Modern: The Modern Movement in Britain is a non-fiction book by Alan Powers, first published in 2005 by Merrell, about Modernism in British architecture, mainly focusing on the period between 1930 and 1940. The bulk of the book is a gazetteer of 60 architects or architectural practices, including both famous figures and lesser-known ones. The book received broadly positive reviews, with its wide coverage, and particularly its wide coverage of women architects of the period, being generally appreciated. Some reviewers criticise the inclusion of modern buildings lying outside the definition of Modernist. A further critique is that the analysis lacks depth. The book is illustrated with colour photographs by Morley von Sternberg.
Background
The author Alan Powers is an architectural historian in academia and an architectural writer. Kenneth Powell describes him as a "critic of independent mind and broad sympathies" with the "Modern Movement ... in his blood". Powers had previously written on the Modernist architect Berthold Lubetkin and The Twentieth Century House in Britain (2004), and his subsequent books include Britain: Modern Architectures in History (2007). The inspiration for Modern came from the renovation of two 20th-century buildings, Charles Rennie Mackintosh's 78 Derngate, Northampton, and Wells Coates' Lawn Road Flats, Hampstead. The book is partly based on an unpublished 1992–93 survey carried out by Powers for Docomomo UK, funded by the Architects' Registration Council of the UK.
Publication history
The book was first published in hardback in 2005 by Merrell. It came out in paperback with the same publishers in 2007 ().
Contents
Modern opens with a two-page preface that explains Powers' intentions and the selection criteria he applied to the architects and buildings included. An eight-page introduction covers the period before 1930. This is followed by 24-page essay on Modernism in British architecture between 1930 and 1940, which covers a range of social, political, economic and historical issues that Powers asserts differentiate the Modernist movement in British architecture from that in other countries. The essay discusses the effects of global events such as the First World War and the Depression, as well as the exodus of architects from Europe in the lead up to the Second World War. Powers traces the roots of the British movement to the Arts and Crafts movement, in opposition to the conventional views of, for example, Nikolaus Pevsner, James Maude Richards and Sigfried Giedion. Powers discusses the British response to the French Le Corbusier versus the Swedish Gunnar Asplund, as well as debates over concrete versus other materials. The book also includes a discussion of professional training.
The main body of the book is a section covering 60 architects and architectural practices, organised alphabetically, with 91 in total. Each architect is allotted at least a double-page spread containing biographical material, a discussion of at least one of their buildings, with plans and colour photographs, and sources. A few important architects and practices receive deeper coverage. The book covers nine women architects.
Modern ends with two brief essays covering post-war trends and the conservation of buildings from this period. There is two pages of suggestions for further reading and a three-page index. The book is illustrated with more than 200 newly commissioned colour photographs by the British architectural photographer Morley von Sternberg, as well as older images where needed to illustrate buildings that have been significantly altered or demolished.
List of architects and companies
Critical reception
Henry Matthews, in a review for The Art Book, describes the book's organisation as "exemplary". Jeremy Melvin, in a review for the magazine Architectural Review, likens the format with essays dominated by examples to F. R. S. Yorke's The Modern House. The architectural historian William Whyte, in a review for The British Art Journal, notes the "huge variety of architects and a still wider range of buildings" covered, and describes the book as a "memorial to these pioneers of the modern movement". The architect Dennis Sharp, writing in Docomomo Journal, also welcomes the breadth of coverage, which he says gives a "wonderful insight" into the range of British modernist buildings, some now lost. The architectural writer Mark Cousins, in a review for the journal Architectural Heritage, praises the book's "comprehensive nature". The architecture writer Kenneth Powell, in a review for The Architects' Journal, characterises the individual architects' entries as "workmanlike, but invaluable".