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Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles
The title of this 1972 documentary won't really come as much of a shock to anyone who's read Reyner Banham's Architecture of the Four Ecologies. But Julian Cooper's film is incredibly funny and quirky,...
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Dancing Advent Calendar
I love dancing. No, more than that. And Christmas makes me insanely sad. So what better than an utterly ridiculous and very funny dancing advent calendar to hoof those blues away? This seriously makes...
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Olympic Heights, Olympic Lows
Now, I happen to love the Olympics. Yes, that's right. LOVE. THE. OLYMPICS. Not terribly fashionable but there we go. But it's interesting seeing the name being bandied about in the most extraordinary...
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Of Mies and Men
Fantastic BBC4 documentary from the early noughties on Mies van der Rohe called Visions of Space– on YouTube in its entirety.
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Modern University Buildings
So, this was a splendid Christmas present from my mate Silvia: a set of 1971 postage stamps representing four brilliant modernist university buildings: Percy Thomas and Sons's international style...
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So long, Soho
John H. Hutchinson's Flickr photos of Soho and Piccadilly from 1973 are wonderful, both a great record of areas intended to be comprehensively redeveloped and a glorious slice of social history.
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Home Sweet Home
Went to a small exhibition in Peckham yesterday at the Shopwork gallery. Artists Batchelor and Colson have spent a couple of years documenting the Ferrier estate in Kidbrooke, before and during...
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And now for the science bit
Here are some pictures from a 1959 edition of Design magazine on new breakthroughs in marketing and product development research: 'recordings of the ways in which consumers or operators use their eyes...
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He likes small people, he likes tall steeples...
Cliff Richard's torrid affair with postwar modern architecture peaked twice. There was his 1973 flop musical film Take Me High, set in the world of big business in Birmingham, most notably Richard...
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Concretopia
Book update – I've been rather behind schedule since the shingles/bells palsy episode, but my editor and agent have sorted me out and now I feel more confident again. I'm probably about 2/3 of the way...
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Jon-Marc Creaney's amazing architectural photographs
In November 2011 young Scottish architect Jon-Marc Creaney passed away from cancer. There were many wonderful tributes posted online from people who knew him, but I couldn't claim more than a passing...
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Closed Book
There's a campaign up and running to save John Madin's fabulous and appallingly neglected Birmingham Central Library building. You can sign the petition here.Sad sitting in the reference department...
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Ian Nairn Across Britain
Some splendid soul has uploaded the incomparable architectural critic Ian Nairn's 1972 documentary Across Britain– From Leeds into Scotland. The bit about the building of viaducts is particularly good,...
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Chemical Weapons
Athletics has been the only sport I have followed since I was a kid. Like many who grew up in the Coe-Ovett-Cram era I have strong memories of evenings watching Grand Prix events from Oslo, Brussels...
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Basil Spence is a Pacemaker
Lovely 1973 documentary called The Pacemakers looking at Basil Spence, that most unlikely modernist. Great watching him sketch, as dandyish and romantic as I'd imagined.Something dodgy about the...
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The Beatles, Picasso, Maria Callas and Cumbernauld
Our World was a landmark in TV broadcasting - the first international live multi-country satellite link-up, a two and a half hour special dreamed up by a producer at the BBC. The content was strange...
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Charley in New Town
Here's the lovely 1948 public service film, Charley in New Town. It's an animation promoting the idea of new towns, shortly after Stevenage, Harlow, Crawley, Hemel Hempstead and Newton Aycliffe had...
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Glasgow is Go!
Here's a Lovely Thing – a photographic study of Glasgow's sixties and seventies buildings by Ross Brown for Strathclyde University's architecture department – set to the Thunderbirds theme.
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Motopia – what are we waiting for?
'Designer Geoffrey Jellicoe (in glasses)...' – click the pic below for a video.Here's a great Pathe News clip of Jellicoe proudly showing off his Pilkington Glass model of Motopoia, 50s experimental...
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Insulin wallpaper
Five years ago I discovered I was diabetic. It's quite as tedious as you would imagine. A couple of years later I visited the Wellcome Collection, a brilliant though oddly quiet museum opposite Euston...
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