I keep thinking there should be a biography of the prominent C20 classical architect everyone always ignores, Sir Edwin Cooper, but there's no way I'm going to write it myself. Anyone want to do it for a PhD, get in touch?

It's very difficult to get students to appreciate this when teaching modern architecture, but it is surely absolutely fundamental to understanding the appeal of modernism.

I’ve lots of photos to sort from today but here are a few to be going on with. Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol (Ronald H Sims, 1968) Access arranged by @themodernist.bsky.social

I discovered Unzoomed and got Kyoto in one.

Le Corbusier: let us return to the platonic volumes, cubes, cylinders, what have you Asplund: [builds Stockholm Public Library] Le Corbusier: not like that

Amazing facts. It's almost as if people like education for reasons other than cash. Apparently this is bad?

Bath architecture + October sunshine = 💥

Recommend.

Starting a campaign to bring back Ecole des Beaux-Arts architectural drawing styles. drawingmatter.org/the-beaux-ar...

Not quite sure what's going on here but enjoying the idea of living in a Clarice Cliff world. Unbuilt competition-winning scheme for Croydon Civic Centre by F. W. Halfhide and R. J. O'Donoghue, 1935.

Mildly amused by this presumably lost corner of the 'Treasury Corridor' in John Soane's Bank of England.

Have just read the phrase "heretofore the vogue" and made a mental note to put it into use as often as I can.

lol

Everyday beauty (Antwerp edition)

After a lot of hassle trying to work out how to do a complicated thing tracking PhD student progress with partial information and formulae in very big spreadsheets, I've now finally cracked it - I wrote out a list on a word document.

My, look at this.

Law and order: Gunnar Asplund’s Gothenburg City Hall (1935-37). I got in here (legally) so you don’t have to, let’s go ⚖️🧵

We've had a huge accession of Salvation Army architectural plans covering the whole of the UK. Here are some lovely plans from the new hall at Hendon, designed in 1957 by C Wycliffe Noble

Soul crushed.

Oh great, they changed the researcher development framework so I now have to spend half an hour working out how it's different and change my PhD induction slides, thanks guys.

Could this whatsapp channel be an email is the new could this 3-hour teams meeting have been an email.

Thought I'd experiment using my org's approved Copilot to create a script to do something useful with a spreadsheet. Utter failure, no matter how I tried it; error messages all the way. Pasting these back into the AI just generated complicated debugging advice that also didn't work. Productivity!

The Church of the Good Shepherd (Martin Fisher, 1967) in Batheaston could be demolished. 1/2 www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-n...

I came across Fernand Pouillon's work in Marseille. I didn't realise he'd led such an, er, interesting life: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Procrastinating over new lecture prep by updating the moodle page, it must be that time of year again. Also, first massive spider of the season ejected.

Roast bittern for dinner?

'Feeling blue: Colour and the modern British hospital' is out! And it's free online (or a relatively affordable £25 hardback if you prefer print)! Thanks so much to everyone who helped with the research for this, from supporting site visits to reading drafts. www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781...

Representing nature at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.

1990s/early 2000s harbourside regeneration housing in Bristol: Lancashire suburban Tesco style, Essex Design Guide neo-vernacular style, Dorset village Regency style.

I am reading about 'heritage bollards'.

My PhD supervisor was really great. As a student it was amazing to find an acknowledgement to myself in his book on architects and engineers, for barely more than discussing my thesis! Later I read and admired Towards a Social Architecture, surely still the best book on postwar British architecture.

Support Scottish heritage organisations to buy Bernat Klein Studio, near Galashiels www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/7nPrRvgl The late-Modernist building of 1972, designed by architect Peter Womersley, is to be auctioned on 30 July. Listed and vacant, this architectural marvel needs urgent saving!

The Conway collection has lots of out of copyright images and free to use as well photocollections.courtauld.ac.uk/sec-menu/sea...

Valtellina valley vernacular = big house of stone, light layer of render; attached hay barn mostly made of wood, open in places; rusty corrugated iron roof held down by sticks and stones (prob replacing shingle). Sadly not much evidence of conservation efforts compared to e.g. Alto Adige.

Who needs a pub crawl when you can do a church crawl. Here’s some John Piper glass for you in Bristol at little All Saints Church just down the road from Clifton Cathedral, which you’ll know immediately from its mad spire:

Sold out! Currently in discussion to get further copies printed. Still available from some bookshops, however.

Found a delightful little alpine rustic medieval church unexpectedly covered in high quality Renaissance art: S. Giorgio, Grosio.

Sundays are good days to go to church, so I went to Clifton Cathedral in Bristol to get away from life for a while. Reader, the Catholics have never cooked harder:

The doors of Bormio. Alpine stone, alpine wood, pieces of iron, some painted plaster.

Hilarious Dolce & Gabbana counter-reformation themed catwalk on the Ponte Sant'Angelo on the Italian news today. www.lofficielitalia.com/fashion-week...

On travels.

I'm sorry. I bought the rare and lovely thing before you could get your hands on it. Maybe another one will come along sometime. I hope not.

Indiana Jones and the Social Sciences Ethics Committee.

At the happy place again (the marsh by the power station).

Reading one of those slightly older academic books that doesn't give its sources properly, and wondering ... did you just make it all up?

Reading a conservation report from 2000 in which numerous buildings selected and described as of "highest quality" have since been demolished.

Reading Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' yet again and it's amazing how well it skewers ChatGPT: "modern writing [...] consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug", etc.

Very low tide reveals that two of the piers on the Second Severn Crossing seem to float, presumably cantilevered out from points where there was firm rock (the rounded bases are ship strike deflectors rather than structure).

Obviously a great evening for watching films.

Evening.