Britain: Modern Architectures in History

How can the different strands of modern architecture in Britain be understood? For many British people, it remains an alien cultural import and minority taste, yet British architecture has never stood higher in world esteem than at the close of the twentieth century. In this book, Alan Powers shows how beneath today’s achievements in architecture, past conflicts have not been resolved, as the country that invented industrial civilization has struggled to control its effect on cities and countryside. He examines developments and changes from 1900 to the present day in a series of thematic chapters, giving equal weight to technical, economic and moral aspects and demonstrating how architecture has responded to specific social needs and political pressures. Rather than giving a conventional account of stylistic tendencies, Powers listens to the arguments and conversations of the time in order to recapture the dominating issues of each decade, and locate the moments of transition in architecture and in the wider culture. Featuring more than 220 images, including both recent and historical photographs, Britain is an authoritative yet highly accessible account of twentieth-century British architecture. Giving due regard to the separate identities of England, Scotland and Wales, the book also adds a new and original dimension to the perennial problem of defining ‘Britain’ in the modern world.