These book reviews were originally published in C20 magazine and are in date order of review.
There are few monographs on ecclesiastical architects of the 20th century. Research for our recent book 100 Churches 100 Years made clear how many major figures have no publication devoted to them – even designing a cathedral does not seem to quali...
This exhibition in Paris last winter took its title from a supremely confident quote. ‘There is a whole new world that absorbs our interest, because ultimately, the Profession of Architecture is work in the service of humanity,’ wrote Charlotte P...
How will post-modernism evolve after Charles Jencks? I recall standing, strangely enough, in a phone-box off Fitzroy Square, feeding in a stream of coins in return for advice, proffered half-cajolingly and half-proprietorially, on Post-Modern Buildin...
These two books were recommended to me by David Heath, chair of our Casework Committee, who told me The Honeywood File was one of the best books about the trials and tribulations of being an architect and the relationships between the parties involve...
Of the 140 cinemas built before 1939, only 52 survive, of which 20 are listed. In Odeon Relics: Nineteen-thirties Icons in the Twenty-first Century, Philip Butler has photographed them all, in their current ‘weathered’ state. In some cases ‘wea...
In these austere times, how many local authorities commission a book about their housing stock? Step forward Nottingham City Homes, the strategic housing service set up within the city council in 2005, which has since built over 500 new homes and upg...
The latest book from David Lawrence will be most useful for C20 casework. It is essentially about British Rail station design, and follows on from his 2016 book, BR Designed. It traces the foundations of modernity in British railway architecture befo...
If ever you could judge a book by its cover, it is Boom Cities: the pop art explosion and speech bubble capture the euphoria of 1960s city centres. Such developments have not been the subject of much academic research; as Saumarez Smith explains, ‘...
The small-format 1965 edition (covering both West and East Sussex) was written by Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner. This new volume is vastly expanded, and, with a wealth of new information, it is an indulgent pleasure to revisit familiar places and ma...
The Bauhaus centenary has seen a slew of publications celebrating the influence and global reach of what was arguably the most significant design school of the 20th century. Among these, Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective moves our focus away from a...
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