The first entry of C20’s Building of Month was published nearly 25 years ago, in October 2001. Then chairman, Gavin Stamp, decided to write about a derelict building instrumental to the foundation of C20 as the Thirties Society in 1979 – Oliver Hill’s modernist Midland Hotel, Morecambe (1933). In 2008, this vast sea fronting complex was refurbished and restored to its original use.
Since Stamp’s article, Building of the Month has developed into an invaluable platform to document and ultimately help save countless twentieth century buildings in the UK and globally. In the archive below, you will find over 250 entries spanning more than 30 countries.
For pitches, or to discuss ideas, please contact: mark@c20society.org.uk
Mark Bessoudo is editor of Building of the Month. He is a writer, researcher and architectural historian and a C20 volunteer.
For LGBT history month, we are featuring an excerpt from Adam Nathaniel Furman and Joshua Mardell's new book: Queer Spaces: an Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories (RIBA Publishing) , available now for pre-order - click here. Throughout 2022, the 'B...
Throughout 2022, the 'Building of the Month’ feature is in partnership with the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain’s Equality Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) networks: the LGBTQIA+ Network, the Women Architectural Historian...
Hurd Rolland Partnership (1993) The history of the City of York is told through its magnificent architecture: from the fragments of Roman wall to the medieval Minster and the exemplary buildings from all eras since. Yet a period considerably overl...
Herbert J. Rowse, 1925-34 Ranking as one of the great municipal achievements of the inter-war years, the Mersey road tunnel was celebrated with pride by both Liverpool and Birkenhead when it was opened by the King George V in 1934. Architect Herbe...
F X Velarde (1955-59) The work of Francis Xavier Velarde (1897-1960) has appeared in the Building of the Month slot before, his Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Blackpool being featured in October 2003. Here the slightly later RC church of Holy Cr...
Ted Cullinan, 1992 Ted Cullinan first visited the great Georgian landscape park of Studley Royal in Yorkshire as a schoolboy. Evacuated to Canada with his mother and siblings at the age of eight, on the outbreak of the Second World War, he returne...
Irvine Development Corporation (1973-75) At 1.5km long the Irvine Centre, when completed, would have been visible from orbit. Conceived as the megastructural centrepiece to Scotland’s fifth post-war New Town, the vital statistics for this enormous...
Peter Moro & Partners, 1969 The University of Hull’s Gulbenkian Centre opened in 1969. It was the first completely new building for the teaching of drama at a British university, reflecting not only the growth of this subject within post-war...
Milton Keynes Development Corporation, 1975-9 On 25 September 1979, the recently elected prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, declared the Shopping Building in Milton Keynes open for business. The largest indoor shopping centre in the UK represented...
Rodney Gordon for Batir International Architects (1979-82) On one of the most exclusive London thoroughfares, a building by an architect more often associated with the crafting of mid-century concrete megastructures, blends glossy swagger with eng...
Nikola Dobrović, 1936 Lopud is the middle island in the Elaphitic archipelago, distanced a single nautical mile from the mainland and only seven miles from Dubrovnik’s northern harbour. The small town of the same name, stretched along a sandy b...
Sigurd Lewerentz c. 1958-1963 To the south-east of Stockholm city centre lies the first stage of the Sörmlandsleden hiking trail. A 1000km recreational route first established in the 1960s, the trail winds its way through the spectacular lowlands...
Lina Bo Bardi, 1977- 1986 The adaptive reuse of modern industrial buildings is familiar to us today, but it was not a well-established practice when SESC Pompéia was conceived, or even when it opened in 1986 some ten years later. A leisure centre...
Bill Forrest (1970-74) According to the Ham & High in 1977, the Chester Road hostel, was ‘one of Camden’s most attractive new social services buildings’. It was designed by a person whom Neave Brown described (in the National Life Story ...
Josef Paul Kleihues, with Norbert Hensel, 1992–94 This museum is a piece of urban design. In the small town of Telgte, a place of pilgrimage in Westphalia, north-west Germany, Josef Paul Kleihues (1933-2004) installed a showpiece example of how ...
F. O. Hayes, with T. G. Bell, K. Dean and Muriel Jamieson, 1966 Amma, the heroine who opens Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, a once-renegade black feminist playwright, is now enjoying new renown with a sold-out run at the National Theatr...
John A. W. Grant, 1937-40 Fountainbridge Library on Dundee Street in Edinburgh is a rare and important example of modern Scottish architecture. It was designed by John Alexander William Grant (1886/7-1959) and was built between 1937 and 1940. Char...
Bétrix & Consolascio (Marie-Claude Bétrix and Eraldo Consolascio, with Bruno Reichlin), 1982 One of Switzerland’s most significant buildings of the postmodern era is located in the industrial area of Uster, a small town outside Zurich. The...
Arthur W. Ecclestone (1948) The grade II listed Iron Duke, situated on Jellicoe Road in Great Yarmouth, facing the North Denes Dunes and out to the sea, was built as the flagship public house for the Lacons brewery. At its height, Lacons had over...
Clough Williams-Ellis (1946) A circle or oval on a steep declivity is hard to design, the more so if it has to harbour a solemn enclosure. What height should the encircling walls have? If there is to be a level surface within, they must be shall...
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