Feed: Culture | The Guardian
Posted on: Wednesday, March 16, 2022 2:00 PM
Author: Hugh Pearman
Subject: Iconicon by John Grindrod review
| From Thatcher to Brexit – a history of the country through some pretty good buildings and a vast number of awful ones If the title makes you think this will be all about the big, shiny, funny-shaped public buildings ("icons") that we all got used to from around the mid-1990s until the end of the 00s, be prepared for something darker, much more illuminating and rather sad. Chirpy though Grindrod's prose style is, replete with pop references and hip asides, what he chronicles is the accelerating decline of the UK since 1980 as expressed through what we build. Prepare for a jolting ride that starts with Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy legislation, which killed off the majority of new social housing, and ends, pretty much, with the horrific inferno of Grenfell Tower. A system out of control, everyone involved crossing their fingers and trying to avoid blame. Along the way, we got some pretty good buildings and a vast number of awful ones. Since I write about architecture for a living and am of a certain age, reading this book is like seeing my whole career flash before my eyes. This is all the stuff I experienced and a lot of the people I met, in real time. Much of it is what the (15 years younger) Grindrod experienced, too. And yet, in the moment, you don't always understand the undercurrents. Why are things done the way they are? Why was there that all-but-forgotten 1980s and 90s architectural obsession with out-of-town business parks and superstores? What made us think that architectural postmodernism was either normal or inevitable? What was that white helicopter in the Barratt Homes ads all about? |