Robert Proctor
@rproctor.bsky.social
Architectural historian of the twentieth century.
Pinned
Robert Proctor
@rproctor.bsky.social
· May 30
Percy Thomas | UWP
www.uwp.co.uk
My book is finally published! Percy Thomas: Modern Architecture as a National Service. www.uwp.co.uk/book/percy-t...
Chequerboards (flint, ashlar, brick), Winchester.
November 14, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Chequerboards (flint, ashlar, brick), Winchester.
Reposted by Robert Proctor
Georgian Bath? How about Brutalist Bath!
Sign the petition to save the fabulous little Church of the Good Shepherd in Batheaston (1966-67) from demolition, and allow the local community to buy it instead.
✍🏼 c.org/PdMGmFFhqZ
Sign the petition to save the fabulous little Church of the Good Shepherd in Batheaston (1966-67) from demolition, and allow the local community to buy it instead.
✍🏼 c.org/PdMGmFFhqZ
November 12, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Georgian Bath? How about Brutalist Bath!
Sign the petition to save the fabulous little Church of the Good Shepherd in Batheaston (1966-67) from demolition, and allow the local community to buy it instead.
✍🏼 c.org/PdMGmFFhqZ
Sign the petition to save the fabulous little Church of the Good Shepherd in Batheaston (1966-67) from demolition, and allow the local community to buy it instead.
✍🏼 c.org/PdMGmFFhqZ
Lutyens's Campion Hall, Oxford. Tinkling bell capitals similar to those at New Delhi, and a busy proliferation of horizontal lines.
November 7, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Lutyens's Campion Hall, Oxford. Tinkling bell capitals similar to those at New Delhi, and a busy proliferation of horizontal lines.
Delighted that the second review of my book on Percy Thomas is in Welsh, a comprehensive account over 3 pages by conservation architect Alwyn Harding Jones in 'Barn'. barn.cymru/en_gb/adeila...
Adeiladu cenedl: gwaddol Percy Thomas – Barn
barn.cymru
November 6, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Delighted that the second review of my book on Percy Thomas is in Welsh, a comprehensive account over 3 pages by conservation architect Alwyn Harding Jones in 'Barn'. barn.cymru/en_gb/adeila...
Joyfully distracted at work by finding a black redstart on my building for the second time in a fortnight.
November 4, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Joyfully distracted at work by finding a black redstart on my building for the second time in a fortnight.
Preparing a session on essay writing, testing things on AI to show students what it can't do, and wow, it is still as bad as it was a couple of years ago, isn't it? It reads like GCSE essays.
October 31, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Preparing a session on essay writing, testing things on AI to show students what it can't do, and wow, it is still as bad as it was a couple of years ago, isn't it? It reads like GCSE essays.
Reading about how Mies van der Rohe re-enrolled all Bauhaus students in 1930 so he could expel those with communist allegiances, and turned the student residence building into classrooms so they couldn't live together and coordinate on site. Lovely chap.
October 30, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reading about how Mies van der Rohe re-enrolled all Bauhaus students in 1930 so he could expel those with communist allegiances, and turned the student residence building into classrooms so they couldn't live together and coordinate on site. Lovely chap.
Finishing touches under way for my talk on Percy Thomas's interwar modern classicism at the Lutyens Trust conference on 1 November. #20s30s www.lutyenstrust.org.uk/portfolio-it...
October 17, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Finishing touches under way for my talk on Percy Thomas's interwar modern classicism at the Lutyens Trust conference on 1 November. #20s30s www.lutyenstrust.org.uk/portfolio-it...
This is very good, can they also reinstate mine, since they lost it in a cyber attack?
Happy Birthday to Oscar Wilde, whose British Library reader pass is being reinstated today.
British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked
Exclusive: Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency
www.theguardian.com
October 16, 2025 at 11:01 AM
This is very good, can they also reinstate mine, since they lost it in a cyber attack?
I keep thinking there should be a biography of the prominent C20 classical architect everyone always ignores, Sir Edwin Cooper, but there's no way I'm going to write it myself. Anyone want to do it for a PhD, get in touch?
October 11, 2025 at 8:20 AM
I keep thinking there should be a biography of the prominent C20 classical architect everyone always ignores, Sir Edwin Cooper, but there's no way I'm going to write it myself. Anyone want to do it for a PhD, get in touch?
It's very difficult to get students to appreciate this when teaching modern architecture, but it is surely absolutely fundamental to understanding the appeal of modernism.
