Municipal Dreams
@MunicipalDreams
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New book 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates' out in November. 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' (2019) available in paperback.
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Out now: my new book published by
@RIBABooks
. The front cover is a colourised version of a 1970 photograph of Alton East (credit: Architectural Press Archive/RIBA Collections). It's 'an essential guide' according to The Economist:
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I wonder if it was ever a joyful family home before the middle class got hold of it. (From the Sunday Times.)
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Fair play to the artist concerned but do journalists ever question this lazy, stigmatising characterisation of growing up in council housing? It provides overwhelmingly decent, affordable and secure homes - an opportunity to thrive, not a handicap.
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Council housing has provided good homes in all shapes and forms and I'll defend nearly all of it. But as a corrective to those who deal in negative stereotypes, I'll just leave this here.
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There's something jarring about this language. Council housing isn't something you have to escape from.
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1/ Born OTD in 1897, Aneurin Bevan. As Minister of Health and Housing in the 45-51 Labour Govt and in an era of genuine austerity, he built 805,000 new council homes. The new 3-bed council houses were 1/3 larger than in the 1930s and many enjoyed two indoor toilets.
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Angela Lansbury is 96 today. Here she is with her grandfather George Lansbury at the official opening of Poplar's New Town Hall in 1938.
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I absolutely welcome the fact that
@KateOsamor
still lives in a council home. Estates have always supported mixed communities. If you believe they should house only the poorest, you misunderstand their history and purpose.
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1/ COMING SOON, my new book from
@RIBABooks
. I love the front cover - a colourised version of a 1970 photograph of the Alton East estate (credit: Architectural Press Archive/RIBA Collections)
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Vox populi ... Looks like you managed to persuade them to change the headline.
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Born on this day, 1897, Nye Bevan, Minister of Health and Housing when Labour built 805,000 council homes between 1945-51. He believed high-quality council housing should reflect 'the living tapestry of a mixed community'.
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The extraordinary Lennox House, Hackney, designed by J.E.M. MacGregor for the Bethnal Green and East London Housing Association in 1937: 'stepping each floor back 6 ft from the one below it, thus giving each flat the maximum of air and light’ and15 sq m private balconies.
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1/ As
@PpeterPeter
says 'We could end the housing crisis overnight, if we wanted to. We should introduce private sector rent controls, halt the selling of council houses under right to buy, and build 150,000 council homes a year funded by direct taxation.'
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I'm delighted and honoured to have been appointed an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Architecture of the University of Liverpool.
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Goldsmith Street, Norwich - winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2019, 100 percent social housing, Passivhaus -and now being privatised by Right to Buy. Such a devastating indictment of that policy.
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1/ 🧵to mark
#IWD2024
, a short tribute to some female architects of 1960s public housing. First up, Kate Macintosh and the incomparable Dawson's Heights Estate she designed for Southwark Borough Council aged just 28 in 1966.
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Designed for Duke of Westminster; leased to the council in 1937 (for peppercorn rent of 5p) on 999-year lease stipulating it be used as 'dwellings for the working classes'. In 1990, 6th Duke took Westminster to court when it tried to sell off the flats leasehold and won the case.
when Lutyens commits he goes balls out doesn’t he
Grosvenor Estate, Westminster
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We spent £17.4 bn on housing benefit last year. The idea that we can't afford to invest in social rent housing - that pays for itself over its lifetime and saves millions in healthcare and other costs - is utter garbage.
Good article here on the need for realism about the chances of any government building masses more social rented housing. They don't have the money.
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Right to Buy became law 39 years ago on this day. There are 1.5 million fewer social rent homes now than in 1980. Up to 40 percent of former council homes bought under RTB are now privately rented. We need to build council housing at scale and abolish Right to Buy.
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#10
: A picture a day for 100 days from my new book 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates'. Burnage Garden Village, Manchester, established in 1906 by a co-partnership society, Manchester Tenants Ltd.
