The first entry of C20’s Building of Month was published over 20 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, which continues today. 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 across the world. In the archive below, you will find over 250 entries spanning more than 30 countries.
For pitches, or to discuss ideas, please contact: joe@c20society.org.uk
Joe Mathieson is editor of Building of the Month. He is an Architectural Adviser at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust and a C20 volunteer.
by Elain Harwood This weekend house by Stout and Litchfield (1963-4) is at once convivial yet also intensely private. To enter its hidden domain is to be transported into another world, literally, for as you step gingerly across the stones of its ...
by Aidan Turner-Bishop The Cumberland Inn, Botchergate, designed in 1928 by Harry Redfern, architect to the Carlisle State Management Scheme, was built in 1929-30 in Tudor style. Carlisle was the centre of an experiment in the management of public h...
By Geraint Franklin The Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA) was a direct result of the government’s measures for post-war reconstruction. The 1939-45 war led to a national reconfiguration of the furniture industry, redeploying labour an...
by Alistair Fair The origins of what was originally known as the New University of Ulster lie in a report produced in 1965 for the then Northern Ireland government by Sir John Lockwood, which, as Lord Robbins had done in 1963 with reference to Engla...
by Henrietta Billings Cressingham Gardens estate in south London was built between 1967 and 1979 to the designs of Lambeth Borough Architects, led by Edward Hollamby. It is impressive for the quality of the accommodation and layout, and for ...
by Barry Arden The Casa de Serralves, in the park of Serralves in Porto’s western suburbs, lies testimony to the enterprise and international good taste of its builder, Carlos Alberto Cabral, 2nd Count of Vizela. The villa forms part of the Serral...
Freya Wigzell The house at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) was built for Sir Peter Scott, artist, conservationist and broadcaster, who lived there for over thirty years. The house closely reflects Scott’s life and personality. It ...
by Susannah Charlton A northern cousin of the De La Warr Pavilion, the Rothesay Pavilion brings the glamour of the International Style to the seafront of the Isle of Bute. Rothesay has been one of Scotland’s major seaside resorts since the late C1...
by Lou Robson The shabby foyer of Coventry's central baths holds few clues to the magnificent arena perched above. A modern kiosk is shoehorned into a corner and vending machines obscure the stone plaque marking the opening in 1966 by a Lord Mayor w...
When John Betjeman addressed the Solent Protection Society in the days before construction began on Fawley Power Station (1964-71, Farmer and Dark) he spoke of the “new architecture of power”. At Fawley, he argued, the plans would bring a “broo...
by Claire Bennie In these straitened 21st century times, the architectural and residential development world is feverishly concerned with building homes for the ‘private rented sector’. These are typified by small stacked flats, communal facilit...
by Alan Powers In the summer of 2014, the newly cleaned façade of the old St Martin’s School of Art emerged from scaffolding. Facing east in a narrow street and dimmed by decades of dirt, it was never easy to appreciate its quality, and Pevsner/B...
In the early 1970s, in the West Riding of Yorkshire (as it still was - just - then), three buildings went up within 12 miles and three years of each other, all the headquarters of northern building societies, and all in variants of high-brutalism. T...
by John Grindrod What did Richard Seifert, Britain’s most ubiquitous designer of skyscrapers, think of his famous towers? ‘They are dramatic’ he told the Daily Mirror in 1974. ‘Each stands proudly on its own. It cannot be semi-detached.’[i...
by Alistair Fair The University of Stirling was established as part of the major expansion of Higher Education in post-war Britain. The only wholly new Scottish university of the 1960s, its foundation followed the Robbins Report of 1963, which accel...
by Susannah Charlton Hove Town Hall, built in 1970-3 to the designs of John Wells-Thorpe, is a remarkable example of 1970s Brutalist architecture, replacing the Gothic town hall on the site by Waterhouse (1882, destroyed by fire in 1966). It is a b...
by India Rose Matharu-Daley Unlike most cemeteries, the Cambridge American Cemetery, dedicated in 1956, lifts the spirits. Its art, architecture and landscape design communicate glory and gratitude, light and life, patriotism and pride. For the fina...
by Elizabeth Darling At first glimpse, St Mary’s Road, Peckham, in south London appears much like any other in this part of London. A residential street, it is lined by rows of early- to mid-nineteenth century houses. Should you continue further d...
by Henrietta Billings Think 1990s suburban office park. Think offices for a concrete production facility. Then prepare to be amazed. The former Ready Mix Concrete company headquarters in Egham, Surrey, not only won 9 architectural awards when it op...
by Alexandra Bullen Nearing Westbourne Park station, travelling west out of central London, the slender eastern profile of Trellick Tower incites little notice among the handful of housing blocks peppering the area. However, as the building looms la...
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