Reading this by m'learned colleague, and the nostalgia for 50s Britain is a crock. Much of the country was an exhausted dump. The Potteries were described as 'seven miles of concentrated ugliness and dirt'. Stoke was full of 'old clay working, old coal dumps, canal and industrial waste'. (1/2)
October 10, 2025 at 5:06 PM
It's very difficult to get students to appreciate this when teaching modern architecture, but it is surely absolutely fundamental to understanding the appeal of modernism.
Reposted by Robert Proctor
I’ve lots of photos to sort from today but here are a few to be going on with.
Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol
(Ronald H Sims, 1968)
Access arranged by @themodernist.bsky.social
Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol
(Ronald H Sims, 1968)
Access arranged by @themodernist.bsky.social
October 9, 2025 at 2:02 PM
I’ve lots of photos to sort from today but here are a few to be going on with.
Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol
(Ronald H Sims, 1968)
Access arranged by @themodernist.bsky.social
Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol
(Ronald H Sims, 1968)
Access arranged by @themodernist.bsky.social
I discovered Unzoomed and got Kyoto in one.
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
October 8, 2025 at 5:47 PM
I discovered Unzoomed and got Kyoto in one.
Le Corbusier: let us return to the platonic volumes, cubes, cylinders, what have you
Asplund: [builds Stockholm Public Library]
Le Corbusier: not like that
Asplund: [builds Stockholm Public Library]
Le Corbusier: not like that
October 8, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Le Corbusier: let us return to the platonic volumes, cubes, cylinders, what have you
Asplund: [builds Stockholm Public Library]
Le Corbusier: not like that
Asplund: [builds Stockholm Public Library]
Le Corbusier: not like that
Amazing facts. It's almost as if people like education for reasons other than cash. Apparently this is bad?
October 8, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Amazing facts. It's almost as if people like education for reasons other than cash. Apparently this is bad?
Bath architecture + October sunshine = 💥
October 6, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Bath architecture + October sunshine = 💥
Recommend.
We’ve added another tour of Broadmead Baptist Church. The last one sold out rapidly so be quick if you’d like to see inside this recently listed church above the shops.
the-modernist.org/products/bru...
the-modernist.org/products/bru...
Brutal Bristol : Broadmead Baptist Church Visit 11.30am 9/10/25
A visit to Broadmead Baptist Church
the-modernist.org
October 4, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Recommend.
Starting a campaign to bring back Ecole des Beaux-Arts architectural drawing styles. drawingmatter.org/the-beaux-ar...
The Beaux-Arts Tradition
The following text has been excerpted from Living with Architecture as Art, the recently published catalogue of Peter May’s collection of drawings, models and architectural artefacts. The catalogue is...
drawingmatter.org
October 3, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Starting a campaign to bring back Ecole des Beaux-Arts architectural drawing styles. drawingmatter.org/the-beaux-ar...
Not quite sure what's going on here but enjoying the idea of living in a Clarice Cliff world. Unbuilt competition-winning scheme for Croydon Civic Centre by F. W. Halfhide and R. J. O'Donoghue, 1935.
September 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Not quite sure what's going on here but enjoying the idea of living in a Clarice Cliff world. Unbuilt competition-winning scheme for Croydon Civic Centre by F. W. Halfhide and R. J. O'Donoghue, 1935.
Mildly amused by this presumably lost corner of the 'Treasury Corridor' in John Soane's Bank of England.
September 26, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Mildly amused by this presumably lost corner of the 'Treasury Corridor' in John Soane's Bank of England.
Have just read the phrase "heretofore the vogue" and made a mental note to put it into use as often as I can.
September 26, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Have just read the phrase "heretofore the vogue" and made a mental note to put it into use as often as I can.
Reposted by Robert Proctor
Everyday beauty (Antwerp edition)
September 24, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Everyday beauty (Antwerp edition)
After a lot of hassle trying to work out how to do a complicated thing tracking PhD student progress with partial information and formulae in very big spreadsheets, I've now finally cracked it - I wrote out a list on a word document.
September 19, 2025 at 10:48 AM
After a lot of hassle trying to work out how to do a complicated thing tracking PhD student progress with partial information and formulae in very big spreadsheets, I've now finally cracked it - I wrote out a list on a word document.
My, look at this.
While they fetched Norwegians group 2 who sat out on the square waiting, the very nice lady said I could just stay inside and hang around. It’s not everyday that you get to roam free as you please in here… extremely grateful and feeling very spoiled! 🥹💛
September 19, 2025 at 9:55 AM
My, look at this.