Putting it out there since it is books-as-gifts time: I have two books in print and in paperback that answer many burning questions about why cities look the way they do geni.us/designofchil...

Last month I passed my viva, bringing to an end 4 yrs research into the shopping centre in 70s Britain. My thesis looked at how the shopping centre shaped, and was shaped by, changing attitudes towards the urban experience and consuming, as well as key debates about design, architecture and space.

So great to see a few of Peter Hand's much loved play sculptures are back! They were commissioned for shopping centres across Britain but have all but disappeared... My favourite picture of Poole's wooden animals: temporarily reinstalled in the Dolphin Centre in 2020 with face masks 😷

My book UP IN THE AIR: A HISTORY OF HIGH-RISE BRITAIN is out today!

#Design is facing an existential crisis, as @edwinheathcote.bsky.social explains so eloquently. 🔻🔻 Design thinking could transform lives for the better (eg in #NHS systems; or wayfinding; or products for older people), but many designers' work just fuels excessive consumption... on.ft.com/46M9mXI

Letter in the Times:

Catch me in the @theguardian.com today, on the history of high-rise housing. We need to remove the distorting goggles of prejudice in order to understand Britain’s extraordinary high-rise heritage. Consider looking up afresh! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

A 100% very totally normal and real question.

Not quite a desk view at my new role, but from the roof of MK Gallery there is a pretty luscious view of Milton Keynes shopping centre

Obligatory photo of the late Brian Clarke’s stained glass (1988-90) in the Victoria Quarter when in Leeds

Grateful to Az for coming to us to write this piece. As a V&A/RCA alum and design student myself, reflecting on the process of learning what is 'good' design/history through working with Az helped clarify some of the complex emotions I had visiting the Storehouse!

Some quintessential 1950s public architecture: shops at North Parade and the entrance lobby to Beckett Court, Greyfriars - both built as part of Bedford Borough Council's postwar Central Redevelopment Area.

Mark Leckey & Arthur Jafa summon ghosts into an ever-shifting shopping centre by @elliebrown.bsky.social recessed.space/00286-Mark-L...

Of course there is a Schröder House adjacent bird house tucked away in Central Milton Keynes! 🐦

C20 is saddened to hear of the death of architectural artist Sir Brian Clarke, a longtime friend and benefactor of the Society. His joyous, technicolour stained glass enlivened so many buildings worldwide. As David Bailey has said: "The only man who could argue with God, then design his windows"

Excellent piece on the fate of the Prince Charles cinema and central YMCA (two places I happen to love) by @willcoldwell.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Chain Stores is here! It's Publication Day - and my first copies arrived in the morning post! Here's a glimpse of the chapter on shoe shops. Over the next weeks I'll post some of the material that I couldn't fit into the book, including extra pictures. Thanks @livunipress.bsky.social.

My book is out on 28 October with @versobooks.bsky.social 💥 It’s available for pre-order at £20: www.waterstones.com/book/up-in-t...

C20 Society has backed a local campiagn to save the Queen's Silver Jubilee Mosaic (1977), at Freshney Place shopping centre in Grimsby. The large tiled mural is under threat due to the proposed redevelopment of the shopping centre. ✍🏼 Sign the petition here: www.change.org/p/prevent-th...

1/ Public art in Hemel Hempstead. Mosaic Map commissioned by the Development Corporation and placed on what is allegedly the first multi-storey car park in the UK, 1960. Designed by Rowland Emett and painted by Phyllis Butler of Carter Tiles Ltd.

Heritage of the greasy spoon caff: Artist Jeremy Deller's recreation (L) of Valerie's Snack Bar (R) in Bury Market Hall, commissioned for the Manchester International Festival 2009.

Great to see two of Peter Hand's ducks from Friars Square in Aylesbury displayed at Bucks Museum over Easter. Commissioned for the shopping centre in the late 60s, they were sold off in the 80s, disappearing from public view like so many of Hand's play sculptures... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

6️⃣ The sixth case on our #C20RiskList 2025 is Bury Market Hall, by Fairhurst & Son, 1969-71 Bury's remarkable ‘gullwing’ roof has been compared to Eero Saarinen’s JFK airport terminal, and is one of a small number of virtuoso post-war market buildings in Britain. c20society.org.uk/buildings-at...

Liliane Lijn’s White Koan was originally installed in Plymouth as part of the nationwide open-air exhibition, City Sculpture Project 1971. It was then purchased for Uni of Warwick’s public art collection, where it has been part of student life ever since… warwickmrc.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/t...

'...the chain’s new owners have said that the entirely new name TGJones “feels like a worthy successor”. “Jones carries the same sense of family and reflects these stores being at the heart of everyone’s high street,” gushed a spokesperson.' 🤨

This was WH Smith’s in Putney. Built when I was about 4, Brutalist in style, gone in 2019. When I was a kid it contained almost the whole world. Books, magazines, comics, toys, games, stationery. seems a terrible shame to kill a brand like that. A world of memory gone

NEWS: The former Debenhams building in Bristol has been transformed into 'Shredenhams' - a new pop-up skatepark in the empty retail spaces. In 2024 consent was given for demolition, despite strong objections from C20 and Historic England. Could it still be saved? 🛹 c20society.org.uk/news/shreden...

Hello Bluesky ! I'm a historian and a cook Here's something I wrote recently for @thelondonjournal.bsky.social about Smithfield Market www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Elisabeth Frink’s Desert Quartet in plaster on show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

EVENT: Join C20 for an Open Mic night spotlighting the latest research of young and upcoming heritage specialists, with diverse themes from the architecture of destruction, to shopping centres and Benidorm. 🗓️ Thu 13 Mar 2025, 6.30pm 📍 Cowcross St Gallery 🎟️ secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...

News about Aberdeen’s amazing Northern Co-operative Society store of 1966-70. It became John Lewis in 1989 and closed during the pandemic (one of 16 that never reopened). A bit of John Lewis history here: buildingourpast.com/2025/01/30/s...

Publication day! A social & architectural history of post-war Scottish new towns: planning & buildings plus community, family, gender, work, education, home. The ebook is FREE via bit.ly/4hLkxn9. Print copy (more attractive!) via www.bloomsbury.com/uk/building-... - do ask libraries to purchase

Works starts on the demolition of the clock tower attached to North Shields’ Beacon Centre, as part of a council attempt to transform the town centre (my.northtyneside.gov.uk/news/33179/i...). Another cycle of town centre transformation begins.

📀 Weekend soundtrack: Music for Space Age Shopping, by @davidajaycock.bsky.social - an album devoted to the utopian architecture of shopping centres. Stay tuned for a new C20 report on Post-War Shopping Centres by @elliebrown.bsky.social, launching in January. ▶️ open.spotify.com/album/5hngblOQ…

Any C20th typography lovers here? Surviving (just!) lettering on three Arndale shopping developments (#Dalkeith #Stranraer #Huddersfield). All late 1950s / early 1960s.

One long thread I did at the other place was on shopping centre postcards. So, get ready for it again - I’ll try and add one each day. Tragically, they are all filed alphabetically. So, we start in Accrington, and an odd-looking clock outside Dixons in the Arndale Centre: