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.
Rob Whitlock In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War one of Britain’s primary concerns was dealing with an acute housing shortage. The scale of the problem saw the widespread adoption of modernist solutions for high-rise living, often d...
Stuart McKenzie At the start of Ayn Rand’s novel ‘The Fountainhead’, the reader is introduced to the protagonist Howard Roark just as he is being ejected from architecture school. Very quickly the reason becomes clear: Roark is completely unwi...
John Kennedy Located in Greenock, a large post-industrial town situated near Glasgow on the south bank of the River Clyde, Greenock Central Library was built in 1970. Positioned within a complex urban setting, the Central Library sits on the edge of...
James Benedict Brown The threat of demolition has hung over our Building of the Month for several years. Like many provincial explorations in Brutalism, Sovereign House in Norwich (Alan Cooke Associates, 1966-68) is both maligned and fondly regarded...
Laura Chan The tabula rasa caused by the Blitz allowed the London County Council (and later the Greater London Council) to embrace the ideal of concentrated living, an anti-utopian model. Over the course of the 1950s to the 1970s, modern architectur...
Dr Matthew Whitfield Building on the success of Allan Brodie and Gary Winter's 2007 book, England's Seaside Resorts, English Heritage is continuing its exploration of the significance of seaside towns with a series of shorter projects that focus mor...
by Barnabas Calder All who take the celebrated ferry across the Mersey will be struck with the beauty of Liverpool from the water. The famous early twentieth-century buildings from the time of its peak prosperity as a transatlantic port are now flan...
Frank Fielden and Associates with J.C. Cunningham by Ruairidh Campbell Moir The ‘Fun Palace’ idea by Cedric Price was a method of attacking the established order of institutions becoming defined by their architecture. He proposed a fl...
Philip Russell Diplock & Associates, 1961 by Bruce Peter Britain’s first significant airport hotel ‘happened’ almost by accident, through a change of heart on the part of the operator, J. Lyons & Co. Founded in 1887 as a subs...
Patrick McSweeney (1962-74), by Richard Butler Set amidst the small market town of Bantry, near the site of a former mill and surrounded by one of the spate rivers which drain from the Knocknaveagh range to the south, is one of Ireland’s most un...
Frederick Gibberd and Partners, by Christine Hui Lan Manley The 1946 New Towns Act in Britain gave modern architects a chance to attempt to design a town. A planned town of a compact nature, with variety, carefully considered spaces, and a socially...
Thomas Charles Willis Pullinger, by Miriam McDonald The former Arrol-Johnston Car Co. Ltd factory, described as ‘the only virtually complete British example of a concrete framed, multi-storey daylight car factory, built in emulation of American p...
Jeremy and Fennela Dixon, by Otto Saumarez Smith Jeremy and Fennela Dixon’s local authority housing at St Mark’s Road (1975-79) for the London borough of Kensington is a vivid example of the disillusionment over modernist solutions that occurre...
R L Moorcroft & Richard Seifert and Partners, by Mark Crinson Which of London’s railway termini relates best to the surrounding city? At which of them can we most enjoy the passage from street to booking hall? In my view, there’s only one ...
Robert Potter, by Martin Walker The death last year of Robert Potter (of the firm Potter and Hare) at the age of 101 was a reminder of how unusual it is today, when high profile awards go in most cases to commercial and public projects, for an arch...
Keppie Henderson & Partners, by Ross Brown The Newbery Tower is rather less well-known than its southerly neighbour for the same client, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art building. The practice which designed the Newbery Tower...
Hong Kong Housing Department architecture division (project architect, Donald P H Liao) 1965-70, by Miles Glendinning To modern architecture heritage enthusiasts in the UK, Europe or America, public housing is an aspect of the Modern Movement th...
Sergei Serafimov, Samuel Kravets & Mark Felger, by Owen Hatherley The Gosprom (Russian) or Derzhprom (Ukrainian) building in Kharkov was designed by Sergei Serafimov (1878-1939), Samuel Kravets (1891-1966) and Mark Felger (1881-1962) in 1925, ...
Builder Willie Logan, by Ruairidh Campbell Moir Stornoway, main town of the Isle of Lewis, is formed within a natural harbour, flanked by rocky headlands - the Minch channel to the mainland beyond. These headlands are witness to much colourful h...
by Roland Jeffery Bletchley Park was at the outbreak of the Second World War in rural Buckinghamshire, beside a small sleepy railway town which was to become part of Milton Keynes. The estate had been purchased by the Government Code and Cipher S...
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