How can the different strands of modern architecture in Britain be understood? For many British people, it remains an alien cultural import and minority taste, yet British architecture has never stood higher in world esteem than at the close of the twentieth century. In this book Alan Powers shows how beneath today’s achievements in architecture, past conflicts have not been resolved, as the country that invented industrial civilization has struggled to control its effect on cities and countryside. He examines developments and changes from 1900 to the present day in a series of thematic chapters, giving equal weight to technical, economic and moral aspects and demonstrating how architecture has responded to specific social needs and political pressures. Rather than giving a conventional account of stylistic tendencies, Powers listens to the arguments and conversations of the time in order to recapture the dominating issues of each decade, and locate the moments of transition in architecture and in the wider culture.
Featuring more than 220 images, including both recent and historical photographs, Britain is an authoritative yet highly accessible account of twentieth-century British architecture. Giving due regard to the separate identities of England, Scotland and Wales, the book also adds a new and original dimension to the perennial problem of defining ‘Britain’ in the modern world.
- 306 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
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Topic
ArchitectureSubtopic
Architecture Generalwhere
concrete
was
used
within
a
primitive
rather
than
a
Modernist
design.
Dominion
House
was
designed
in
reinforced
concrete
and,
had
it
been
built,
it
would
have
been
the
most
significant
example
of
proto-
Modernism
in
Britain.
As
Nikolaus
Pevsner
commented,
‘Wells
inherit-
ed
from
Lethaby
a
sense
of
congruity
between
mediaeval
methods
for
a
still
mediaeval
job,
and
modern
methods
for
a
modern
job.’
While
the
mullions
and
transoms
looked
Tudor
in
origin,
Pevsner
considered
‘the
grid
and
the
whole
upward
drive
decidedly
American’.
20
The
design
is
remarkable
for
the
proposed
tall
tower
as
much
as
for
the
wide
expanses
of
glazing.
It
is
equally
surprising
that
a
man
of
93
should
have
commis-
sioned
such
a
progressive
design
to
symbolize
the
British
Empire,
which
was
otherwise
represented
on
the
adjacent
site
by
the
Beaux-Arts
classicism
of
Marshall
Mackenzie’s
Australia
House.
Hedging
on
the
question
of
whether
he
actually
liked
‘the
hardness,
glare
and
brutality’
of
modern
German
cities
(this
was
spoken
during
the
Dunbar
Smith
and
Cecil
Brewer,
Heal’s,
Tottenham
Court
Road,
London.
Perspective
by
R.
Palmer
Jones,
1914–16.
2
6
Table of contents
- Britain Cover
- Imprint page
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1: Efficiency: From Modernity to Modernism
- 2: Compassion: Modern Architecture Builds the 'Just City'
- 3: Poetics: The Moral Dilemma of Modern Aesthetics
- 4: Production: White Heat and Burnout
- 5: Happiness: The Reintegration of Architecture
- 6: Conscience: The Architecture of Fruitful Anxiety
- 7: Difference: Local Action and Global Thought
- References
- Select Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Photo Acknowledgements
- Index
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