There's a new episode of Monstrosities Mon Amour! Featuring Lucy Brouwer, the magnificent @notrock.bsky.social, on Nottingham's big beast the Victoria Centre and Radiohead's lost single Pop is Dead open.substack.com/pub/johngrin...
An interview with the kinetic artist Liliane Lijn on her memoirs, Liquid Reflection, and public sculpture in Milton Keynes pooleyville.city/articles/lil...
C20 Society will continue to campaign for a pragmatic scheme that retains and reuses the iconic pyramid structure, while redeveloping the connecting cinema hall and multistorey car-park. These latter elements make up more than 50% of the site, yet are of no architectural value.
Encouraging statements on the potential restoration of Shipley Clock Tower (1961). We still await news on C20's listing application, made back in 2024.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Torsion Fountain by Franta Belsky, pictured in 1959 Credit: Royal Society of Sculptors
Torsion Fountain by Franta Belsky, pictured in 2026 Credit: Lukas Novotny
Good news Friday: After being dismantled and placed into storage more than a decade ago, the Grade II listed Torsion Fountain (1959-63) by Czech artist Franta Belsky has finally returned to the South Bank!
Image © Stuart Lamb / Arts in Redditch
Image © Trustees of the Paolozzi Foundation
Image © Stuart Lamb / Arts in Redditch
Image © Trustees of the Paolozzi Foundation
UPDATE: We’re delighted that the Eduardo Paolozzi mosaics at Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch (1981-83) have now been Grade II listed, following support from C20. They're the first Paolozzi murals and only the second post-war shopping centre to be partially listed, after Milton Keynes (1979)
Paolozzi's murals in Redditch are dazzling in person, and as I found after wandering around the Kingfisher Centre to find them, hard to capture in their full glory.
One of the best examples of art commissioned for shopping centres as an investment in commercial space as more than just shopping.
Join historian Holly Smith and writer John Grindrod for an evening exploring the origins, history and legacy of Britain's tower blocks.
www.mklitfest.org/upintheair
@grindrod.bsky.social
@versobooks.bsky.social
@holsmith.bsky.social
#highrise
#builtenvironment
#housing
Might sound an odd Christmas piece but here’s me on why arcades are the essence of London at Christmas, and of urbanity itself. www.ft.com/content/e6cd... When the shopping arcade sparkles back to enchanted life
Putting it out there since it is books-as-gifts time: I have two books in print and in paperback that answer many burning questions about why cities look the way they do geni.us/designofchil...
Last month I passed my viva, bringing to an end 4 yrs research into the shopping centre in 70s Britain. My thesis looked at how the shopping centre shaped, and was shaped by, changing attitudes towards the urban experience and consuming, as well as key debates about design, architecture and space.
So great to see a few of Peter Hand's much loved play sculptures are back! They were commissioned for shopping centres across Britain but have all but disappeared...
My favourite picture of Poole's wooden animals: temporarily reinstalled in the Dolphin Centre in 2020 with face masks 😷
My book UP IN THE AIR: A HISTORY OF HIGH-RISE BRITAIN is out today!
Me neither!
Spotted in hair and makeup beforehand!
No way! 🤩
#Design is facing an existential crisis, as @edwinheathcote.bsky.social explains so eloquently. 🔻🔻
Design thinking could transform lives for the better (eg in #NHS systems; or wayfinding; or products for older people), but many designers' work just fuels excessive consumption...
on.ft.com/46M9mXI
Letter in the Times:
Catch me in the @theguardian.com today, on the history of high-rise housing. We need to remove the distorting goggles of prejudice in order to understand Britain’s extraordinary high-rise heritage. Consider looking up afresh! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
A 100% very totally normal and real question.
Not quite a desk view at my new role, but from the roof of MK Gallery there is a pretty luscious view of Milton Keynes shopping centre
Obligatory photo of the late Brian Clarke’s stained glass (1988-90) in the Victoria Quarter when in Leeds
That's a good idea! I'll do the same and see what I think!...
Thanks for sharing! I'll definitely have a watch...
Completely agree, it felt like Instagram spatialised... But at the same time, it WAS extremely busy. Though whether that was to check out the space as an experience, rather than engage with important questions relating to processes of archiving, museum collection policies, etc., I'm not so sure...
Grateful to Az for coming to us to write this piece. As a V&A/RCA alum and design student myself, reflecting on the process of learning what is 'good' design/history through working with Az helped clarify some of the complex emotions I had visiting the Storehouse!
I really enjoyed reading this - it also helped clarify my own thoughts on visiting the Storehouse. I need to visit the archive, but got put off by the idea of that might involve working 'on display'!
Shopping parade with tiled end frontage and balconies
Entrance lobby and lifts with yellow and black patterned tiling
Some quintessential 1950s public architecture: shops at North Parade and the entrance lobby to Beckett Court, Greyfriars - both built as part of Bedford Borough Council's postwar Central Redevelopment Area.
