Each month we highlight a building of our period, at home or abroad, that we think deserves attention.
Walter Gropius with Adolf Meyer (1924) by Alan Powers, trustee and former chairman of C20 Society Much has been said and written about the Bauhaus, not least in this centenary year of its foundation. The best way to judge the Bauhaus is by its prod...
With Richmond House under threat and the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal project underway, eyes have once again turned to Portcullis House and Westminster Underground Station. Although the modifications are as yet unspecified, following...
This month, the noted author, historian and curator Neil Bingham writes about the Meeting House from the perspective of one using it for the purpose it was intended. For an hour, we sat in silence. Only twice was it broken, momentarily, when a Frie...
Le Corbusier, 1962-1967 Chandigarh, the modern capital of the truncated state of East Punjab, was born in the wake of India’s partition in 1947 that led to the creation of Pakistan and with it the loss of Lahore. Today, it is a well-known modern c...
Sir William Whitfield, 1982-84 When the Society was launched 40 years ago in the sumptuous Art Deco Ball Room of the Park Lane Hotel, the keynote speech was made by the veteran Parliamentarian Lord St John of Fawsley– then Mrs Thatcher’s Minist...
Mervyn Seal, 1976 These delightful and unique holiday homes were designed by the Torbay architect Mervyn Seal (1930-) in 1976 for Sladnor Park, a holiday camp at Maidencombe, just north of Torquay. Seal’s early housing in the area was well-known l...
Maguire & Murray, 1962-7 Millions of rail passengers travel through Crewe. Those who leave the station will find a railway town of nineteenth century redbrick terraced and semi-detached houses. Yet, about two kilometres away from the station, is...
Feliksas Vizbaras (1931-2) “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us” - this famous phrase by Sir Winston Churchill could be applied to one of the unique stories of the 20th century, which comes from Lithuania in Northern Europe. It is...
Peter Smithson (2001-8) It is not well-enough known that Peter Smithson designed a museum, and that it was actually built. Perhaps that is because it’s in a sleepy suburb of a sleepy German town. Or perhaps because it was designed so late in his c...
by Tim Benton In 1926 Eileen Gray bought a plot on the Côte d’Azur, squeezed between a railway line and the rocky coastline with a beautiful view over the Bay of Monaco. Here she designed and built, with the help of her lover Jean Badovici, a vil...
Look for past Buildings of the Month by entering the name of an individual building or architect or browsing the drop down list.