Twentieth Century Architects

Books help to establish reputations yet there are many great British architects from the twentieth century for whose names you would search a library catalogue in vain. To make up for some of the missing names, the series ‘Twentieth Century Architects’ was launched in 2008, with nine titles published so far:

Ryder and Yates by Rutter Carroll (April 2009)

Powell and Moya by Kenneth Powell (April 2009)

(And read the 1977 article on the Museum of London from the Architectural Review archive.) 

McMorran and Whitby by Edward Denison (October 2009) 

Aldington, Craig and Collinge by Alan Powers (December 2009) 

Leonard Manasseh and Partners by Timothy Brittain-Catlin (November 2010) 

John Madin by Alan Clawley (March 2011)

Chamberlin, Powell and Bon by Elain Harwood (November 2011)

Stephen Dykes Bower by Anthony Symondson (December 2011)

Robert Maguire and Keith Murray by Gerald Adler (January 2012)

The series is a collaboration between C20 Society (choosing the subjects and authors and providing expert editing of texts and pictures), RIBA Publishing (where the raw materials are turned into books) and English Heritage (involved in sales and supporting the project through its own professional photographers and its image archive, the NMR), and has been well-received (see review below).

Eleven titles have been commissioned to date, representing some of the rich variety of architecture in terms of styles, building types and fascinating stories of the lives of individuals involved in creating great buildings of all shapes and sizes. Titles forthcoming in Spring 2012 are Ahrends, Burton and Koralek by Kenneth Powell and Wells Coates by Elizabeth Darling.

The books are deliberately quite short, and while scholarly in their accuracy and insight, they are meant to be a good read for enthusiasts of all kinds. By explaining the special features of each subject’s work, they aim to support C20’s conservation mission and create public understanding.

Publishing books of such quality in a relatively specialised area requires dedication, and buying these books is the best way to show support. C20 is also interested in ideas for future titles and feedback on the existing ones.

Books cost £20 and can be ordered from www.ribapublishing.com 

Reviews:

What is good about this series so far is that it’s all about partnerships, the way most architect-designed buildings are produced. These are not about the cult of the solo genius, but the meshing of personalities to create good work. If anything represents that elusive thing, ‘real architecture’, these books do. Warmly recommended.

Hugh Pearman, RIBA Journal, December 2009

Written and designed with a wide audience in mind, the hope for the series is to publish two new titles a year. Those already completed are an important addition to the literature on twentieth-century architects and it is to be hoped that the series will continue to expand and reach the larger readership it deserves. 

Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain newsletter, June 2010

How very welcome … is this new series of monographs devoted exclusively to twentieth-century British architects whose work may have been well represented in the contemporaneous press of their day but who have subsequently been consigned to various states of oblivion. Four titles have so far appeared … and each subject has been well served by its author.

John Allan in Journal of Architecture, November 2010