Was Britain’s post-war rebuilding the height of mid-century chic or the concrete embodiment of Crap Towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling austerity Britain became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass. On his journey he visits the sleepy Norfolk birthplace of Brutalism, the once- Blitzed city centre of Plymouth, the futuristic New Town of Cumbernauld, Sheffield’s innovative streets in the sky, the foundations of the BT tower, and the brave fifties experiments in the Gorbals. Along the way he meets New Town pioneers, tower block builders, Barbican architects, old retainers of Coventry Cathedral, proud prefab dwellers and sixties town planners: people who lived through a time of phenomenal change and excitement. What he finds is a story of dazzling space-age optimism, ingenuity and helipads
so many helipads
tempered by protests, deadly collapses and scandals that shook the government. ‘Concretopia’ is an accessible, warm and revealing social history of an aspect of Britain often ignored, insulted and misunderstood. It will change the way you look at Arndale Centres, tower blocks and concrete forever. AUTHOR: John Grindrod grew up in Croydon in the 1970s and has worked as a bookseller and publisher for twenty-five years. He has been published in the Twentieth Century Society magazine, has co-written and edited a book about TV, ‘Shouting at the Telly’, and contributed to a book on music, ‘Hang the DJ’. He runs the website dirtymodernscoundrel.com and can be contacted on Twitter @Grindrod.