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Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain
TOWER BLOCKS. FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE.
'Never has a trip from Croydon and back again been so fascinating. John Grindrod's witty and informative tour of Britain is a total treat'
CATHERINE CROFT, Director, Twentieth Century Society
Was Britain's postwar rebuilding the height of midcentury chic or the concrete embodiment of Crap Towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling 'austerity Britain' became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass.
On his journey he visits the sleepy Norfolk birthplace of Brutalism, the once-Blitzed city centre of Plymouth, the futuristic New Town of Cumbernauld, Sheffield's innovative streets in the sky, the foundations of the BT tower, and the brave 1950s experiments in the Gorbals. Along the way he meets New Town pioneers, tower block builders, Barbican architects, old retainers of Coventry Cathedral, proud prefab dwellers and sixties town people who lived through a time of phenomenal change and excitement.
What he finds is a story of dazzling optimism, ingenuity and helipads -- so many helipads -- tempered by protests, deadly collapses (as at Ronan Point) and scandals that shook the government.
Acclaimed by critics from all sides of the political spectrum, Concretopia is an witty and revealing history of an aspect of Britain often ignored, insulted and misunderstood. It will change the way you look at Arndale Centres, tower blocks and concrete forever.
458 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2013
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December 6, 2022
Modernist architecture isn’t much-loved by the British public. People like to admire pre-war Art Deco buildings but, as this book acknowledges, monstrosity is the word most commonly used when describing our post-war buildings. Author John Grindrod takes on a rather fascinating tour of the built environment that was created in Britain in the decades after WW2.
You could describe this book as setting out a history of hope followed by disillusionment. The architects and planners who set out to rebuild Britain after 1945 had;
inherited a nation where millions lived in overcrowded conditions in cities, where factories belched toxic fumes onto the slums next door and the most basic sanitation was a dream for millions.
In 1945 Britain was ready for a new start, and people felt that they deserved a better future. Nowadays we read of the communities that were lost when the old slum districts were bulldozed, but very few people defended them in the 40s and 50s. Most who lived in those districts looked forward to the amenities offered in their new homes. The country had two other major housing issues to deal with – one was the destruction caused by wartime bombing. The other was the post-war baby boom.
It was also a time when central planning was held in high regard. The war economy had been centrally planned, why not continue in peacetime? It’s striking how “top down” the rebuilding process was. Architects and town planners decided what people needed and often went ahead without the slightest consideration for the views of building users.
A unique feature of the age was the new town. Public sector planners bought up rural land and used it to build entire towns, housing those displaced from city slums. In Britain the new towns are often grouped together but they varied quite widely in design. The author thinks that Milton Keynes, the last to be built, is probably the most successful, and from my own limited knowledge I would agree. The other main alternative to the old slums was high rise, where the results were very “mixed”.
The book also examines public and commercial buildings. Coventry Cathedral is a building that divides opinion, but it has gained general acceptance, as did the Post Office Tower in London. Other creations, like the Birmingham Bull Ring (a shopping centre that has since been redeveloped) were notably less successful. In the 1970s, a major scandal broke around a businessman called John Poulson, who had built up the country’s largest architect’s practice, but had done so by bribing a network of contacts in the establishment. The author uses this affair as a sort of bookmark for the end of post-war reconstruction in Britain. He ends on a defiant note, with a description of two of his own favourite buildings in London.
On the whole the author is more sympathetic to many of these schemes than it’s fashionable to be, but neither is he blind to genuine failure. Many of the locations featured are places I’ve been to myself. Some of those I had been to are now gone, but for those that remain, the author’s insights will allow me to look at the buildings with a whole new perspective. I really liked this.
You could describe this book as setting out a history of hope followed by disillusionment. The architects and planners who set out to rebuild Britain after 1945 had;
inherited a nation where millions lived in overcrowded conditions in cities, where factories belched toxic fumes onto the slums next door and the most basic sanitation was a dream for millions.
In 1945 Britain was ready for a new start, and people felt that they deserved a better future. Nowadays we read of the communities that were lost when the old slum districts were bulldozed, but very few people defended them in the 40s and 50s. Most who lived in those districts looked forward to the amenities offered in their new homes. The country had two other major housing issues to deal with – one was the destruction caused by wartime bombing. The other was the post-war baby boom.
It was also a time when central planning was held in high regard. The war economy had been centrally planned, why not continue in peacetime? It’s striking how “top down” the rebuilding process was. Architects and town planners decided what people needed and often went ahead without the slightest consideration for the views of building users.
A unique feature of the age was the new town. Public sector planners bought up rural land and used it to build entire towns, housing those displaced from city slums. In Britain the new towns are often grouped together but they varied quite widely in design. The author thinks that Milton Keynes, the last to be built, is probably the most successful, and from my own limited knowledge I would agree. The other main alternative to the old slums was high rise, where the results were very “mixed”.
The book also examines public and commercial buildings. Coventry Cathedral is a building that divides opinion, but it has gained general acceptance, as did the Post Office Tower in London. Other creations, like the Birmingham Bull Ring (a shopping centre that has since been redeveloped) were notably less successful. In the 1970s, a major scandal broke around a businessman called John Poulson, who had built up the country’s largest architect’s practice, but had done so by bribing a network of contacts in the establishment. The author uses this affair as a sort of bookmark for the end of post-war reconstruction in Britain. He ends on a defiant note, with a description of two of his own favourite buildings in London.
