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Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry talk Chandigarh
This is a quite incredible film. A lecture given by Jane Drew to the AA in 1983 on her work at the Indian city of Chandigarh with her partner, Maxwell Fry. Fry is there too, but until the Q&A...
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Scotland's New Towns (1969)
Made as the final Scottish new town of Irvine was getting underway, here's a film from 1969 showing the development of East Kilbride, Cumbernauld, Glenrothes and Livingston.The film itself is your...
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Crawley 1955
This is a sequence of amateur footage of Crawley new town from 1955, made by George and Rosalind Howe for the Crawley and District Community Foundation.It's a motley collection, from carnivals to kids...
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Bull Ring Shopping Centre, 1965
I've posted a clip of this film before, but here is the full version. John Laing's 1965 promotional film advertising the newly completed Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham. It's narrated in breezy...
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At 6:10 am on Wednesday 9th November a tram travelling from New Addington emerged from the stretch of old railway tunnel towards Sandilands. This was a busy commuter tram heading into central Croydon,...
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Events in February 2017
I have a few more events lined up. Two talks for two new Modernist Societies for starters, in Liverpool and Sheffield.Ten Buildings that Changed Postwar Britain Join John Grindrod author of Concretopia...
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Modern art comes to Croydon by bus, 1965
Croydon modernist Sarah Wickens put me on to this amazing film of Croydon from 1965. It's Pathe newsreel footage showing gallery owner Nicholas Treadwell and his fashionable Art and Design shop in St...
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Tangerine Dream at Coventry Cathedral, 1975
In 1975 experimental synth pioneers Tangerine Dream played a concert in a modern marvel, Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral.Many bands have played all sorts of music at the cathedral: Duke Ellington;...
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Basil Spence's Edinburgh University Library, 1968
1968 was a remarkable year to be a student. There were student marches in Poland, West Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the US and Britain, against a backdrop of protests in favour of civil rights, black...
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Welcome to the St Leonards Centre, Sydney, 1972
Here's a rather wonderful document from the opening of the St Leonards Centre in Crows Nest, Sydney. Designed by architects Kerr & Smith, this sculptural brutalist number opened in 1972, and this...
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Building Flaine, Marcel Breuer's ski resort
Here's a delight – a French promo film made in the late 1960s for a modernist ski resort designed by Marcel Breuer. Flaine: Porte du Désert Blanc, directed by Gérard Sire, is a film in French showing...
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Wakefield, 1965, City of Possibilities
This film, The City of Wakefield, was made in 1965 by Wakefield Amateur Cine Club. It's a right little charmer, giving the viewer a chance to explore the city at a fascinating moment, as old and new...
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Glasgow Today and Tomorrow (1949)
Here's a fascinating film of Glasgow from 1949, showing the state of the city, from homes to roads and the centre, and offering some radical solutions. What makes this film so interesting is that the...
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Paul Rudolph goes mad in New Haven
Paul Rudolph was one of the greats of American modernism. Admired most for his brutalist buildings and obsession with experiments in corduroy concrete, Rudolph was also clearly a bit of a handful.This...
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Talking about Outskirts
on 1st June 2017 my new book Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt is published in hardback and ebook by Sceptre.Here's the blurb from the book:––––A captivating nature memoir telling...
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Washington Tomorrow (1966)
Washington in Tyne and Wear was one of the later new towns, and this breezy little 1966 film shows it being planned and built.We see the public meetings, the development corporation at work, the sites...
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Ten fascinating books about the green belt
Researching my green belt book OutskirtsI read a lot of stuff on the British countryside and the formation of our protected land, some fantastic, some not-quite-so gripping. This list shows ten (well,...
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Ronan Point - the 1968 inquiry report
In the aftermath of the appalling fire at Grenfell Tower it's hard not to think back to the collapse of Ronan Point in 1968. I thought perhaps people might find the inquiry report into Ronan Point...
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The Forgotten People of Birmingham
This is a fascinating – and extremely depressing – montage of different documentary clips from the 50s to the 70s, covering urban renewal in Birmingham. There are shocking shots of the old industrial...
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The Sound of Outskirts
I've been lucky enough to be asked onto a couple of podcasts recently to talk about Outskirts.The first was Thought Starters, where I was in conversation with the critic and historian Tom Dyckhoff. His...
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