Millenarian modernism: British architecture at the turn of the twentieth century

An Architectural History Of Arts And Culture In The 1990s And Early 2000s.

At the twilight of the twentieth century, John Major and Tony Blair's administrations sought to recapture the reformist, modernist energies of the 1851 Great Exhibition and

1951 Festival of Britain through an intensive campaign of architectural patronage, vying to reshape the face of Britain for the advent of the twenty-first century. In pursuit of this

millenarian goal, a trio of arms-length governmental bodies - the Millennium Commission, Heritage Lottery Fund, and Arts Council - financed hundreds of architectural projects with billions of pounds.

My project will be the first architectural history of the 1990s and early 2000s, a period defined architecturally by the re-emergence of modernist design, generous public funding, and the pre-eminence of "iconic" art galleries and cultural experiences. It responds to a growing desire to understand turn-of-the-century architecture historically and con-

serve the period's most significant buildings through their addition to the National Heritage List for England, as they approach eligibility for inclusion under the so-called "Thirty Years Rule".

I will examine architectural projects funded by arms-length bodies, drawing case studies from the Midlands and South Yorkshire. My geographical focus reflects the substantial

grants to projects in the Midlands and South Yorkshire (the Millennium Commission alone contributed £250 million) and the region's centrality to a constellation of political, economic, and cultural metanarratives. These metanarratives - which permeated architectural culture and were reified in architectural projects - form the basis of my research themes:

- Situating the emergence of arms-length bodies as leading architectural patrons, within the global turn towards culture-led regeneration, and "iconic" modern- ism examining The Public, West Bromwich and New Art Gallery, Walsall.

- Examining how architectural projects represented industrial heritage and responded to the economic realities of deindustrialisation discussing Magna Science Centre, Rotherham and Ceramica, Burslem.

- Highlighting the interplay between architectural culture, popular science, and techno-futurism referring to the National Space Centre, Leicester and Millennium Point, Birmingham.

- Interrogating ideas of environmentalism and wasteland reclamation in architectural and landscape design discussing the Earth Centre, Doncaster.

I will examine the papers of the Millennium Commission, Heritage Lottery Fund, and Arts Council at the National Archives, case-study institutions' archival holdings, and the British Architectural Library's collection of the period's vibrant architectural print culture.