Review: Space, Hope and Brutalism: English Architecture, 1945–1975, by Elain Harwood

Abstract

Elain Harwood Space, Hope and Brutalism: English Architecture, 1945–1975 New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2015, 736 pp., 347 color and 18 b/w illus. $125, ISBN 9780300204469 When first picking up this splendid, massive book, published by Yale University Press in association with Historic England for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, one has the immediate urge to congratulate the author, photographer, designer, and publisher. That may sound a rather hackneyed beginning, but in this case it does not refer to yet another work on popular ancient treasures or to one of today's architect's sparkling exuberances; rather, all splendor is lavished here on a so far rather unloved period of architecture, the world of postwar English building. Up to now one could read about this period only in modestly illustrated academic kinds of publications. What is more, Elain Harwood far outdoes all these previous contributions in terms of length and breadth, based on her relentless study of all conceivable sources, including documentary material and innumerable interviews. The book is divided strictly by types; within each type the chapter proceeds with a loose mix of places, architects, and individual buildings. Each chapter is introduced by the broadest kind of contextualization: political, economic, legal, administrative, technical. As with all such monographic kinds of tasks, one asks oneself which of all the diverse introductory matters are to have a bearing on the understanding of the buildings themselves and which are not, and may thus be considered as mere chronicling details that could and should have been left out. British—or, in the case of this book, English—architecture was underpinned by a “sense of mission” (564), that of the new “welfare state,” and for Harwood that covers the totality of the three post–World War II decades.1 The simplest explanation of the idea behind the welfare state is that essential services, such as education, health, and the dwelling, can be satisfactorily organized only by …