of revisionism—underlying all his best work is a deep understanding of his subjects, an eye for the telling detail, and a chaotic sense of humor.

After two years off our screens, Meades returns this year with the third part in a trilogy of films about architecture under totalitarian dictatorships Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments, and Modernism, which focuses on Italy under fascism.

Gavin Haynes meets him at a London exhibition of his digital art, to talk through his life and career—from the “crimes” of Tony Blair, why he thinks religion is “absolute bollocks,” his views on London’s high-rise makeover, and Britain’s secret military LSD experiments.