C20 Society Architecture Slam

Introduction

The C20 Society Architecture Slam brought together researchers, architects, and historians to present on overlooked figures and buildings from twentieth-century British architecture. The day included fourteen short presentations covering post-war housing, municipal sculpture, roof gardens, women architects, and émigré artists.

The opening remarks mentioned Richard Twentyman (1903–1979), a major modernist architect based in Wolverhampton who formed the practice Lavender and Twentyman in 1933. The firm became one of the most important architectural practices in the English Midlands during the mid-twentieth century.

Reference was made to the recent listing of Norwich Sports Village by Historic England (28 January 2026). Designed by Swiss engineer Heinz Isler and constructed 1987–91, the building features spectacular concrete shell structures and represents one of only three shell structures built in England since the 1970s. The listing followed a campaign by the C20 Society.

The society also announced its upcoming spring lecture series, "High-tech Dialogues," examining the High-tech movement and its continuing influence.

Morning Sessions

Alice Keyse – Swedish Prefabs in Stroud

Alice Keyse

Swedish prefabricated timber houses formed part of the UK's response to the post-war housing crisis. The Swedish government provided approximately 150,000 prefabricated houses as part of their reconstruction support package, with notable concentrations in Gloucestershire including the Sunnyhill development in Stroud.

These timber-frame houses, marketed under names such as Phoenix, Uni-Seco, and Airey, contrasted with other emergency housing solutions that used steel or in-situ concrete. The Swedish flat-pack timber model gained favour following concerns about structural concrete after the Ronan Point disaster.

Construction details included steeply pitched roofs reflecting Swedish climate considerations, and the retention of traditional "wash houses" as distinct utility spaces. The Ellers Lane development in Stroud includes a listed example of this housing type.

Many Swedish prefabs are now under threat. The C20 Society has been objecting to demolitions, with recent controversy around Swedish timber homes in the Cotswolds being replaced by new council housing. A Prefab Museum research archive exists documenting these structures.

The Swedish prefabs connect to broader European housing debates. Elizabeth Denby's Europe Rehoused (1938) surveyed nearly two decades of post-WWI social housing across Europe to inform British policy. Denby (1894–1965) was a pioneering housing consultant and the first woman to address RIBA in a sessional meeting (1936, on "Rehousing from the Slum Dweller's Point of View"). Walter Gropius wrote the introduction to the US edition of her book.

Dr Matthew Bliss – Stanley Sellers

Dr Matthew Bliss

Stanley Sellers studied at Birmingham School of Architecture under Jim Roberts, architect of the Rotunda. Involved in the live projects programme at the school, Sellers later moved to Coventry's architecture department and founded the Umbrella Club, a cultural venue that attracted contributions from E.M. Forster and was opened by the Goons.

Sellers maintained lifelong friendships with St Ives artists John Milne and Barbara Hepworth. Hepworth's Sun and Moon sculpture, now at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, was reportedly his most treasured possession. Astley Castle served as an important gathering place for the queer scene during this period.

As lead architect on the Mander Shopping Centre in Wolverhampton, Sellers contributed significantly to the post-war reshaping of the West Midlands. His other works include the Scala Cinema on Birmingham's Ring Road, the Loft Theatre in Leamington Spa, Solihull Library, and most modern buildings in Solihull, including Lode Lane car park.

Alan van Wijgerden – Working-Class Housing

Alan van Wijgerden

Sheriff Avenue, Coventry (1944) represents wartime housing designed with integrated civil defence infrastructure. The development used experimental materials including foamed concrete and "Mico" concrete, driven by wartime material scarcity.

Air raid shelters were built directly into the kitchen spaces, marked externally by ceramic tiles. This design embedded the daily negotiation of danger and domesticity within the domestic plan itself, creating a unique architectural response to wartime conditions.

Van Wijgerden also discussed structural steel examples at Wolf Road, Coventry, designed by Frederick Bird. These houses share typological similarities with East Croft Road in Wolverhampton, suggesting a common housing system or contractor operating across multiple West Midlands sites during the period.

Rebecca Preston and Fiona Fisher – Roof Gardens

Rebecca Preston and Fiona Fisher

Roof gardens from 1900–1945 transformed "leftover" vertical space into new architectural and social territories. Technological changes including reduced reliance on chimneys for heating and the introduction of elevators liberated rooftops for alternative uses.

American examples were often department store staff amenities reflecting welfare capitalism, while British examples focused on customer-oriented leisure. Selfridges opened its roof garden in 1909, designed by Marjory Allen. Derry & Toms/Barkers in Kensington (1936–38, designed by Ralph Hancock) created 1.5 acres of Spanish, Tudor, and English woodland gardens inspired by Rockefeller Centre. These gardens remain open and accessible today.

Local connections include Bakers of Wolverhampton, contractors on several roof garden projects, and Lewis's in Birmingham, which featured a rooftop pool, zoo, and farm. Adelaide House roof gardens provide a cautionary tale: by 1949, tree roots had penetrated the roof structure below. The Langbourn Club above Seal House offered dedicated space for city women, reflecting the gendered dimensions of these new social spaces.

