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£9.99
Published
8 July 2014
PB
9781908699893
Ebook
9781906964904
Press Release
Coming soon.
 

A Journey around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain

TOWER BLOCKS. FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE.

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 planners: 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 and scandals that shook the government.

Acclaimed by critics from all sides of the political spectrum, Concretopia is a 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.

Old Street Publishing Concretopia

A Journey around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain

TOWER BLOCKS. FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE.

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 planners: 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 and scandals that shook the government.

Acclaimed by critics from all sides of the political spectrum, Concretopia is a 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.

 9.99
 
 

"Wonderful . . . If you've ever wondered who gave planning permission for the serried ranks of concrete blocks you pass on the way to work, read Concretopia and lay the foundations of a new way of looking at modern Britain."
—Sunday Independent

 
 
  • "Charming . . . Concretopia could pleasingly be read by anyone in Britain who lives in a postwar Modernist structure and has a love-hate relationship with it. Part-travelogue, part-history, Grindrod's account walks us through in touchingly precise detail the decisions that led to such buildings as the BT Tower, the Barbican, Coventry Cathedral and the blocks of New Ash . . . We don't think of architectural beauty as key to well-being and yet, as this book shows us, it profoundly is."
    —Alain de Botton, The Times
  • "Timely and pertinent . . . Grindrod is inventive with words and frequently alights on delightful and perceptive images . . . Particularly fascinating are chapters on the rebuilding of Coventry; the development of the South Bank; the creation of the Barbican (using concrete expensively pitted by hand using pickaxes); the replacement of the Glasgow Gorbals with new estates; the hilltop city that is Park Hill, Sheffield, recently renovated; the sad demise of low-rise, family-friendly 'Span' housing; the devastating 1968 collapse of the system-built tower block, Ronan Point; and the the tale of architect-developer John Poulson, who went to jail for corruption over building contracts."
    —Sunday Telegraph
  • "Fascinating throughout … does a magnificent job of making historical sense of things I had never really understood or appreciated … This is a brilliant book: a vital vade mecum for anyone (not just students of architecture and town planning) interested in Britain's 20th-century history"
    —James Hamilton-Paterson
  • "Fascinating . . . it's all here, from the Poulson scandal to abandoned ring-roads and vanishing industry . . . A great insight into the way things turned out the way they did."
    —Wallpaper Magazine
 
 

John Grindrod has written for the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Twentieth Century Society Magazine and The Modernist, has co-written and edited a book about TV, Shouting at the Telly, and contributed to a book on music, Hang the DJ. He grew up in Croydon in the 1970s and has worked as a bookseller and publisher for twenty-five years. He runs the website dirtymodernscoundrel.com and can be contacted on Twitter @Grindrod.