15b: MODERNISM IN BRITAIN IN THE 1930s

…War Clouds Gathering on the Horizon

RIBA headquarters, London
Grey Wornum
1934
BBC Broadcasting House
Val Myer
1932
Yacht Club, Burnham on Crouch
Joseph Emberton, 1936
Boots Factory, Beeston
Owen Williams, 1930-2
Sun Houses, Amersham
Connell, Ward & Lucas
Penguin Pool,
Tecton, 1933

Berthold Lubetkin
Ove Arup
Highpoint One, Tecton, 1935
Tecton: Finsbury Health Centre, 1935
THE ARCHITECTURE OF LEISURE
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, Mendelsohn & Chermayeff, 1935
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, Mendelsohn & Chermayeff, 1935
 ODEON Cinema
Leicester Square
Harry Weedon, 1937
Saltdean Lido
Richard Jones, 1935
TRANSPORT:
Charles Holden:
Work for London Underground
1930s

Southgate Station
Corporate design for London Transport
1930s
Harry Beck’s map of the Underground, 1933
Arnos Grove tube station. Charles Holden, 1932
Stockholm Public Library. Gunnar Asplund, 1928
PRELUDE TO WORLD WAR 2:
Casa del Fascio; Como;
Terragni 1932-6
Casa del Fascio; Como; Terragni 1932-6
Casa del Fascio; Como; Terragni 1932-6
End of the Bauhaus, 1933
Nazi architecture
Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Pantheon (unexecuted)
Albert Speer
‘Cathedral of Light’
Triumph of the Will
Leni Riefenstahl
1934
Moltke Battery
Jersey
Friedrich Tamms
Nazi military architecture, Vienna
Week 15 Additional Task
Identify up to five contemporary historians’ who have made reference to your building
in their histories of architecture

Students on this module may find it difficult trying to demonstrate how their allocated
building has an influence relevant to today. They often re-state historical facts about the
building’s construction – completely missing the point. Please understand this:
architectural history is made by architectural historians. Therefore, if an influential
writer today chooses to write about a building, then that proves its significance! So, to
help you with this most difficult section, I want you to select up to five ‘citations’
(mentions) of your building by influential writers over the last 50 years (ie since 1971).
You are to exercise judgement: the more influential the writer, the more detail given
about its significance; the stronger your argument. You can use your previous sources, if
they were written since 1971. DO NOT just do a google search and write down the first
things that come up. Use discretion.
For example, for my allocated building, Albert Dock, Liverpool:

There are numerous mentions of Albert Dock in Joseph Sharples’

Pevsner Architectural Guide to Liverpool.

Is this Sharples book influential? – yes of course it is. Sharples was

a curator at the Walker Art Gallery in the 1990s, and these guides
are published by Yale University.

So an influential source provides an extensive description of this

building – this proves the building’s significance today!

(this is just for information: not a demo of academic writing)

For all your written submissions, and including your Interim and Final submissions, you
must use Arial font; 12 point; double-spaced, and the UWE Harvard referencing system.

Once you have completed this, please scan and post it into your Additional Work box for
Week 15 on PebblePad.

As with all tasks associated with this Module, the main aim is for you to demonstrate
learning, rather than complete it as a chore. In writing this short essay, you are learning
a key skill that is essential for all university students.
 NEXT WEEK:
POST WORLD WAR 2