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John Grindrod
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Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain Paperback – June 23, 2014

by John Grindrod (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 252 ratings
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TOWER BLOCKS. FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE.'Never has a trip from Croydon and back again been so fascinating. John Grindrod's witty and informative tour of Britain is a total treat'CATHERINE CROFT, Director, Twentieth Century SocietyWas Britain's postwar rebuilding the height of midcentury chic or the concrete embodiment of Crap Towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling 'austerity Britain' became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass.On his journey he visits the sleepy Norfolk birthplace of Brutalism, the once-Blitzed city centre of Plymouth, the futuristic New Town of Cumbernauld, Sheffield's innovative streets in the sky, the foundations of the BT tower, and the brave 1950s experiments in the Gorbals. Along the way he meets New Town pioneers, tower block builders, Barbican architects, old retainers of Coventry Cathedral, proud prefab dwellers and sixties town people who lived through a time of phenomenal change and excitement.What he finds is a story of dazzling optimism, ingenuity and helipads -- so many helipads -- tempered by protests, deadly collapses (as at Ronan Point) and scandals that shook the government.Acclaimed by critics from all sides of the political spectrum, Concretopia is an witty and revealing history of an aspect of Britain often ignored, insulted and misunderstood. It will change the way you look at Arndale Centres, tower blocks and concrete forever.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    440 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Old Street Publishing
  4. Publication date
    June 23, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    7.76 x 1.34 x 5.12 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1908699892
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1908699893
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Old Street Publishing (June 23, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 440 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1908699892
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1908699893
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.76 x 1.34 x 5.12 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 252 ratings

About the author

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John Grindrod

John Grindrod

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John Grindrod is the author of ''Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain' (2013), 'Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt' (shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize for UK travel and nature writing), and 'Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain' (2022). He hosted the 2019 Radio 4 documentary Living Room. He can be contacted on Twitter @Grindrod or via his website johngrindrod.co.uk

