architecture
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Birmingham Heritage Week – Celebrating Birmingham – The Brutiful Years
On Sunday I attended one of the events that made up part of this year’s Birmingham Heritage Week. Brutiful Birmingham have recently launched their first book, ‘Birmingham The Brutiful Years‘, a celebration of the Brutalist architecture that abounded upon the city in the 50s, 60s and 1970s, some of which is now protected, others which are still under threat of demolition and redevelopment. The book is a love letter to these buildings, seen as the exciting future at the time of conception, as innovative, space age and ultra modernist, but now having to fight for their right to be, as the age of glass boxes threatens to erode all that…
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Beautiful Gloucester Cathedral
I was lucky enough to spend last weekend in one of the loveliest cities in the UK. Gloucester boasts a gorgeous dockside area that was once an industrial heartland, but is now home to an exceptional shopping area, Gloucester Quays, as well as some amazing restaurants. The city is full of interesting architecture, particularly surviving Tudor and Georgian buildings, and even has the Tailor of Gloucester’s shop, made famous by the Beatrix Potter tale. And then, of course, it has its cathedral, which is not only a masterpiece of English Gothic Style, but is also the last resting place of a King of England, and has featured in two Harry…
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English Riviera Art Deco
Like bread and butter, and Tom and Jerry, Art Deco and the seaside are a match seemingly made in heaven. Whether this is linked to the mainly white painted, or faience tiled buildings looking better on the coast, or if it is linked to the details that sometimes call to mind ocean liners (porthole style windows, smooth curves and fin details etc), there is no doubt that you find a lot of art deco architecture beside the sea. A case in point is Devon. I spent last week in the Torbay area of Devon, the so called (and pretty wonderful) English Riviera of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, and found there…
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Dream Palaces: Wonderland At Birmingham Museum And Art Gallery
The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery partially reopened it’s doors yesterday, hosting a series of pop up exhibitions. Amongst the offerings is Wonderland, a collaboration with the Flatpack Festival that is a showcase for Birmingham’s rich and varied cinema history. As an architecture nerd with a serious interest in old cinema’s, this was catnip for me, so I went along to have a closer look. The history of our cinema buildings is a story of modern times. Beginning in the early part of the 20th century, the first cinemas were often buildings converted from something else, old chapels, former vaudeville theatres etc. This period was supplanted by a period of…
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Coventry – A Tale Of Two Cathedrals
Last month I took my first ever proper visit to Coventry (I have once been to watch the Coventry Blaze Ice Hockey, but got there under the cover of night, so I didn’t really see the city.). I was seriously impressed by how vibrant and lively it is, how nice the central shopping area is, and by how much heritage there is to see in a city that was bombarded nightly during the Blitz. But, most of all, I was impressed by the tale of the two cathedrals, one now a ruin, the other rising like a Phoenix from the flames of a dark December night in 1940. The original…