On the whole the author is more sympathetic to many of these schemes than it’s fashionable to be, but neither is he blind to genuine failure. Many of the locations featured are places I’ve been to myself. Some of those I had been to are now gone, but for those that remain, the author’s insights will allow me to look at the buildings with a whole new perspective. I really liked this.
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June 29, 2016One of the back cover blurbs describes this as like eavesdropping on a conversation between Betjeman, Meades and Ballard. That’s balls, obviously; any such conversation would either rapidly detour away from architecture and end up as eg an exchange of filthy limericks, or else it would be an ill-tempered and waspish business. Whereas Grindrod is consistently genial – to the extent that early on, there are times one worries one may have fallen among Maconies. This is unfair; Grindrod may be a polite guide, but rather than reheating platitudes he’s making a firm yet never fundamentalist case for the architecture of post-war Britain. There’s a split to which the book keeps returning in the old London County Council’s architects and planners, between ‘hard’ modernism, in thrall to le Corbusier, and a ‘soft’ faction who looked more to Scandinavia. And if Meades is hard, Grindrod is definitely soft, but not soft in the head. To encapsulate the sensibility in one detail: an aside lets slip that he’s a St Etienne fan.
The story is to some extent a familiar one, but seldom in this detail or with this laudable balance. Grindrod gets into all the nitty gritty which tends to get left out when the Betjeman wing are in full flow, reminding us just how bad much of Britain’s surviving housing stock was after the War, and quite how fucked the roads were. He keeps an eye throughout on the level of rents, and the impact that had. He finds people who lived in even the most widely traduced new estates, such as those Gorbals monoliths, and loved them; even in the disastrous Ronan Point, about which who could avoid being accusatory, some residents at the time of the explosive collapse were happy to move back in once it was fixed up. But at the same time, he doesn’t try to deny that mistakes were made. Some were the unavoidable consequence of operating at the cutting edge; you’re not necessarily going to guess that the window seals fine on the first floor won’t do at all on the 31st. Others are less so: what kind of idiot builds a shopping centre in Cumbernauld, on a hill in Scotland, and leaves it open to the elements? Beyond that there’s the bigger picture, of humane and visionary architects, initially still running on the can-do energy which won the War, trying to build homes fit for heroes (a phrase puzzlingly absent from the text). But they must steer a middle path between the unduly grand schemes on one side, which place architectural purity above anything so tedious as ‘inhabitants’ or ‘actually, we’d prefer not to demolish the whole of central London’, and on the other that most mundane and pernicious foe, greed. Councils smile and nod at plans which include green space and fine amenities, then decide that actually they’d like more bums on seats well within their constituency, thanks, so down comes that wood and up goes an infill block. Croydon gets into a pissing contest with Birmingham over who has the most car-parks, for pity’s sake. Private developers want to pile it high, sell it cheap, and get around the limits placed on development (though not yet with the same dismal ease as they nowadays evade Section 106 ‘obligations' – there’s a real air-punching moment where one venal git gets told that if sticking to the rules means the development will no longer be commercial, then so be it - it’ll just have to be uncommercial). The caretakers and general TLC these buildings need start to look like easy line items to strike through when some pennies need saving. And that’s simple cheese-paring, before we get into outright corruption in some of the later chapters. Again and again, the buildings are let down; sometimes it’s in big ways (Milton Keynes’ missing monorail, or the running joke about helipads), more often the ship being spoiled for a ha’porth of tar. And of course, on one level we must be a little grateful; imagine if there had been the drive and funds to push through, say, the deranged plan to level Covent Garden. Or to back up this seventies Sunderland planner:
“All houses built before 1914 can and ought to be cleared in the next 10 years. We ought to have plastic houses that we can throw away after 20 years. Good God! We will be on the moon in 2000 and these houses were built when Charles Dickens was writing his novels.”
Still, for all that we might wish the pendulum between innovation and preservation didn’t make such erratic swings, for all that these projects were sold short and cut back and blown up, these are buildings whose firm lines I knew from the breezy illustrations in the pages of my Ladybirds and Children’s Encyclopaedia as I first learned about the world. So, like Grindrod, I see in them as much continuity as newness and strangeness; they’re part of my mental Britain just as surely as the castles and the cottages are. I bought my copy of Concretopia earlier this year, precisely because I found it for sale in one of the grand enterprises it extols, the Barbican. Just as appropriately, the book’s epilogue - a lovely closing elegy for a more optimistic time – was written there too, in 2013. The extra spoonful of sadness, of course, is that now even 2013 – Hell, even early 2016 – seems like a lost and more optimistic time.
