The North East of England contains some of the most remarkable Brutalist buildings built in Britain from the 1950s to the early 1980s. This architectural style epitomises for many the postwar era when architecture and town planning was looking to modernise Britain’s towns and cities and bold and dramatic statements were to be made with these new structures. Often minimal, monumental and concrete, many of these buildings were for civic, institutional or purposes and aroused strong feelings locally and when the tide turned on this architectural movement, with new ideas on civic planning, some of these buildings became unwanted and were demolished in later years. Today, Brutalist buildings are still controversial but structures such as Kingsgate Bridge in Durham, the Byker Metro Bridge in Newcastle and Dunelm House in Durham, and many others, have their passionate supporters as examples of a remarkable era.
In this book design historian Michael Johnson picks out the most noteworthy of the surviving Brutalist buildings in the North East of England, many of which have become a powerful part of the identity of the region. This book will be of interest to all those who would like to know more about the history of the postwar decades in the North-East of England, as well as those interested in the architecture of the region.
