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Terms and conditions applyBritain's Lost Cities: A Chronicle of Architectural Destruction
Gavin Stamp
Product details
Format: Book
Pages: 185
Publisher: Aurum Press
Date Published: Apr 2010
Stock Code: 71851
ISBN: 9781845135232
Binding: Paperback
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Description
The destruction of Britain's city centres by the combined efforts of the Luftwaffe and postwar planners, is legendary. Mediaeval churches, Tudor alleyways, Georgian terraces and Victorian theatres vanished for ever, to be replaced by concrete office-blocks and characterless shopping malls. Now, for the first time, Gavin Stamp shows us exactly what we have lost.
Reproduced in this haunting volume are hundreds of top-quality photographs of cities from Plymouth to Dundee, all of streets and buildings that are gone for ever. In the accompanying text Stamp traces their creation and destruction, remembering the massive campaign to save the Euston Arch, wantonly demolished in 1962, and mourning the loss of lovely mediaeval Coventry, which was already doomed by the city planners even before German air-raids intervened.
Alternately fascinating, enraging and heartbreaking, this is an extraordinary evocation of Britain's architectural past, and a much-needed reminder of the importance of preserving our heritage. One of Britain's best-known architectural historians, Gavin Stamp is author of numerous books including Lutyens Houses. He is an energetic campaigner against demolition of important buildings and writes for numerous publications, including Country Life, Apollo and Private Eye.
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Review by Patrick Baty, Architectural Paint Researcher, Papers and Paints Ltd
In his book Dr Gavin Stamp recounts the destruction of so much of our cities, emphasizing that rather than the Luftwaffe the real villains were here at home. Many a city’s appeal has been undermined by thoughtless town-planning and a desire to accommodate the motor car, while simultaneously failing to create anything of contemporary merit: a state John Betjeman described as “international nothingness”.
There are accounts of fine buildings being bulldozed, whose sites now remain as car parks. While praising the architecture of Newcastle Dr Stamp is unlikely to make friends amongst the female inhabitants, who apparently lack the appeal of their surroundings. The story of Liverpool Customs Hall is depressing: demolished after wartime bomb damage in a bid to lessen unemployment – doesn’t logic dictate that the same hands might have been employed in its rebuilding? The town-planners’ Utopia had a short life: the innovative Quarry Hill estate in Leeds was built to replace late eighteenth century slums but survived only forty years, not even making the half century Pevsner predicted it would take Manchester’s tower blocks to degrade into slum-housing.
This is a sad book, but one that imparts a great deal of understanding about the urban landscape of Britain today.
Tristram Hunt, BBC History Magazine
This masterful book should be placed in every council planning committee in the country.
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