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Architectural modernism in Britain

These published texts deal with the historical analysis of the making and remaking of modernism in British architecture. The book, Mediating Modernism: Architectural Cultures in Britain takes a chronological series of case-studies which reflect different phases of this history from modernism's introduction, its application and its modification, to its ongoing reappraisal. It is not, however, intended as a positivist history that outlines historical progress, and neither does it aim for completeness: each of the seven chapters after the introductory section aims to develop a discrete narrative of architectural thought within a specific discourse, and thus can be read as a separate study. The focus in each case is on the expression of architectural ideologies through publications and other cultural outputs that are deemed to have been crucial to the shifts in architectural thought and practice of their time. Having said that, the discourses chosen for study are arguably the most historically significant and the most influential, even though much architectural work and very many other architectural publications make no appearance in its pages. The three other published texts submitted here subtend directly from the concerns of Mediating Modernism and were published earlier. Travels in Modem Architecture 1925-1930: Howard Robertson and FR Yerbury extends the account of the early British publication and influence of European modern architecture to be found in the latter part of Chapter 1 of Mediating Modernism. Birmingham: Building the Modem city forms a case study of the application *of modernist ideas of rebuilding and, while a separate and specific study, expands on the concerns outlined in Chapter 3 on the Abercrombie plan for London. Eric de Mare and the Functional Tradition makes a more extensive case for De Mare's contribution to the post-war discourse of material and place which is the subject of Chapter 4.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:536638
Date January 2011
CreatorsHiggott, Andrew
PublisherUniversity of East London
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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