This little hillside chapel suddenly hoved into view as we descended a lane from the Alpine heights of Matlock Bath/Dale in Derbyshire. Architect Guy Dawber, built 1897, clinging to a forested cliff above a trickling spring. In the care of the excellent @friendlesschurches.bsky.social

'Jazz and blues infused' renditions of classical music: just stop it, please.

It's a splendidly varied collection

So John Carey has died at 91. The king of readable lit crit, Oxford all his life but no whiff of High Table about him, recruited by Harry Evans to the Sunday Times and still writing there in 2023. And he could rock a leather jacket in his 80s.

Notable that half of the 6 architecture firms shortlisted to design the National Gallery's big extension are led by women - Moussavi, Selldorf, Seilern. Alongside them, Foster, Piano and Kuma.

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

This is a shame. When the university bought the listed former HMRC campus by Hopkins it seemed a great outcome. What now? Struggling University of Nottingham already selling £80m 'vanity project' campus - Nottinghamshire Live share.google/HHxHIHj10nY1...

New laptop, and as always I feel cheated that they haven't installed a better Internet

And from Art nouveau to Ziggurats join fellow architectural style lovers for the @c20society.bsky.social Christmas lecture..Last few in person tickets here. But there are also tickets to watch online... One for all twentieth century-loving girls and boys

NEWS: A bold new vision for the upgrading of Liverpool Street Station by John McAslan + Partners has been unveiled today. Backed by heritage campaigners, it promises to deliver crucial accessibility upgrades without large scale demolition of the listed station. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/a-new-v...

The fellow seeking donations for a food bank said he'd been there for 2 hours and I was the first person to give him anything, so he gave me some mistletoe in return. 'I hope I bring you luck,' I said. 'May you be showered with kisses,' he replied. And so we parted in great good humour.

EVENT: Join C20 President @SamiraAhmedUK for our annual Xmas Lecture: From Cathedrals to Cooling Towers–Global stories about the buildings that bond us. 🗓️ Tue 2 Dec 2025 6.30pm – 8pm 📍 The Gallery, Cowcross St+Online 🎟️ Book tickets: @c20society.bsky.social secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...

➡️ Please consider giving generously, click the link below for information on how to donate online, via text, Payroll Giving, or to leave a legacy. c20society.org.uk/sup.../elain...

A tremendous scholar, campaigner and bundle of fizzing energy who saved many fine buildings. If you can donate, please do.

Tremendous November half-price offer from Yale on all books in their catalogue priced at less than £100. Which means - for instance for the architecture student in your life for Christmas - my book ABOUT ARCHITECTURE can be yours for a mere £15! Unbeatable! yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

With essays by your fave architectural historians, incl. @hughpearman.bsky.social and @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social

Just 45 cooling towers left in Britain, all but one in the process of decommission and demolition. If, like me, you are fond of these silent sculptural giants scattered across the landscape, you will love @c20society.bsky.social supersized new book.

Had to write a cheque to pay for a government legal service. No other option. Cheque book took some finding. Last time I used it was to pay a locksmith in 2017. Felt so retro I used a fountain pen.

He's building a mausoleum/shrine to himself isn't he? Someone will have designed the giant gilded effigy to go in it like an evil reclining Buddha.

Us setting off to see our tiny new grand-daughter for the first time

So Sir Terry Farrell has died, aged 87, a fortnight after his one-time architectural partner Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. Farrell was a particularly talented large-scale urbanist. An era ends.

A Brit running Gaza? What could possibly go wrong? We could call it a "Mandate" www.thetimes.com/article/4277...

To think I got into this place a lifetime ago on the strength of two A levels and glandular fever www.thetimes.com/article/b3a3...

How about a masterpiece OF kitsch?

So long, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, 1939-2025. One of the most original and inventive architects of his generation, an inspiring and effective President of the Royal Academy, and a gentleman.

Welsh flags outnumbering St George flags by about 100:1 at the Last Night of the Proms

But who will play them in the inevitable film? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good to find a painstaking restoration project (the Big Ben or Elizabeth Tower) on the RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist. Bit odd to find a house and a house extension also on the list - such projects don't win the Stirling because there are other awards for those. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

EVENT: C20 Open Mic Night 📆 Thu 25 Sep 2025, 6.30pm 📍Cowcross Street + Online 🎫 c20society.org.uk/events Returning after a hugely popular debut, another evening of short talks by young & early-career specialists in 20th century heritage - from Sainsbury's public art to a Crittall Windows new town.

So tired of the performative flag waving going on. It's so un-British. We don't have a cult of the national flag as the USA does. We don't regard it as a sacred object. Until recently our prime ministers managed without it as a backdrop. Our monarch still does. We know what country we are in. Bah.

Please do not use the words 'iconic' 'dystopian' and 'vibrant' anywhere near me, lest I turn violent.

I'm going to run away and join the 'geopolitical circus'.

The broadcaster Samira Ahmed was recently appointed president of the Twentieth Century Society. She talks to Apollo about conserving the built environment and making people feel that it matters

Couldn't at first work out what they'd done to my local Lidl. They made it quite hard to get to the checkouts, via a narrow corridor. Then I found you couldn't exit at all after that unless you had kept your paper receipt to scan. Drastic action to reduce now endemic level of theft.

I have eaten the first Victoria plum of the season from the slowly dying plum tree in our garden. It was delicious as only a ripe, thin-skinned, yellow-fleshed Victoria plum can be.

This is more like it. @tommckinney.bsky.social on the R3 breakfast prog gathering examples of loved modernist buildings from listeners. Seifert's Tolworth Tower, Spence's Coventry Cathedral, ACP's Dunelm House in Durham among them. Lovely @c20society.bsky.social

Great news! Welcome @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social!

I am thrilled to be President of the Twentieth Century Society. Honoured to support the work of celebrating and protecting our architectural heritage.

BBC Radio 3 doesn't appear to be on Bluesky, which forced me back to X to admonish it. A slowed-down music quiz on the breakfast show? Excruciating.

This always puzzled me. Why DID meat - all home-produced - have to be rationed for 9 years after the end of WW2? Was it all diverted to export, in which case which countries bought it?

The grand-daughter is attracting large fowl again

11 pm and still just about daylight up here on Iona

Hottest day of the year and I have to go to one of those London clubs with a strict jacket-and-tie dress code🥵

Anyone want to buy a 1971 Ted Cullinan Olivetti building? Julyan Wickham and Tchaik Chassay, both then with Ted, were also on the design team. The Derby one is up for sale. Offers around £1m www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/derby-n...

Excellent news!

Good news, with more in the next post...

Not every day you get to visit a building cited by UNESCO as a reason for withdrawing World Heritage Site status. But I think Everton FC's new stadium in Liverpool's North Docks is of a scale and (unusual) design right for its location. My words: www.ribaj.com/buildings/br...

Fascinating the grand-daughter by munching toast. She can't get the same noise response yet

Grand-daughter finds peacock at the door

Amid all the gushing tributes to Alan Yentob and his impact on culture and the arts on the BBC it might be nice to have some explanation of why there is now no arts and culture on the BBC.