<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

More from Books

Abstract and concrete: the beauty of brutalism

5 February 2022

9:00 AM

5 February 2022

9:00 AM

Modern Buildings in Britain: A Gazetteer Owen Hatherley

Particular Books, pp.608, 60

Building Utopia: The Barbican Centre Nicholas Kenyon

Batsford, pp.288, 40

Nothing divides the British like modernist architecture. Traditionalists are suspicious of its utopian ambitions and dismiss it as ugly; proponents romanticise it, yearn for the civic principles that built it and gloss over its failings; the young see period charm in flat roofs and straight lines, while the old associate them with deprivation; the wealthy mostly avoid it — and many people have no choice but to live in it.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Get 10 issues
for $20

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $20.

  • Delivery of the weekly magazine
  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close