For diaries. Friday 29 May TOWNSCAPE65.Eventbrite.co.uk. Gordon Cullen examined, with a dash of Ian Nairn (from me at 3.30) to add laconic spice.

“Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation” @cornellupress.bsky.social featured in the Guardian! 🥹 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Something jollier from Coventry: the delightful confection of Festival fru fru that is Alfred H. Gardiner’s Christ Church, Coventry (1953-8).

I’m so angry about this. Bull Yard (1963-9) was a humanely civic-scaled square, with elegant bronze clad mullions, good lettering, the splendid William Mitchell sculpture, & local shops. Coventry council’s advertising their net zero aims in front of the utter vandalism they’ve wrought is grotesque.

Looking at a book about Limoges porcelain funerary plaques in 19th century cemeteries. Incredible things.

EVENT: C20 Open Mic is back for 2026! Join us for an evening of short talks by early-career professionals, spotlighting the latest research of upcoming specialists in 20th century heritage. 🗓️ Thu 2 April, 6.30-8pm 📍Cowcross St Gallery + Online 🎟️ Tickets: secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...

Lecture on Brutalism and the Transformed City on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ED...

A modernist oddity: an austere slate-monopitched, single-storey estate village, built by Richard Llewelyn-Davies & John Weeks for Baron Rothschild at Rushbrooke, Suffolk (1956-1960). More Cumbernauld than East Anglia, especially in the mist, but creating a tough sense of place with economy.

Spode Coventry Cathedral commemorative plate, designed by Harold Holdway, 1972. Referencing the Angel of Agony mosaic mural in the Chapel of Gethsemane by Stephen Sykes.

I'm giving a webinar lecture for the British Architectural Library Trust on 'Brutalism and the Transformed City' tomorrow. Details here: thebaltrust.org/part-2-bruta...

NEWS: C20 has supported listing Eduardo Paolozzi's polychromatic Pop Art murals (1983) at Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch, described as the 'Ravenna of the New Towns' by historian Owen Hatherley. The 12 mosaic panels depict the towns industrial heritage. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/support...

Hooray!

CALL FOR PAPERS - Modern British History and the 'Environmental Turn'. A two-day workshop organised by @maxlong.bsky.social and myself at Lincoln College, Oxford, 16-17 September. Deadline for abstracts is 15 May. Details in poster below, please share.

NEWS: C20 has written to Historic England requesting an urgent spot listing assessment for Grimsby Central Library (1966-68), after concerns that the 'civic masterpiece' is facing an imminent threat of being stripped-out, having been closed since March 2025. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/concern...

The latest issue of History Workshop Journal is out now, and it marks two exciting milestones: 50 years and 100 issues of innovative radical history. You can read the journal on the HWJ website through the link below! academic.oup.com/hwj...

An Injury To All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class will be published by Verso in October! Today I submitted responses to last comments from my editor and worked on the blurb. It's getting closer and closer!

Interview for @urbanhistory.bsky.social of Simon Gunn, @petermandler.bsky.social, & I about the recently published book The Modern British City. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wvE....

Brilliant new article by @malcolmrussell73.bsky.social on glue-sniffing panics, youth boredom and deindustrialising towns c. 1970s-80s, published in @mbhjournal.bsky.social This began life as an exceptional MA dissertation at @uclhistory.bsky.social Congrats Malcolm! doi.org/10.1093/tcbh...

For anyone interested in geocoding historical census records, my new article in @socscihistory.bsky.social's journal explains how I've used ordnance surveys and trade directories to link British Victorian records! doi.org/10.1017/ssh....

Looking for an intellectual treat? @petermandler.bsky.social 's Ford Lectures on 'The Language of Social Science in Everyday Life' begin Thursday 22 January and continue weekly through 26 February in Oxford. #Skystorians

Staffordshire Pearlware child’s mug with sign language decoration, c.1820

Boxing Day morning coffee and new books. This edited by Simon Gunn @petermandler.bsky.social @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social is a real treat. Highly recommend.

Lovely Christmas present left on my doorstep today - it really is as amazing as I’d hoped -all 29 chapters. The illustrations look fantastic - big thanks to Lund Humphries and the editors. Never seen an academic book looking happier on a coffee table 🙂

#Booksof2025 8. The Modern British City 1945-2000 - Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler & Otto Saumarez Smith An epic account of the rise and fall of British Modernism www.lundhumphries.com/products/the...

