Tuesday, 21 April 2009

The Decline of Civilisation


An architectural photographer's disappointing experience of the boys in blue combines the elegant work of one of the best firms of architects working in the period 1945-70 with further evidence of the paranoid new barbarism into which we are sleepwalking. All who spend any time enjoying, and recording, the built environment would do well to read Edward Denison's piece here:




Particularly poignant as McMorran and Whitby's work was, in part, the subject of my RIBA Part II thesis nearly 20 years ago, going unchallenged as I - a scruffy student - photographed Hammersmith and Wood Street (above) Police Stations, and the Old Bailey. But that was before the current madness of those who believe they are in charge descended.


Do order the book, though, it promises to be a treat.

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