The story is to some extent a familiar one, but seldom in this detail or with this laudable balance. Grindrod gets into all the nitty gritty which tends to get left out when the Betjeman wing are in full flow, reminding us just how bad much of Britain’s surviving housing stock was after the War, and quite how fucked the roads were. He keeps an eye throughout on the level of rents, and the impact that had. He finds people who lived in even the most widely traduced new estates, such as those Gorbals monoliths, and loved them; even in the disastrous Ronan Point, about which who could avoid being accusatory, some residents at the time of the explosive collapse were happy to move back in once it was fixed up. But at the same time, he doesn’t try to deny that mistakes were made. Some were the unavoidable consequence of operating at the cutting edge; you’re not necessarily going to guess that the window seals fine on the first floor won’t do at all on the 31st. Others are less so: what kind of idiot builds a shopping centre in Cumbernauld, on a hill in Scotland, and leaves it open to the elements? Beyond that there’s the bigger picture, of humane and visionary architects, initially still running on the can-do energy which won the War, trying to build homes fit for heroes (a phrase puzzlingly absent from the text). But they must steer a middle path between the unduly grand schemes on one side, which place architectural purity above anything so tedious as ‘inhabitants’ or ‘actually, we’d prefer not to demolish the whole of central London’, and on the other that most mundane and pernicious foe, greed. Councils smile and nod at plans which include green space and fine amenities, then decide that actually they’d like more bums on seats well within their constituency, thanks, so down comes that wood and up goes an infill block. Croydon gets into a pissing contest with Birmingham over who has the most car-parks, for pity’s sake. Private developers want to pile it high, sell it cheap, and get around the limits placed on development (though not yet with the same dismal ease as they nowadays evade Section 106 ‘obligations' – there’s a real air-punching moment where one venal git gets told that if sticking to the rules means the development will no longer be commercial, then so be it - it’ll just have to be uncommercial). The caretakers and general TLC these buildings need start to look like easy line items to strike through when some pennies need saving. And that’s simple cheese-paring, before we get into outright corruption in some of the later chapters. Again and again, the buildings are let down; sometimes it’s in big ways (Milton Keynes’ missing monorail, or the running joke about helipads), more often the ship being spoiled for a ha’porth of tar. And of course, on one level we must be a little grateful; imagine if there had been the drive and funds to push through, say, the deranged plan to level Covent Garden. Or to back up this seventies Sunderland planner:
“All houses built before 1914 can and ought to be cleared in the next 10 years. We ought to have plastic houses that we can throw away after 20 years. Good God! We will be on the moon in 2000 and these houses were built when Charles Dickens was writing his novels.”
Still, for all that we might wish the pendulum between innovation and preservation didn’t make such erratic swings, for all that these projects were sold short and cut back and blown up, these are buildings whose firm lines I knew from the breezy illustrations in the pages of my Ladybirds and Children’s Encyclopaedia as I first learned about the world. So, like Grindrod, I see in them as much continuity as newness and strangeness; they’re part of my mental Britain just as surely as the castles and the cottages are. I bought my copy of Concretopia earlier this year, precisely because I found it for sale in one of the grand enterprises it extols, the Barbican. Just as appropriately, the book’s epilogue - a lovely closing elegy for a more optimistic time – was written there too, in 2013. The extra spoonful of sadness, of course, is that now even 2013 – Hell, even early 2016 – seems like a lost and more optimistic time.
June 5, 2025
a very readable topic, tough the chapters become a bit dry after some while. this author writes good books, but should keep the text a bit shorter :) nevertheless, worth reading, and explains why people prefered to move into 'soulless' apartments instead of living in old 'charaterly' slums.
1946, 400ooo germans were doing forced labor in the uk!
garden city explanied well.
1948 child mortality rate terrible.
when everyone did their washing, buildings looked like a giant sail!
pubs were man only until recently.
looking at the riverbank was dreadful back then
1946, 400ooo germans were doing forced labor in the uk!
garden city explanied well.
1948 child mortality rate terrible.
when everyone did their washing, buildings looked like a giant sail!
pubs were man only until recently.
looking at the riverbank was dreadful back then
March 29, 2022
One of my low key interests is architecture and the built environment seeing how places have evolved either by planning or not can tell you a lot about the place. I can tell just when someone has really thought about a place and how people are going to use it. The best designs look good and most importantly work really well, the worst just don’t…
Following World War 2 the UK needed to put a lot of effort into rebuilding towns and cities that had been bombed by the Nazis. The men and sadly it was mostly men in those days, had to move quickly to ensure that people were rehomed, slums were cleared and infrastructure was rebuilt. They embraced the wonders of concrete to solve architectural dilemmas.
To see what happened across our country, John Grindrod goes on a journey to see these architectural marvels for himself. He begins though with the prefabs, temporary builds that came in a kit form that was supposed to be an interim measure to house people. They are some still standing and there are people who are still living in them and they are 70 years old in some cases. The nearest to him was a mere three miles away and so it was he walked to Catford, to see it for himself.
His journey will take him to the new towns that were built, Harlow, Milton Keynes and Welwyn Garden City and to the tower blocks that grew in the inner cities all over the country. Some of these buildings are still with us but others have served their time and have been remodelled or flattened and rebuilt. London features quite a lot, and there is a whole chapter of the Festival of Britain and the reconstruction of the Southbank and the Brutalist buildings that are the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre. They are not to everyone’s taste, but I quite like them.
There is a lot of concrete in here, hence the title. Even though it has been around since Roman times it is only in the last century that we have used it almost everywhere and whilst it can be versatile, it is quite grey and bleak, even in the height of summer. But there is much more to this book than just concrete and buildings. He considers the way that towns and cities have changed and evolved since the second world war and the way that central and local government had to ensure that there was adequate housing for those being rehoused following the war and how some schemes were imposed onto some cities and others managed to get a much better solution
I thought that this was pretty good overall. Reading this reminded me of growing up in Woking and the shopping centre there. It was this huge paved concrete mass with all of the regular shops that you’d expect. Grindrod is an engaging writer who is very passionate about his favourite material, concrete. The social history aspect is very interesting too and he adds a personal dimension to their stories by going and seeing them in the modern-day.
