* A style guide to Twentieth Century Architecture Returns - Complete Series
A style guide to Twentieth Century Architecture Returns - The Complete Series
Thursday 1st June, Tuesday 6th June, Tuesday 27th June - Doors open 6.15pm for drinks and a browse of our publications. Lectures start at 6.30pm
Following our sell out Lecture Series earlier in the year and the demand for tickets we have persuaded our speakers to come back for a rerun. This time around we will be having two speakers each evening and have asked them to cut their talks down to approximately 25 minutes each. As we will be having lighter evenings they may of course extend beyond that!
Understanding architecture since 1914 involves understanding the meaning of labels and their underlying meaning. While these are widely used, they represent a mixture of forgotten intentions, opportunistic adoptions, post-rationalisations and misapplications.
Six speakers will unpack the identity of six styles that have dominated the period and clear away some of the fog.
Thursday 1st June 2017 - Modernism in the 1930's and Brutalism
Modernism in the 1930s
Alan Powers
Modernism was meant to be more than a style – in fact the end of styles as we know them. It was a mission and a vision, rooted in formulae but reaching for eternity. Was it destined to become a set of design clichés, like any other style, or did it achieve liberation?
Brutalism
Barnabas Calder
The hot word of the blogosphere, Brutalism is a term of approval and abuse, whose meaning has changed since the word first gained currency in the early 1950s. Barnabas Calder, author of Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism brings us up to speed.
Tuesday 6th June 2017 - Modernism after 1945 and Neo-Georgian
Modernism after 1945
Elain Harwood
There have been many Modernisms. In the years after 1945, Brutalism was just one version, and there was a wide variety of approaches to structure, materials and form, including the typical styles of the Festival of Britain and the early Welfare State. Elain Harwood was recently awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock medal for her book Space, Hope and Brutalism.
Neo-Georgian
Julian Holder
Neo-Georgian was the background architecture of the twentieth century with a wide variety of applications for private and public design, including post offices, schools, pubs and banks, typically with red brick and white sash windows. Julian Holderis a joint editor of Neo-Georgian Architecture 1880-1970: a reappraisal, published in 2016
Tuesday 27th June 2017 - Post-Modernism and ArtDeco
Post-Modernism
Timothy Brittain-Catlin
In reaction against Modernist rigidity, the architecture of the ‘Me Decade’ of the 1980s was Post-Modernism. It borrowed playfully from history but its best practitioners took seriously the obligation to fit into existing streetscapes and to restore human scale and identity of place.
The Twentieth Century Society is currently engaged in reassessing Post-Modernism as many of its leading examples come increasingly under threat.
Art Deco
Ian McInnes
The architecture of arterial roads and suburban shopping parades, of Parisian glamour and American sleekness. Once condemned for being not properly modern, Art Deco remains a complex but appealing ‘in between’ category.
Members £18.00 Non Members £25.00 Students £12.50 (glass of wine included)
Lectures can also be booked separately