Have a listen to this new episode of Open City’s De-constructed podcast! I talked with @matthewlloydr.bsky.social about England’s first ever council housing cooperative - a bold experiment in tenant control in 1970s Wapping 🧱🛠️✊ open.spotify.com/episode/3hiS...

I'm really delighted to have been reviewed so thoughtfully by David Kynaston this week, who paints an excellent picture of the stories and nuances of high-rise Britain
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...

I'm very proud of this book: it has a wonderful array of work by many of my favourite historians, which cumulatively makes the pitch for understanding modern British History through the lens of the urban. Lund Humphries have done a wonderful production job, & it is a big beautiful book. Buy it now!

Launch event for the Modern British City at
@c20society.bsky.social on 26th of January: secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...

Do come!

The book is out with @lhartbooks.bsky.social next week.

Drawings of new tower blocks amid the scruffy jumble of Victorian terraces in Netherthorpe, Sheffield, by John Piper - June 1961. Reproduced B&W in the Architectural Review, but I’ve always longed to find full-colour originals.

I’m in this week’s @newstatesman1913.bsky.social with a review of Holly Smith’s brilliant history of house rise council housing in Britain, Up in the Air
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

My book UP IN THE AIR: A HISTORY OF HIGH-RISE BRITAIN is out today!

Catch me in the @theguardian.com today, on the history of high-rise housing. We need to remove the distorting goggles of prejudice in order to understand Britain’s extraordinary high-rise heritage. Consider looking up afresh! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I’m beginning an archive digitisation project + looking for a high-quality portable/handheld scanner…. any recommendations?

You can get 25% off my book UP IN THE AIR: A HISTORY OF HIGH-RISE BRITAIN at Waterstones, with the code SUMMER25 until Thursday 31 #WPreorder

Does anybody have experience applying for the National Lottery’s Community Fund? Seeking advice & examples of successful past applications - gratefully received!

My book is out on 28 October with
@versobooks.bsky.social 💥 It’s available for pre-order at £20: www.waterstones.com/book/up-in-t...

do i know anybody with a good camera who might be willing to take a picture of a newspaper page at the british library for me? needs to be 300dpi at least... imaging and scanners still down after cyberattack :( can pay! ££

does anybody know of an archive for the Guardian where I can access page numbers for articles post 2010? Gale, ProQuest and Lexis all seem to have given up paginating for contemporary articles?!

Historians of bsky... I'm looking forward to helping put together this exciting new conference at the new Queen Mary Centre for British Studies. Call for papers deadline is 24th January! ⌛

I've stepped in to give @TheSAHGB seminar on 5th of December, with a talk titled 'Swedophilia: Ethic or Aesthetic? Oliver Cox, Michael Ventris and the Lure of Swedish Architecture in Post-War Britain'. I'll be showing lots of Oliver Cox cartoons.
sahgb.org.uk/whatson/swedop…. Come!

Picked up an outrageously cheap copy of James Stirling’s Black Book of buildings and projects (1975). Wonderful pictures of a personal favourite building, the Cambridge History Faculty @camhistory.bsky.social - this is where I learned how to be a historian ♥️

I’m giving a lunchtime talk on Britain’s community architecture movement for the Bartlett’s Situating Architecture Lecture Series at UCL - talking about self-build, squatting + student protest 🧱🔧 Come!
📍 1pm, Monday 2 December
www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/arc...