Following World War 2 the UK needed to put a lot of effort into rebuilding towns and cities that had been bombed by the Nazis. The men and sadly it was mostly men in those days, had to move quickly to ensure that people were rehomed, slums were cleared and infrastructure was rebuilt. They embraced the wonders of concrete to solve architectural dilemmas.
To see what happened across our country, John Grindrod goes on a journey to see these architectural marvels for himself. He begins though with the prefabs, temporary builds that came in a kit form that was supposed to be an interim measure to house people. They are some still standing and there are people who are still living in them and they are 70 years old in some cases. The nearest to him was a mere three miles away and so it was he walked to Catford, to see it for himself.
His journey will take him to the new towns that were built, Harlow, Milton Keynes and Welwyn Garden City and to the tower blocks that grew in the inner cities all over the country. Some of these buildings are still with us but others have served their time and have been remodelled or flattened and rebuilt. London features quite a lot, and there is a whole chapter of the Festival of Britain and the reconstruction of the Southbank and the Brutalist buildings that are the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre. They are not to everyone’s taste, but I quite like them.
There is a lot of concrete in here, hence the title. Even though it has been around since Roman times it is only in the last century that we have used it almost everywhere and whilst it can be versatile, it is quite grey and bleak, even in the height of summer. But there is much more to this book than just concrete and buildings. He considers the way that towns and cities have changed and evolved since the second world war and the way that central and local government had to ensure that there was adequate housing for those being rehoused following the war and how some schemes were imposed onto some cities and others managed to get a much better solution
I thought that this was pretty good overall. Reading this reminded me of growing up in Woking and the shopping centre there. It was this huge paved concrete mass with all of the regular shops that you’d expect. Grindrod is an engaging writer who is very passionate about his favourite material, concrete. The social history aspect is very interesting too and he adds a personal dimension to their stories by going and seeing them in the modern-day.
September 3, 2019
4.5 Stars!
“By 1951, eight million homes had been declared unfit for habitation, of which seven million had no hot water and six million no inside toilet. In 1949, a fifth of London homes were officially classed as slums. For bombed-out families crushed into sharing homes with relatives or strangers, the relief of peace was soon overshadowed by pressing problems. New homes were needed-not so much fast, as instantly.”
These damning statistics give us some idea of just how desperate the housing crisis was throughout most of Post War Britain. “Concretopia” is not just a story about architecture or buildings, it’s about the politics, the philosophies and the property speculators, the public and the architects and the builders who made it all happen. Grindrod speaks to the architects, the builders, the planners and the residents of these buildings, ensuring that we get a wide and deep overview of these spaces and not just one overriding impression set by one group of people.
He really covers so much in here, we get a great insight into the prefabs, garden cities and new towns. He focuses on the likes of Patrick Abercrombie in Plymouth, Mary and David Medd’s pioneering schools in Hertfordshire. T. Dan Smith in Newcastle, Richard “The Colonel” Seifert around much of the UK and so many more. As well as covering the usual Post War architectural big attractions such as Park Hill in Sheffield and the Tricorn in Plymouth, we also learn about many of the lesser covered experiments like Cumbernauld town centre, and New Ash Green in Kent.
Kudos must go to Grindrod, as unlike almost every other contemporary English based architect critic, he actually commits some reasonable time and attention to towns and cities outside of England, which is deeply refreshing and gives much needed breadth and contrast to the overall subject. Not only do we get a great chapter on Glasgow, but we get another chapter dedicated to the much maligned New town of Cumbernauld, which made for fine reading.
He is also very good on the corruption which went on during contracts and deals, scandals which included developers, politicians and many other people further down the chain, which was exposed thanks to the journalistic determination of Raymond Fitzwalter, which eventually helped to expose the criminal activity of John Poulson and T. Dan Smith and others. We also hear about corruption north of the border in the so called Dundee Dossier case.
The Ronan Point gas explosion in 1968, signalled a huge turning point in the approach and beliefs around high rise flats in the UK, as much of the poorly built structures succumbed to the harsh and bleak British climate, as well as an increase in crime, poverty and distrust, the days of the high rise were very much numbered.
Grindrod, like some of his fellow English contemporaries, Owen Hatherley, Rowan Moore, Lynsey Hanley and Iain Sinclair has done a wonderful job of his subject. This was an absolute pleasure to read and I learned so much and of course there was a treasure trove of names and books to hunt down. This is a delight for fans of urban planning and 20th Century British architecture, and it is also a book that will really appeal to those with an interest in social history. The black and white photos add a lot to the experience and overall this was a hugely enjoyable journey by a fine author.
