Simon Jenkins

The architecture of Britain could look very different now if plans by modernists in the 1960s had been enacted: London’s iconic Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden would have disappeared, while so too would more than half of the centres of cities including Liverpool and Glasgow. Yet by 1974 almost all these plans had been abandoned, in one of the most dramatic U-turns in British social history.

Historian Simon Jenkins explores the turbulent history of Britain’s built environment, discussing how the battles of the past live on today, in arguments over tall buildings, what should be preserved and what form new buildings should take. Jenkins’ A Short History of British Architecture: From Stonehenge to the Shard is a celebration of our national treasures, a lament of our failures – and a call to arms for our built landscape.