David Kynaston

Big is beautiful: A crushing case for brutalism — with the people left out

Elain Harwood’s Space, Hope and Brutalism reflect the heavy impact of its subject, and some of its callousness

issue 10 October 2015
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  • Space, Hope and Brutalism: English Architecture, 1945-1975

    Elain Harwood

    Yale University Press, pp. 703

First things first: this is one of the heaviest books I have ever read. Eventually I finished with it resting uncomfortably on my knees, as I perched on the edge of my bed. It reminded me of when I met Jennifer Worth (of Call the Midwife fame) and she showed me her hardback copy of my own substantial tome Austerity Britain — neatly spliced in half to make two separate manageable entities.

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