April 6, 2015
My father worked for Chamberlin Powell & Bon and the LCC before heading abroad. Coming back to England in the early 70s, moving into a Bryant semi in Newport Pagnell, as Milton Keynes was wrested from the clay soil of the Ouse Valley - driving along the last remaining country lanes in our mustard gold Marina with shiny olive green plastic seats; travelling to school on British Rail's olive-green artificial fibre seats in the clear-varnished plywood coaches, then DIY-ing our own plywood bedrooms with Habitat self-assembly furniture (orange cushions) - and attending uni in Rik Mayall's bombed-out Manchester; on holiday, driving through Cumbernauld, Harlow, Welwyn .... .. all these and a thousand other memories are stirred by Grindrod's odyssey through the concrete and prefab hangover that was the 70s and the apocalyptic 80s that followed - mixing nostalgia - for what was and the future that was then imagined - with horror at the sheer shabbiness and grimness - which is the story of that frightening - exciting, numbing, discombobulating - era. Grindrod is fairly upbeat by the end of the book and indeed, the mood is now everywhere changing. One of my father's colleagues looked at the Barbican as a possible retirement pad before settling on Frinton-on-Sea. A good number of people now view the destruction of the 'Incinerator' (the Royal Arbiter of Taste's epithet for Birmingham Central Library - where I used to work) with mixed feelings while Milton Keynes is, the jokes notwithstanding, an overall success.
May 21, 2022
Despite the unappealing title that might put some readers off this one, I found this book absolutely fascinating.
John Grindrod deftly explores every postwar building type from high rise council blocks to New towns to experimental villages to slum clearance.
There is a natural flow to the writing and an easy style about it, which makes you feel as though you're having a conversation with Grindrod. There are copious photographs detailing the architecture he is referring to, and many of the architects of the day are scrutinised, not only the "big hitters" but lesser known names beavering away in the background.
Interesting to me were chapters on corruption within the architectural and building fields, with major players taking backhanders and fixing deals for serious financial gain; Milton Keynes and New Ash Green were of interest as they represented something that was completely new and fresh at the time.
I'm very interested in architecture so this piqued my interest. I would highly recommend if you're into architecture as well. Don't be put off by the length of the book (440 pages); the chapters are varied enough to be read as stand alones over a longer period.
John Grindrod deftly explores every postwar building type from high rise council blocks to New towns to experimental villages to slum clearance.
There is a natural flow to the writing and an easy style about it, which makes you feel as though you're having a conversation with Grindrod. There are copious photographs detailing the architecture he is referring to, and many of the architects of the day are scrutinised, not only the "big hitters" but lesser known names beavering away in the background.
Interesting to me were chapters on corruption within the architectural and building fields, with major players taking backhanders and fixing deals for serious financial gain; Milton Keynes and New Ash Green were of interest as they represented something that was completely new and fresh at the time.
I'm very interested in architecture so this piqued my interest. I would highly recommend if you're into architecture as well. Don't be put off by the length of the book (440 pages); the chapters are varied enough to be read as stand alones over a longer period.
November 30, 2013
Between the end of the war and the mid 1970s some very 'interesting' buildings appeared in Britain. As Grindrod points out these are often derided as concrete monstrosities, but the story of their development and their relationship with the people who lived and worked in them is fascinating. This book could have been fearsomely dry, but Grindrod is a affable guide, reporting on his own experience and research. The result is an easy, mildly amusing read which avoids dodgy puns (favoured by some writers of this style of literature) or too much technical detail about shuttering concrete or creating glass walls. It's an excellent, light social history and will appeal to readers of Douglas Kynaston. Marvellous, one of my books of the year.
April 20, 2021
It’s difficult to fault this book. I’ve been reading it for ages, but each chapter is quite self-contained so you can pick it up and put it down at your leisure.
This history of modernist Britain covers a great range and variety of housing, town planning and urbanism. It’s completely accessible and endlessly interesting, well-researched and includes some excellent interviews and first-person perspectives from residents, planners and council officials.
My only minor gripe is that I would have liked more photographs, plans and images of the buildings and towns discussed. But other than that this is a brilliant exploration of Britain’s modernist legacy and all the good and bad that comes with it.
This history of modernist Britain covers a great range and variety of housing, town planning and urbanism. It’s completely accessible and endlessly interesting, well-researched and includes some excellent interviews and first-person perspectives from residents, planners and council officials.
My only minor gripe is that I would have liked more photographs, plans and images of the buildings and towns discussed. But other than that this is a brilliant exploration of Britain’s modernist legacy and all the good and bad that comes with it.
March 5, 2018
A lovely read which I carried around for months. I found all the descriptions of new towns and council estates being carefully planned out for people who actually liked living in them to be immensely soothing. Maybe this book is best read in tandem with 'Estates' by Lynsey Hanley who explains how things didn't work out in a lot of places. But it made me look up videos of Cumbernauld, gave me a new-found respect for Welwyn Garden City and Milton Keynes, and it even had a good stab at trying to explain Croydon.
