“This is a book for stylists, hipsters and anyone with an enquiring mind, as solid, chunky an austerely beautiful as a slab of shuttered concrete”—Ruth Guilding, Evening Standard
~Ruth Guilding, Evening Standard
“Her technical expertise is formidable, the research is thorough and she mostly avoids jargon. Altogether it is an astonishing achievement”—David Kynaston, Spectator
~David Kynaston, Spectator
“Elain Harwood’s magisterial Space, Hope & Brutalism offers us a chance to recapture some of the excitement felt during modernism’s high noon. It also allows us to reconnect this architecture with the social projects of which it was a central part. The book is enormous and comprehensive, mirroring some of the megastructural scale and bloody-minded ambition of its subject… Buy this book and learn to appreciate our built inheritance from an extraordinary time in British history”—Otto Saumarez Smith, Apollo
~Otto Saumarez Smith, Apollo
“…outstanding on architectural family trees and provisional alliances. The sixty pages of biographies at the end of the book are absolutely invaluable... This book is a deflected history of that far-off era before frivolity, greed, instant gratification and accessibility came to be venerated and became manifest in the garish boasts that rise all around us.”—Jonathan Meades, Literary Review
~Jonathan Meades, Literary Review
“It is a superb resource, a new and elevated datum in the subject… her richly detailed presentation of an extraordinary range of buildings is itself a compelling argument: for the historical and cultural importance of post-war architecture, and the value of preserving it.”—Robert Proctor, The Tablet
~Robert Proctor, The Tablet
“Brutalism may seem hard to love, but Harwood's mammoth survey of postwar English architecture makes a persuasive case for this modernist project . . . Essential reading for all students of modern English architecture.”—W. S. Rodner, Choice
~W. S. Rodner, Choice
“It is hard to imagine it being surpassed in comprehensiveness: the brief architects’ biographies at the end of the book alone are an invaluable resource… The overriding spirit of this book is ultimately one of optimism and generosity, of Harwood taking a lifetime’s knowledge and passion and making it available to the general reader in a book that will remain the standard work on the subject for years to come.”—Owen Hopkins, Burlington
~Owen Hopkins, Burlington
