Each month we highlight a building of our period, at home or abroad, that we think deserves attention.
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...
Look for past Buildings of the Month by entering the name of an individual building or architect or browsing the drop down list.