Clement - Brutalism: Post-war British Architecture

First published in 2011 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book edition first published in 2012

Alexander Clement 2011

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ISBN 978 1 84797 404 4

Acknowledgements
In the researching and writing of this book I would like to acknowledge the help and support of the following people: Andrea and Theo Clement, Eve Owen, Jimmy Jaques, Stephen Clarke, Christine Otterwill and Kevin McGimpsey. I would also like to extend grateful thanks to Kendal Goode and Chief Superintendent Purdie of the North Wales Police, Sasha Ricketts, Terry Brown and Mick Farrell from GMW Architects, Sue Foster at Building Design Magazine, Pam Afghan at the Ministry of Justice, Karen Robinson at the Trades Union Congress, Mark Hansford and Sally Harper at The Economist Newspaper Ltd, Nick Saffell at the Cambridge University Office of Media Relations, Delwyn Evans at Flintshire County Council and Ather Mirza at the Leicester University Press and Corporate Communications Office.

Photography Credits
The images in this book have been taken by the author, with the exception of the following for which grateful thanks go to: Darren Ashley (Chapter Hall, Truro Cathedral), Stephen Clarke (Trinity Car Park, Gateshead), Debbie Soon (New Court, Cambridge), Elliott Brown (Birmingham Central Library), Iqbal Alaam (the Chapel at Churchill College, Cambridge and Nottingham Playhouse), Steve Cadman (Cripps Building, Cambridge), Tim Eccleston (Coventry Cathedral), Colin Brooks (Engineering Building, Charles Wilson Building and Attenborough Building, Leicester University), Roger and Jane Kelly (Bernat Klein Studio), Aiden McMichael (Ulster Museum Extension), David Martyn (Clifton Roman Catholic Cathedral), Adam Kerfoot-Roberts (Halifax Building). Images of the University of East Anglia (UEA) were provided by courtesy of the University. Images of Brunel University lecture theatre courtesy of the University with grateful thanks to Sally Trussler.

As a boy growing up in Woking, Surrey, I became acutely aware of what was frequently termed the concrete jungle. The towns civic centre, central library, public swimming pool and shopping precinct, now all demolished or restyled, were built during the 1960s and 1970s in what I now recognize as the Brutalist style. The distinctive British American Tobacco building, which still stands and is now occupied by Telewest, was one of the last to be completed and is a significant late example which dominated the town and remains a well-known local landmark. At the time, Brutalism was in its final phase and was already being replaced with neo-vernacular, Dutch Barn-style civic building and was regarded , by and large, as outdated and ugly. Nevertheless , it must have planted a seed in my mind which would later grow into a great love of twentieth -century Modernist architecture, although it took many years to reach maturity.

My early interest tended to favour historicist (that is, as opposed to modernist) styles such as the Neo-classical, Queen Anne and Gothic in other words, those forms which predominated during the nineteenth century and survived into the twentieth. Modern architecture was pretty much a closed book to me until I began studying it at degree level and understood for the first time why such buildings looked the way they did. My interest in architecture expanded greatly and formed the basis of a passion I have carried with me ever since.

While I would never wish to be an apologist for bad building, my interest in architecture has led me to look at certain structures, which are widely regarded as worthy of demolition, in a different way. Brutalism is, I would have to agree, an acquired taste, but I have long held a fear that a great many important examples of British architecture could be lost to history simply because they have been misunderstood and dismissed as unfashionable and unsightly. My hope in writing this book is that I might transfer some of my enthusiasm for modern buildings to the reader so that he or she may have an opportunity to view them with a fresh eye and find something hitherto hidden in them.

Alexander Clement, 2009