The history of British architecture since 1930 has been one of frequently heated controversy between the old idiom and the new and between various social and technological viewpoints. The battle is by no means over; indeed it is spreading to wider issues and outside what was previously a largely professional sphere. A book like this one, which spells out the issues and describes how they arose, is therefore of interest not only to architects and students of architecture but to the growing general public concerned about the man-made environment.

Professor Jackson looks at the buildings of the period as the products of peculiar sets of circumstances, as works of art and in terms of what their designers were trying to achieve. And since there is much worth studying in the critical zone that separates architectural claims and hopes from social and aesthetic reality, this book offers both essential background material and a fascinating narrative that will in itself be a subject of controversy.

Anthony Jackson (1926-2015) was a professor in the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Nova Scotia.

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