Thanks to @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social for recommending Helen Ashton's novel Bricks and Mortar, 1932, republished by Persephone. One of the few novels about architects, written with sympathetic understanding of the profession and the ambitions of two overlapping generations in British architecture /

Piece on the revamp of the Barbican (www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...) displays a depressing negativity from the project team, nobody appears to want to work with the grain of these thrilling spaces, & accessibility issues are grossly exaggerated: I know it’s a brilliant place for a wheelchair.

Slightly surreal for the Modern British City to be co-reviewed in the Literary Review alongside @holsmith.bsky.social's wonderful Up in the Air, on the page after my father's new book on Vanbrugh. Three excellent books I think, & Jerry White concludes of MBC that 'Its richness is truly staggering'.

just delivered… looking forward to reading! @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social @petermandler.bsky.social

I'm very proud of this book: it has a wonderful array of work by many of my favourite historians, which cumulatively makes the pitch for understanding modern British History through the lens of the urban. Lund Humphries have done a wonderful production job, & it is a big beautiful book. Buy it now!

A reminder that my book on the history of protest is now published. It is superbly produced with a great cover. Buy it now from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

Camping Fusina, 1958-9, a rather unlikely Carlo Scarpa project, but full of characteristic moments despite the low budget.

Launch event for the Modern British City at @c20society.bsky.social on 26th of January: secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx... Do come! The book is out with @lhartbooks.bsky.social next week.

Sandbag protection of artworks in Venice in 1916, in anticipation of bombing.

🚨#History #envhist Job Alert: My Department is hiring an Assistant Professor in Environmental History. 🗃️ Come work with us at Warwick. You'll get both excellent colleagues and great students! See details below... And do not hesitate to spread the word... 👇👇👇 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK289/a...

I’m in this week’s @newstatesman1913.bsky.social with a review of Holly Smith’s brilliant history of house rise council housing in Britain, Up in the Air www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

COMING SOON! The Modern British City 1945-2000 brings together architectural, urban and social historians, to chart the extraordinary changes that took place in British cities between the end of the Second World War and the early 21st century... Pre-order now! www.lundhumphries.com

A day teaching in Carlo Scarpa’s Castelvecchio. Magic.

Took my new Hawksmoor-inspired jumper up to Christ Church Spitalfields today 🪦 All credit goes to the wonderful Hebe who spent countless hours knitting it!

Holly Smith launches Up in the Air at the LRB Bookshop. @holsmith.bsky.social

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

Was Manchester really as segregated as Engels said? What kept the rich and poor apart.... if anything? My first article is out today in @historicaljnl.bsky.social and I'm so pleased to share it with you all! doi:10.1017/S0018246X25101246 @stjohnscollege.bsky.social @camunicampop.bsky.social

There's just a day to go until @manchesterup.bsky.social publish my latest book Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London. I thought I should explain a bit about where the book came from. 1/15

The deeply creepy island of Poveglia in the Venetian Lagoon, originally a nunnery, then a quarantine station, and an asylum from 1922 till 1968 - & now all eerily derelict - it’s reported that underfoot are plague pits for over 100,000 people.

Join us for a roundtable on 'The Modern British City' in January at Senate House, London, with Simon Gunn, Erika Hanna, Owen Hatherley, Peter Mandler, Otto Saumarez Smith and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, followed by wine! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

A pair of ludicrously high-heeled Venetian clogs, or Calcagnetti, c. 1400.

Letter in the Times:

To celebate the launch of 'Up in the Air: A History of High-Rise Britain', join author Holly Smith and C20 in conversation with architectural historian Neal Shasore on the future of public housing. 🗓️ Fri 14 Nov 2025, 6.30pm 📍 Cowcross St Gallery + Online 🎟️ secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...

I for one can’t wait but I do have skin in the game - a piece on the post-war history of the idea of the working class community - but there’s so much more - it’s a BIG book

A short post about the Modern British City, out in November: www.lundhumphries.com/blogs/featur...

Pleased with this small Gustavsberg dish, showing Eskil Sundahl's Kooperativa Förbundet headquarters in Södermalm (1935).