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Angela Lansbury is 95 today. Here she is, aged 13, with her grandfather George Lansbury at the opening of the new Poplar Civic Centre in 1938.
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The extraordinary, Grade II*-listed, reinforced concrete Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic church in Amlwch. Anglesey - designed in 1932 by Giuseppe Rinvolucri.
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1/ THREAD: To mark
#IWD2021
, a short tribute to some female architects of 1960s public housing. First up, Kate Macintosh and the incomparable Dawson's Heights Estate she designed for Southwark Borough Council aged just 26 in 1966.
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1/ THREAD Aneurin Bevan, born on this day in 1897. As Labour's Minister of Health and Housing, 1945-51, he built 805,000 council houses whilst insisting on high standards: homes were one-third bigger than the pre-war average, a three-bed home had two inside toilets.
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Born on this day, 1869, the architect Edwin Lutyens - and my annual opportunity to post this photo of his finest work, the bus shelter at Mells in Somerset.
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Rest in peace, Angela Lansbury. Here she is aged 13 at the official opening of Poplar's new Town Hall in 1938.
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1/ Today's the official publication day for my new book! Some retailers have had to re-order stocks already but it should be widely available from good bookstores:
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1/ My new book 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates' features some wonderful illustration courtesy of RIBApix. This is the Pepys Estate in Lewisham in 1970; photo credit Tony Ray-Jones / RIBA Collections
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'The state has a responsibility to provide homes for those most in need. I was brought up on a council housing estate...I saw how really good, well-designed houses in a well-designed estate with great public spaces and amenities created a great community'
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I'm happy to accept people's opinions differ but since my original tweet on Dunelm House got re-tweeted into another part of the Twittersphere, shall we say, I've received an awful lot of quite hostile comment. Here's another image for those of more open mind.
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Dunelm House, Durham, 1965, designed by the Architect's Co-Partnership, and Kingsgate Bridge by Ove Arup. A Brutalist masterpiece currently under threat.
@SaveDunelmHouse
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1/ THREAD. We’ve done a few walks recently – let’s try something different: a walk through time. The Boundary Estate built by the London County Council in Bethnal Green wasn’t the country’s first council housing but it was its first fully developed council estate.
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The fantastic arched entrance to the Meakin Estate, Southwark, built 1936-1939 on the Alice Street clearance area and designed by Henry Tansley, Borough Architect of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.
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Born on this day, 1897, Nye Bevan, Minister of Health and Housing when Labour built 805,000 council homes between 1945-51. He believed high-quality council housing should reflect 'the living tapestry of a mixed community'.
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'Why social housing is better quality than homes built for private sale'
Not that strange in fact but it's good to see this fact discussed in the Sunday Times (£)
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This is not to encourage a pile-on (hence the screenshot) but this is scarily stupid and ill-informed.
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This is a narrative that needs to be challenged rather than endorsed. The vast majority of council housing was built to high standards.
"Council houses came to be built cheaply and became marked by social stigma, the repositories of the poor and the deprived. From Ronan Point to Grenfell Tower, social housing was not just tawdry but often dangerous, too."
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Well, this is nice. My book 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' appears on this list of the hundred greatest British politics books. 😊
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Loos' loos. (Sorry, not sorry.) Public toilets, Vienna, designed by Adolf Loos in 1905.
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Just handed over the manuscript. My book on the social & political history of council housing will be out, from
@VersoBooks
, in spring 2018.
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Just started watching this on BritBox - first time since 1996. Epic drama. Our Friends in the North: what a slice of history.
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I'm a day late for my annual post celebrating the birth date of Sir Edwin Lutyens (born 29 March 1869) but here's my favourite building of his - the bus stop in Mells, Somerset.
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So here we are, one of the most stunning municipal housing schemes in the world: Karl Marx-Hof, completed 1930 in Red Vienna.
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The arched entrance to the Meakin Estate, built 1936-1939 on the Alice Street clearance area and designed by Henry Tansley, Borough Architect of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey, looking splendid as always. But the mimosa tree in full bloom is something else.