May 23, 2018
John Grindrod has written an epic fast moving book that turns what may seem like a fairly dry subject into something akin to a fast moving thriller. It has all the essential ingredients except perhaps blatant premeditated murder.Taking as a starting point the ideas and ideals that inspired the "Garden City" or town with its open green spaces and Arts and Craft housing he looks at how the problem of housing, as it became an major issue for public planning developed over the decades. The problem of overcrowding in run down slums exacerbated by the destruction wrought by WWII demanded a national response. While the carpet bombing of areas desperate for renovation and redevelopment was in many ways the "architects dream" this was tempered by a dire crisis in resources both financial and monetary as well as the scale of the problem. Grindrod tells the story of how in the face of insurmountable odds the challenge of rehousing Britain was tackled and met, both the successes and the failures and the opportunities opened up for innovative and revolutionary solutions, from the miracle of the immediate post war to the assembly line prefab tower blocks of the 1960s. The battle for resources, the new building techniques demanded by architectural innovation, the lack of skilled labour and the needs and wishes of both potential residents and those in power is all examined. Inevitably where there is need and money, especially state money so corruption rears its head and towards the end of the book there is a fascinating account of the web of bribery and corruption which emerged in from the architects drawing board, thought planner, to developers and right into the upper echelons of the state and government. As the title suggests there is a good deal about concrete in this book although it is by no means simply a treatise on Brutalism, rather is fits Brutalism in its concrete form into the wider picture. Grindrod goes into detail on some of the more classic and iconic developments (including the timeless Post Office Tower - "a relic of an age when the state invested in industry and technology, a symbol of a lost vision of the future") and looks at why some succeeded, some failed and others never got off the drawing board. In many cases resources it seems crippled promising projects - the most successful being those like the South Bank arts complex and Barbican complex in London which were funded fully. Another key issue which comes up and is perhaps in the minds of many who remember the 19709s and 1980s is the gradual neglect and under Thacherism deliberate running down of public services and facilities. Grindrod has interviewed former caretakers of developments who recall the effect that cuts had on struggling estates, especially when the traditional industries were decimated and unemployment was allowed to spiral out of control and how estates became dumping grounds doomed to dereliction, vandalism and crime. Recent efforts to remedy this by reintroducing security and maintenance, albeit having privatised formerly public assets, shows how much this deliberate neglect contributed to the social collapse and often the demolition of entire developments barely a couple of decades old. Also considered is the changing relationship between the policy makers and planners and the public - especially in the light of essentially forced moves, the failures of structures and corruption that was revealed over the years - with the shock of public resistance in the face of "a generation of officials used to proceeding with their plans regardless of public opinion, in the unquestioned belief that they were right". This is a gripping and fascinating read that should appeal to a wider audience than those like me who wear a concrete anorak!
October 29, 2017
A decent introduction to the story of post-war housing in Britain.
The story is well-told, and the pace is maintained, although the analysis is fairly shallow and too many chapter rely on baggy anecdotes and over-long quotes from eyewitnesses and other sources.
There are few connecting themes between the chapter. At the start, the author positions Croydon as a test-bed for the various waves of policy experimentation and architectural folly. Yet the place disappears until the end.
I also struggled with the tonal disparity between the profound flaws of post-war housing policy - the total disregard for existing communities, the lack of tenant voice, the corruption and machismo arrogance - and the author's apparent misty-eyed nostalgia for these imagined good old days.
A decent scene-setter that should inspire readers to engage with more critical and searching histories of the period.
The story is well-told, and the pace is maintained, although the analysis is fairly shallow and too many chapter rely on baggy anecdotes and over-long quotes from eyewitnesses and other sources.
There are few connecting themes between the chapter. At the start, the author positions Croydon as a test-bed for the various waves of policy experimentation and architectural folly. Yet the place disappears until the end.
I also struggled with the tonal disparity between the profound flaws of post-war housing policy - the total disregard for existing communities, the lack of tenant voice, the corruption and machismo arrogance - and the author's apparent misty-eyed nostalgia for these imagined good old days.
A decent scene-setter that should inspire readers to engage with more critical and searching histories of the period.
March 14, 2018
This is a delight! Beautifully written, funny and demonstrative of so much research. Grindrod is both honest and affectionate about the modernist buildings of the post-war era in Britain. He recognises their flaws as well as celebrating what they aimed to achieve, and sometimes did. This should have been a prizewinner, I don't know why it wasn't.
March 1, 2019
Very enjoyable read, as a fan of ‘brutalist’ design and a worker in planning office which favours conservation/ quainter listed buildings it was nice to see a celebration/ exploration of post war design.
November 26, 2020
A fascinating, informative account of the topic, which is not only very readable, but also amusing in places. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in architecture and recent social history.
June 2, 2018
I enjoyed this very much. I'm probably less of a fan of the concrete stuff than the author is - it really doesn't look all that nice, and also I work in a mid 1970s concrete building which, while it has nice clean lines and everything, occasionally leaks spectacularly in unexpected places as the water seems to travel around in the concrete before unleashing itself without warning when it is no longer raining. Having said that, the whole planning concept is interesting - today it seems to be a matter of quickly selling off publicly owned land for a developer to put whatever is flavour of the month on it (student accommodation at the moment) with no thought of long term requirements or the community around the development, whereas there was some vision and serious thought behind some of the 1950s and 1960s developments. I realise I had a window into all this as a child, as my father was a geographer with an interest in planning and retail location: I doubt whether many of my friends would have spent an afternoon of a Scottish holiday going round Cumbernauld in 1972, as I did, and I also still have the map given to us by the lady at the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in ca.1974 when we went on a guided tour (most of the present town was not yet built, and the bit I remember from that trip is the bit which apparently hasn't aged too well). This is a really good readable guide to what happened in post-war Britain, what has stood the test of time and what hasn't, and the human aspect of that (what it was like to live in the tower blocks, &c.). Highly recommended.
