Clik here to view.
The Ladybird Book of Modern Achievements
Who doesn't love a trilogy? This wasn't even intended to be one, but then when I started out I didn't realise the sheer amount of gems there were still to be uncovered. And so here it is, the final...
View ArticleA very 1947 Christmas
As Christmas spending this year goes into overdrive I thought it might be interesting to reflect on a rather different Christmas, one from the immediate postwar era. Here's five British Pathe films...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Anniversaries in 2015
There were some significant anniversaries in 2014: the Greater London Plan of 1944; Britain's first New Brutalist building, Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, opened in 1954; and the Post Office...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brandon Estate Flowers
Here's two amateur films from the sixties of the Brandon Estate in Southwark. I used to live next to the estate, back in the days before Doctor Who made it famous as Rose Tyler's home in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Adam Curtis on system building
Adam Curtis + system building = the makings of a great conspiracy theory. Here's our finest polemical documentary maker in his younger days tearing into the failures of sixties system building, one of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Concre-TOUR-pia (geddit?)
I'm doing a number of talks in 2015 about Concretopia, and will list them on here as they come up, partly so I remember to actually turn up and do the talking.29th January: Milton Keynes Gallery, 7pm....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Utopia London
Utopia London is a 2010 documentary directed by Tom Cordell, in which he explores the modernist dreams and relics of the the city, and tries to explain how they came to be.He covers the stories of some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Peterborough Effect
With a history going back to the Bronze Age, Peterborough might have seemed an unlikely place for a New Town. It was designated as such in 1967, one of the last of what were known as the expanded...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vandalism killed the Modernist stars
The Smithsons on Housing is a remarkable film. I'm sure you've probably already seen it. A half hour BBC documentary made in 1970 by experimental writer and film-maker B. S. Johnson on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The most modern town in Britain
Here's The Washington Way, a beautiful 1970s promo film for Washington New Town. 'Gone are the days of poverty' is one of the bold claims of this glorious little film, made for Washington New Town...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Basingstoke in the 1960s
In the early 1960s there was a plan for the GLC to build a new town in Hampshire, in Hook. It was intended to be a super-modern new town in the style of Cumbernauld in Scotland. When plans for it were...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Concretopia comes to Edinburgh and Glasgow
I'm really excited to be doing events in Edinburgh and Glasgow for Concretopia this April. I've spent a fair bit of time in both cities, and love them very much. Though will have to temper my desire to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Livingston New Town, 1966
Here's a rather odd, romantic short film made by architect John Paterson about fellow designer Peter Daniel, who'd been appointed chief architect and planning officer for Livingston new town, Central...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to plan a new town
Here's a 1966 film, The Design of Space, made for town planners. We are treated to marvellous shots of new towns – Cumbernauld, Crawley and Stevenage – and old cities being given major facelifts –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Ash Green being built, 1968
Span, those midcentury developers known for their swanky estates in Blackheath and Ham Common, decided in the mid-sixties that they fancied an experiment on an altogether larger scale. Their plan: to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Energy in Northampton
This 1980 news report is incredible. To promote the modern joys of Northampton, the Development Corporation sponsored a single. The song, Energy in Northampton, follows the story of aliens arriving on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Denys Lasdun interview from 1976
The National Theatre building on the South Bank of the Thames opened in 1976. It had been designed some years before for a different site, further along the river where the London Eye now sits, and to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Colonel Seifert's Tallest Tower
Here's a film (split into two parts) covering the official royal launch of NatWest Tower (now Tower 42) on June 11th 1981. The tower had already been occupied by the National Westminster Bank since the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Barbican – Urban Poetry
Here's a charming new short documentary about the Barbican estate, from film-maker Joe Gilbert. He uses the reminiscences of residents combined with beautifully shot black and white footage of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Building LWT
This is one of the best video records of a postwar construction site in Britain. Footage was taken between 1970–72 by film crews from London Weekend Television, recording the construction of their new...
View Article