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'The 100-home Goldsmith Street development in Norwich by
@MikhailRiches
has become the first ever council housing scheme to win the RIBA Stirling Prize'.
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You can't have too many photographs of Berthold Lubetkin's glorious staircases; this from the Cranbrook Estate, completed in 1965, which he designed for the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
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The paperback of my book 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing', published by
@VersoBooks
, is now officially out and available in all good bookshops!
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So I was here today - L'Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, designed by Le Corbusier in 1945. I'll post some more pics in due course that I hope do justice to its concept and execution.
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'Model of Holly Street Estate tower block, 1997-98' by Tom Hunter and James MacKinnon in
@HackneyMuseum
- a nice celebration of the people to whom it was home before demolition in the 2001.
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1/ The Camberwell Board of Guardians has a message for any procrastinators out there.
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1/ Born on this day, 1897, Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health and Housing 1945-51 - advocate of high-quality council housing for a cross-section of the population.
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I love these early street signs from Nottingham's interwar council estates. Any other original signage out there?
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My book 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' is officially published today. You'll have to forgive some relentless self-promotion. Apologies in advance.
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My first sight of the paperback edition - it's out mid-April.
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This headline in last week's Sunday Times annoyed people. Read my new blog to see what happened next:
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Congratulations to the
@C20Society
and everyone else involved in securing the listing of Dunelm House, Durham's brutalist masterpiece.
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@AlgosJoni
Cottage housing, as they called it, was very much the early ideal and built attractively across the country in earlier decades, particularly in rural areas. These are 1920 council homes in Hickling, Norfolk.
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This is council housing: Hickling, Norfolk. These thatched, Arts and Crafts-style homes were designed by Norwich architect Edward Boardman for Smallburgh Rural District Council in 1919.
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One of the finest Georgian brick streets of England, according to Pevsner. Glimpsed in our excursion to Wisbech.
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There’s a lot of council housing around. If you’re part of the early post-45 generation, there’s a 1 in 2 chance you spent part of your life in a council home. It’s us, it’s who we are. Wouldn't it be great if commentators could stop treating it as ‘the Other’?
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Delighted to announce that my book 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing', published by
@VersoBooks
, has been selected as one of the Observer's Best Books of 2018 by
@RowanMoore
:
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Anyone out there with a council tenancy longer than 92 years? Cyril Hall moved into his Barnsley council home in 1926 and 'wouldn’t swap it for all the tea in China':
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From an article in the Evening Standard about the advantages of buying an ex-council house (I won't link to it). TLDR: council housing was better built to higher quality than modern speculative development.
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When these POWs weren’t planning their own great escape, they were planning Britain’s escape from its benighted past: a poster from the 'Town Planning Group’ of British prisoners of war in Stalag Luft III, scene of
#GreatEscape75
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Holborn Library, opened in 1960, designed by the Borough Architect's Department under Sydney Cook. Love this mosaic on the stairway to the mezzanine.
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Edwin Lutyens, born on this day 1869 (HT
@HistoricEngland
). Time for my annual celebration of this beautiful bus shelter he designed in Mells, Somerset:
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We could simply talk about poverty; conversely, we could cover the millions of social housing tenants doing OK and getting on with life. But somehow for the media it's always about 'notorious estates'. We need to do better than the negative stereotypes.
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After Grenfell, I'd hoped never to see the phrase 'a bonfire of red tape' again.
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Happy Valentine's Day❤️. On this day in 1951, Mr and Mrs Snoddy, their two children and pet tortoise moved into a three-bedroomed flat in Gladstone House, the first residents of the Lansbury Estate in east London. We built 162,584 new council homes that year.
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It's a good quote from Goldfinger; it's just a shame that it's being to used to promote the sell-off of the council homes he designed at Balfron Tower.
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Very exciting - just received the galley proofs of my book! 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' will be published by
@VersoBooks
in April 2018.