September 26, 2021
3.5/5. An interesting look into both the failed and successful building schemes and developments from the mid 19th century around Great Britain. The book is a bit disjointed and lacks any kind of flowing narrative, but Grindrod's writing style is agreeable and I did enjoy reading about various new towns, architecture styles and camps, scandals, cancelled plans, and the general optimism of times gone by. Worth a read if you have a passing interest in the post war years, or architecture.
May 12, 2014
Thoroughly enjoyable, well told and - very clearly - enthusiastically researched romp through the modernist/brutalist rebuilding of Britain - absolutely delightful, something to be savoured. I'd have loved more (and clearer) photographs of all those beautiful "concrete monstrosities", but that's a very minor criticism and there's more than enough info there for one to follow up and research independently. Not comprehensive by any means, but that's hardly unexpected when the subject itself is so vast... most valuable for its insight into all those *good intentions*, for its portrait of a time in which public policy was indeed driven by wanting the best for the citizen (however idiosyncratic or patriarchal any one group's idea of what "best" was might have been) - a time of enthusiastic and exploratory public commitment to serving the collective human good. Great fun, definitely whets the appetite for more, and Grindrod's love for his subject shines through constantly, making it an absolute pleasure to read.
January 1, 2020
Didn't really focus on architecture as much as architects. Full of boring anecdotes and testimonials but severely lacking pictures or descriptions of architectural styles referenced thoghout the book (unless I drifted past that bit). For example I can't remember any detailed descriptions of Modernism, Corbusianism or even brutalism. For a book so dependant on these Ideas, no amount of explaing and builing up these concepts in the readers mind with context would have been too much, yet I remember very little.
Should have been half the length with an accessible intruduction to brutalism (with pictures!!!!), architects names mentioned only briefly, and no (ok maybe 1 or 2) testimonials from residents.
Should have been half the length with an accessible intruduction to brutalism (with pictures!!!!), architects names mentioned only briefly, and no (ok maybe 1 or 2) testimonials from residents.
October 8, 2019
In fact, i had decided to read this book after its author's other book 'How to love Brutalism', indeed, I had foreseen it as an architectural book. But, it is more comprehensive in various branches, such as architecture, social sciences, humanities and economics of Britain after WWII. I am very satisfied with the overall content, because it underlines the transition of the first imperial power of the modern world from the rank#1 to a lower place, therefore, such kind of a changes bring serious transformation in civil life, and as a result, in way of living in cities, buildings and neighborhoods. A great contribution to me, happy to read it.
February 28, 2014
on the Kindle.
I really enjoyed the trip around post war developments,reignited an interest in the subject, reaffirmed my attraction to many 'brutalist' buildings introduced me to some new ones and sent me off on a search for the designers of Park Mead estate in Cranleigh, surely influenced by the wonderful, much smaller scale, Span developments.
But-the photos are not very good and there are far to few of them , plans, maps etc.
I really enjoyed the trip around post war developments,reignited an interest in the subject, reaffirmed my attraction to many 'brutalist' buildings introduced me to some new ones and sent me off on a search for the designers of Park Mead estate in Cranleigh, surely influenced by the wonderful, much smaller scale, Span developments.
But-the photos are not very good and there are far to few of them , plans, maps etc.
June 27, 2021
Lots of great images, and brilliant behind-the-scenes histories that really tell the story of the times when town planning was exploding in the optimism of futurism.
Having worked in social housing for over ten years, this was absolutely fascinating and a definitive history.
Having worked in social housing for over ten years, this was absolutely fascinating and a definitive history.
July 23, 2022
Despite the subject matter falling solidly within my wheelhouse, this book just never hooked me. It was never slow enough to make me stop reading, but I was also rarely excited to pick it up.
To start with, the positioning of the author within the narrative was noncommittal in a wholly unsatisfying way. He’s not simply narrating the events of the past without participating, the way a traditional history book does, but neither does his story of research become a core theme of the book the way it does in something like The Lady from the Black Lagoon. The narrator just kind of chimes in from time to time with his vaguely relevant thoughts of how something intersected his life, like a poor attempt to participate in a dinner party conversation. It would have been better had he gone further in either direction.
Similarly, the evaluation of the subject matter never really made its mark. The author spends a lot of time on explaining what the various architects and planners were trying to achieve, but rarely gives a view on whether they succeeded. And based on the fact that most of them are now being torn down, they seem to have largely failed, but the author doesn’t take the opportunity to analyze those failures, he mostly just refuses to discuss them. To the extent that one might want to learn lessons from the ambitious projects of these decades, rather than just have the ambition trumpeted, this book is not a good place to look.
Some of this might have been due to being American, and thus having no particular prior feelings towards places like Sheffield or Portsmouth, so possibly a British audience would have it resonate better. But I mostly was just relieved to reach the end.
To start with, the positioning of the author within the narrative was noncommittal in a wholly unsatisfying way. He’s not simply narrating the events of the past without participating, the way a traditional history book does, but neither does his story of research become a core theme of the book the way it does in something like The Lady from the Black Lagoon. The narrator just kind of chimes in from time to time with his vaguely relevant thoughts of how something intersected his life, like a poor attempt to participate in a dinner party conversation. It would have been better had he gone further in either direction.
