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Alan Clawley

Alan Clawley was trained as an architect. He has lived in Birmingham for several decades where his work has involved providing technical support to a wide variety of community projects. He is the founder and secretary of Friends of the Central Library, a group which has been running a high profile campaign to save Madin’s Birmingham City Library from demolition.

Chris Upton, Birmingham Post

If you’re only too ready to dismiss, as many are, the architecture of the Sixties, Crawley’s book is a timely reminder of what it could, and did, achieve.

Jack Pringle, RIBA Past President and Partner at Pringle Brandon

‘This series of books is important because it records the work of important national, if not international, British architects of the twentieth century. They were the salt of the post-war modernist earth, working on housing, hospitals and industrial buildings. Their legacy has been a vein of quiet, very English modern architecture often unheralded but well loved by those who know of it. Now a new generation of students can trace their journey and admire their work’.

Sibyl Ruth

Date Reviewed: March 2011

As a non-specialist, I found reading this architectural book not just painless, but pleasurable. I had become aware of Madin's work because of the political debate raging in Birmingham about whether - or not - his Central Library should be demolished. Rene Cutforth's BBC documentary on Madin 'Six Men', which can be accessed via Google videos added to my interest. The author was extremely helpful to me when I was commissioned to write a sound piece about the Central Library, sharing his insights and research materials. Now this (well-illustrated) book has enabled me to appreciate the range and breadth of Madin's work. Madin didn't just shape the city I live in. His buildings, which can be both dramatic and discreet, are of much wider significance.