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Always nice to see one of those pleasantly euphemistic 'Commit No Nuisance' signs. This at the clock tower in St Albans.
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Alt Erlaa, Vienna: 3172 homes, a population of 10,000, Austria’s largest social housing complex - and to some 'the world's best council housing'.
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The Stockbridge Colonies, respectable working-class housing built in 1861 by the Edinburgh Co-operative Building Company, formed by building trades workers after a three-month lockout. The Company built 1000 homes in twenty years.
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Spending on UK social housing will ‘save taxpayers money’ in long term, study finds (Paywall) via
@FT
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2/ The Moorlands Estate in Bath which he opened in 1949 exemplified his ideals: 'These houses at Moorlands are fit for everybody, and not only the working classes ... It shows we want all the different families of the community to be living with each other'
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This was council housing - kind of. Segal self-build in Segal Close and Walters Way, Lewisham. Promoted by Lewisham Borough Council in the late 1970s, the original self-builders came from the housing waiting list and the homes were shared ownership on a council mortgage.
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The gorgeous Municipal School of Art in Great Yarmouth, designed in 1912 by J W Cockrill - an early steel frame and concrete construction with brick cladding. Now converted to social housing.
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'For almost four decades, we have been taught to see public spending as a bad thing...We have come to know the price of everything and the value of nothing and have ended with the funeral pyre of Grenfell Tower'. Four years on, little has changed my mind.
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This week's new post looks at the stupendous building programme of Red Vienna: in ten years to 1934, the city built 61,175 apartments in 348 tenement blocks and an infrastructure to match:
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If you've seen my timeline today, you will be struck by the confidence (i.e. the ignorance and arrogance) by which people comment derogatorily on other people's homes, generally their council homes of course. You'll be struck too by the dignified responses of actual residents.
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And finally for
@HistoricEngland
, the splendid Everton Library in Liverpool: the 'Jewel on the Hill', Grade II listed- -
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Interesting design but fascinating history - designed by Lutyens for the Duke of Westminster in 1930. Assigned to Westminster City Council as 'dwellings for the working classes and no other purpose', a later Duke prevented a council sell-off in 1990:
What do you think of this building's geometric chequerboard design? 🏁
This block of flats is part of a late 1920s estate in Westminster, London, designed by world-famous architect Edwin Lutyens.
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Your regular reminder that council housing has provided decent and attractive homes for many millions:
Today’s
#homesforheroes100
photo is from the Bristol Housing Report 1930 (Bristol Reference Library B14100): spring time on the Penpole Estate.
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1/ THREAD: 'The New Towns of Britain' published by the Central Office of Information in 1964. 'The New Towns are one of the most striking developments in post-war Britain.'
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BUILD MORE SOCIAL HOUSING
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As we celebrate the life and work of William Mitchell (1925-2020), a few of his works I've come across - in Hull, Liverpool, Harlow New Town and Islington:
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Born on this day in 1883, Clement Attlee. Mayor of Stepney and MP for Limehouse.
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#29
: A picture a day for 100 days from my new book 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates'. Lennox House, 1935, designed by JEM Macgregor for the Bethnal Green and East London Housing Association. Its A-frame form provided large private balconies.
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As I'm in Beverley, it's a good excuse to post a photo of the municipal buses specially designed to fit the town's 15th century North Bar.
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Six years ago this month: the launch of 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' at the
@LRBbookshop
. The revised paperback edition is still available at a bargain price at all good bookshops.
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.
@MrGeorgeClarke
doing a superb job. Tune in to Channel 4 or watch on catch-up - a properly passionate advocacy of council housing.
#councilhouse100
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Good to see inner London's walk-up, balcony-access flats properly celebrated.
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Congratulations Liverpool! Builders of the first council housing in Europe in 1869.
Anything else I need to know?
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Shirley Library, Croydon (1937). I thought
@DeborahSuggRyan
might appreciate the sunburst motif of its modernistic style. (HT Christopher Hilton for the image.)
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Ten Years of Municipal Dreams
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