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
252 global ratings

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Umberto Rustichelli
5.0 out of 5 stars davvero interessante, con una visione non usuale dell'architettura
Reviewed in Italy on December 5, 2023
Verified Purchase
È un libro particolare, che tratta della storia dell'edilizia popolare in Gran Bretagna, cercando di capire dove ha avuto successo e dove ha fallito, prendendo in considerazione anche le opinioni di persone che ne hanno usufruito e in special modo quanti sono passati da un ambiente rurale o relativamente degradato (urbanisticamente parlando) alle abitazioni di nuova concezione. Riporta esempi specifici e indica come abbiano fatto da apripista per altri progetti. Possiamo perdonare qualche attitudine "troppo da architetto" (es.: si minimizzano gli errori di costruzione di una scuola troppo fredda d'inverno e soffocante d'estate), ma l'approccio è essenzialmente fresco e interessante. Ho perso il libro prima di finirlo ma probabilmente lo ricomprerò. Forse le fotografie potevano essere trattate meglio, è un'edizione economica in bianco e nero quindi andavano riviste per una resa migliore.
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Grace Dencker
5.0 out of 5 stars NewTowns Explained!
Reviewed in Germany on May 21, 2022
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This is a detailed, well-researched and wholly entertaining description, and explanation, of the whole process of “building” postwar Britain. For anyone who lived through those busy, complicated years, this is a “must read”, broadening in retrospect our knowledge - .and erasing some of our prejudices! - about them.
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Shipbuilder
5.0 out of 5 stars After decades of propaganda, nothing less than the revealing of some of modern Britains' greatest efforts and achievements
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2016
Verified Purchase
'I expected a balanced and critical analysis of what went wrong with post-war planning and architecture', say some reviewers. Well, exactly.
The received wisdom (and it is very much received, uncritically absorbed and usually coloured by one's political outlook) is that the 30 or so years after the war was a 'failed experiment' of leftish utopianism, a blip which is now unfit for purpose and inferior to the ideas the preceded it.
This attitude doesn't just apply to architecture, however. The howl of middle England at the anguish of post-war change, while simultaneously having benefitted wholesale from it and smugly patronising it as a kind of wooly-headed dogooderism, is something to behold.
The irony of the rather different and refreshing picture that John Grindrod entertainingly paints in Concretopia is that the decades of rebuilding after the war were a collective blossoming of ideas, genuinely noble intentions and effort, in the midst of austerity and huge debt – the kind of genuine achievements that should inspire a patriotic pride and yet are consistently belittled by those who shout their patriotism from the rooftops and yet all too often wear it as an image, a badge, all surface.
And yes, here's the dull caveat, as if it need be stated....not everything was perfect, nor perfectly done , mistakes were made etc etc...Ronan Point, corruption....all covered, thank you.
Concretopia is not balanced, because the propaganda it offers a counterweight against is not balanced. What it is however, is as witty, passionate, entertaining, informative and hugely readable as you would never expect a treatise on planning and architecture to be.
Grindrod offers a highly personal and selective trip through the many periods and ideas that make up the post-war building boom – system building, brutalism, high and low rise estates, garden cities, new towns and so on.
Like many of the excellent recent books and articles that focus primarily on Brutalism, he slays the multitude of myths, illogic and downright lies that have constituted much of the commentary on this period. The repudiation of the most common ones is worth repeating here – firstly, not all concrete buildings, nor high-rise buildings, are brutalist, nor modernist, nor is all modernism brutalist. The use of these terms interchangeably is a sure sign of the uninformed – precisely the sort of person who should read this book.
Neither were the residents of the buildings, as conventional wisdom dictates, frozen out and dehumanised by middle-class architects and planners displaying either a haughty prioritization of form over function or a smug paternalism (indeed, which is it?).
The post-war period needed unprecedented amounts of people housed, and fast. The proportion of people that lived in squalid conditions is well documented. Entire town centres needed rebuilt, indeed entire towns needed built, all despite a crippling debt. The technology of the day was reinforced concrete. The talents of the brightest young and the most experienced of war veterans were all employed to make this happen. The idea that it could have been achieved, in the timescale or budget needed, by modernisation of existing housing or giving everyone a twee cottage with front and back garden is laughable, yet this seems to be what critics suggest.
In the best of the developments, the thought that went into both the present and future needs of the new residents is quite incredible (imagine wishing to cater for the needs of your customer - this must be the 'utopianism' that we keep hearing about).
People weren't just rehoused, they got for the first time many of the basic comforts that we take for granted – hot and cold running water, central heating. By most accounts they were delighted and many still are, decades later. But we never hear from them, except in a book like this.
Those that were failed, not by the architects or planners, but by penny-pinching councils and short-sighted social housing policy, are potrayed as the norm. One suspects that ordinary folk receiving the benefits of cutting-edge architecture and planning rankles with some sections of society.
The most incredible aspect of all this is that this period produced in many cases buildings that are, both objectively and subjectively, superior to those today, in an atmosphere of genuine concern for the collective good and austerity and debt incomparable to today's. And it was done fifty and more years ago. The contrasts with the ego and greed-led trophy architecture, endless bureaucracy and uncritical fetishisation of the past, the carping that any undertaking by the government for the common good is unrealistic/dreaming/utopian/communist and worst of all the endless sprawl of cheaply-built, squashed together, identikit retro-tat of today could not be more stark.
The sheer arrogance and myopia of our historical dismissal of this period is a disgrace and that's why you should buy this superb book, why you need to, and once you have, it is not an exaggeration that you will see Britain in a new light.
13 people found this helpful
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Sally A. Adams
4.0 out of 5 stars The shape of things to come
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2015
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I was brought up in Crawley New Town in the 1950s. After reading Concretopia I understand just how radically this post war environment shaped its children. Grindrod (is that a nom de plume?) presents a fascinating, insightful and engagingly written account of how the built environment creates our aspirations. Now I know why I yearned for a thatched cottage with roses round the door.
2 people found this helpful
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tallmanbaby
5.0 out of 5 stars incredibly readable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 26, 2014
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Concretopia on Kindle

I was reading this, sitting in my garden, over the recent sunny Easter weekend, and there was something very apt about the uplifting story of Britain rebuilding itself after the second world war and the austerity of rationing, with nature coming into flower all around me.

The story is about buildings, both the big and famous like the Barbican and the small and everyday like housing estates. The basic message of the book is that there was a great deal more that was positive and good about what was done after the war, than was bad. The author is clearly one of the growing number of fans of Brutalist architecture, but this is often put in context by interviews with people who actually lived in some of these modernist monstrosities, and loved them.

The style of writing is very personal, interviews, reminiscences, research and personal opinions all just come tumbling out. Better to take it as what it is, than to try and treat it as an overly informal academic tome.

I found the book hard to put down, a long book, but packed with stories and incident. On Kindle there are a good selection of functional black and white photos and an index with hotlinks. A very well put together title for the Kindle and well worth the money.

I would only offer a few quibbles, first off the title is off-putting, the book is vastly more appealing than the title, I was a bit confused about the various developments on the London South Bank, the author seems to assume that we all know London well enough that these buildings need little introduction, and finally, the chapters seem to have been written, then plonked down. A bit more signposting that something came up in an earlier chapter, or would come up again in a later one, would have made in a bit slicker.

Having said all that, if you have any interest in urbanism, architecture, housing, or the history of the postwar period, then this book comes highly recommended, and will whet your appetite to find out more.
12 people found this helpful
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