Similarly, the evaluation of the subject matter never really made its mark. The author spends a lot of time on explaining what the various architects and planners were trying to achieve, but rarely gives a view on whether they succeeded. And based on the fact that most of them are now being torn down, they seem to have largely failed, but the author doesn’t take the opportunity to analyze those failures, he mostly just refuses to discuss them. To the extent that one might want to learn lessons from the ambitious projects of these decades, rather than just have the ambition trumpeted, this book is not a good place to look.
Some of this might have been due to being American, and thus having no particular prior feelings towards places like Sheffield or Portsmouth, so possibly a British audience would have it resonate better. But I mostly was just relieved to reach the end.
March 19, 2022
very good book! grindrod is a very engaging writer and the book is very well structured. it's a topic that really interests me and it's refreshing to have a balanced perspective on it (there's more to brutalist and modernist architecture than just "ugly building with social purpose" and it's quite sad to me that a lot of discussion surrounding it is reduced to that). i like the importance placed on the interviews with not only the planners and architects but also the people who live(d) and work(ed) in the buildings themselves - people can tend to forget the actual reasons buildings are constructed. it also doesn't shy away from the grim side of the period - the corruption, the shoddy construction, the profiteering. i couldn't quite figure out the author's political views which is probably good - mistakes were made in the field under conservatives and labour alike, really.
it also has a very unique significance in that cumbernauld has been set to be demolished very recently - my personal favourite structure discussed in this book. hopefully it (or what's left of it, rather) gets listed or something and not replaced by a glass-and-steel-box (a phrase i discovered in this book that i'm definitely going to be using a lot more often from now on)
it also has a very unique significance in that cumbernauld has been set to be demolished very recently - my personal favourite structure discussed in this book. hopefully it (or what's left of it, rather) gets listed or something and not replaced by a glass-and-steel-box (a phrase i discovered in this book that i'm definitely going to be using a lot more often from now on)
April 17, 2021
Published in 2013, and on my to-read list for some considerable time, this is John Grindrod’s tour of post-modern British architecture. Grindrod’s evidently abundant enthusiasm for the topic shines through, and carries interesting but detailed discussions of topics that might seem superficially rather dry—approaches to town planning and battles with Local Authorities, for example!
I was slow to read this book as it often had me hurrying off to search the web for some of the developments discussed. That was partly because Grindrod’s introductions interested me, but also partly because in the paperback edition I have the pictures are a little small and sometimes hard to make out.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this, learning more about developments that I’m somewhat familiar with, and plenty that were new to me.
I was slow to read this book as it often had me hurrying off to search the web for some of the developments discussed. That was partly because Grindrod’s introductions interested me, but also partly because in the paperback edition I have the pictures are a little small and sometimes hard to make out.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this, learning more about developments that I’m somewhat familiar with, and plenty that were new to me.
September 12, 2020
Glasgow, perhaps more than any other city in the UK is defined by replacing Victorian and Georgian buildings with concrete structures in the 50s and 60s. But was this a good or bad thing? Arguments rage.
Concretopia is an attempt to delve into Britain’s post-war rebuilding and examine why concrete was so dominant, and what the implications of that are. The author examines a series of projects in depth, successful and unsuccessful, built and unbuilt, and in doing so lends some nuance to a debate that probably will never go away.
A thoughtful and considered analysis.
Concretopia is an attempt to delve into Britain’s post-war rebuilding and examine why concrete was so dominant, and what the implications of that are. The author examines a series of projects in depth, successful and unsuccessful, built and unbuilt, and in doing so lends some nuance to a debate that probably will never go away.
A thoughtful and considered analysis.
April 17, 2022
An enjoyable canter through the UK's different approaches to housing in the postwar period e.g. new towns, high density mass public housing, private sector developments etc. The book reminded me as to the scale of development that took place in the period (i.e. 50s, 60s and 70s) which was on a par with the other social revolutions of that period such as the welfare state. I was also reminded of the very innovative and brave approaches taken to development in many cases even if it was not always successful.
March 16, 2025
4.5 stars.
Loved this.
Grindrod moves around the UK detailing various aspects of Post-War building. Original plans and what went well/badly. He talks to the people who once lived in the various builds and many who still do. He does all this with a great lightness of touch and humour and a real love of his subject.
I now have a long list of places in the UK that I would love to visit.
Cracking book.
Loved this.
Grindrod moves around the UK detailing various aspects of Post-War building. Original plans and what went well/badly. He talks to the people who once lived in the various builds and many who still do. He does all this with a great lightness of touch and humour and a real love of his subject.
I now have a long list of places in the UK that I would love to visit.
Cracking book.
March 30, 2022
Concrete and utopia, it could have worked and in some cases it does but that usually involves an extra component ie. money.
There were dreams of a new world resized in a new material but as with many dreams it turned into a nightmare. I suppose at the end of the day people with power and money like bricks.
There were dreams of a new world resized in a new material but as with many dreams it turned into a nightmare. I suppose at the end of the day people with power and money like bricks.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2023
This sat waiting to be read for 10 years. What a fantastic read. If you grew up around any of these places then and have any interest in post war architecture then it will deliver a fascinating read. It’s sent me off looking at so many interesting things. The ‘Monolithic Undertow’ (a book on drone music) of architecture!!
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