David Barclay Niven's article in London of the Future (1921) provides early visions of rooftop urbanism. The relationship between these Edwardian precedents and celebrated modernist designs such as Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation (1952) merits further examination, particularly regarding the attribution of innovation and the erasure of commercial and feminine precedents in architectural history.

Sarah Yates – Concrete Ceilings: Women Architects and Wikipedia's Blind Spots

Sarah Yates

Wikipedia receives seven billion visitors monthly yet only 20.29% of biographies on English Wikipedia document women's lives. This systematic gap shapes architectural knowledge and erases women's contributions to twentieth-century design.

Yates highlighted three British modernist women architects whose work deserves greater documentation:

Sadie Speight (1906–1992) won the RIBA silver medal for drawing (1930) and received a Faulkner fellowship at Manchester (1932), completing her MA in 1933. A leading modernist chronicler and practitioner, she corresponded with Nikolaus Pevsner. After marrying architect Leslie Martin, much of her later work documented his career rather than developing her own practice.

June Park designed Two Ways Cottage, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire (1946), a private house in Beaconsfield (1947), and agricultural workers' cottages in Harlow and Roydon, Essex (1948). An audio interview with Park is available at the British Library.

Penelope Whiting worked as both architect and author, documenting modernism while practicing. Her book New Houses (1964/65) provides a scarce survey of approximately 32 British modernist houses. She designed the passenger bridge at Gatwick Airport and worked on curtain walling with designer Peggy Angus, developing cloud-marbled glass.

Yates positioned Wikipedia editing as activism, referencing WikiProject Women in Red and Art + Feminism edit-a-thons as models for addressing these systematic gaps in architectural documentation.

Geraldine Hammersley and Stephen Cooke – Émigré Artist Hans Feibusch

Geraldine Hammersley and Stephen Cooke

Hans Feibusch (1898–1998) created more church murals than any other twentieth-century British artist, working across 65 years in England. He fled Nazi Germany in 1933 following infiltration of the Frankfurt Artist Society. His work was cited as degenerate art by Goebbels in 1937.

Feibusch designed the interior of Maxwell Fry's Sun House (1935–36), a Grade II* modernist icon in Hampstead. Kenneth Clark noticed his work and introduced him to Bishop George Bell, who commissioned his first church murals. Major works include Chichester Cathedral, St Alban Holborn (where he painted his largest work, Trinity in Glory, 1966, plus 14 Stations of the Cross), and St John Waterloo, the Festival of Britain's official church.

Feibusch converted to Christianity in 1965 and was baptized at St Alban, where he had painted his largest work. He died in 1998, four weeks before his 100th birthday, having reverted to the Jewish faith. He was buried with Jewish liturgy.

Stephen Cooke introduced the mural at St Mark's Church, Coventry. After the East Window was blown out during WWII bombing, a new wall was constructed. Feibusch painted a mural on this wall, but when the NHS took over the building, they bricked up the space, hiding the mural for forty years. It was revealed again in 2017.

Feibusch's collaborator Phyllis Bray (1911–1991) worked with him for over forty years on church murals while also developing solo work. A Slade-trained artist and member of the East London Group, her independent commissions include three murals at the People's Palace, Mile End (lost under paint for decades, rediscovered 2013, now restored) and twelve panels over 20 feet tall at Newport Civic Centre (1961–64) depicting Newport's history. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester holds Feibusch's entire studio contents.

Viv Astling – Sculptor William James Bloye

Viv Astling

William James Bloye (1890–1975) created the civic sculptural identity of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. A documented 1,798 pieces of work exist from the 1930s to 1960s, with 1920s records lost. In 1932 alone, 79 entries were recorded, demonstrating extraordinary productivity.

Bloye studied stone carving and letter cutting under Eric Gill around 1921, absorbing technical mastery while developing his own approach. His practice ranged from small emblems and signage to major civic monuments. Notable works include the Dudley town hall plaque, Dudley war memorial, and relief carving on the Students' Union building at Birmingham University (1930).

Three professional networks provided architectural connections: the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Birmingham Civic Society (joined 1925), and Freemasonry. These connections led to extensive subcontracting work with regional architects.

Major works include Boulton, Watt and Murdoch (1956), the gilded bronze trio on Broad Street that became an iconic Birmingham image; interior carvings for the Hall of Memory (1925); and the recast Queen Victoria statue in Victoria Square (1951). The copper column cover on Bournville Village Carillon represents another significant commission.

Bloye's work appears across 15 counties. The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists maintains a Birmingham City Centre Sculpture Trail documenting his contribution to the urban environment.

Afternoon Sessions

Graham Malcolm – Lyndall Leet, a Caithness Architect

Graham Malcolm

Lyndall Leet studied at Bristol School of Architecture alongside six other women, representing a significant cohort for the period. She moved to Dounreay to live with her husband in new worker housing for the nuclear power station, establishing her practice from this remote location in the far north of Scotland.

Her career focused predominantly on restoration work, including the Waterlines Museum, Keiss Castle (learning to abseil for inspections), Thurso Railway Station (1984, sympathetic refurbishment using local flagstone), Forss Mill (converted for Highland Building Preservation Trust, award-winning), and Mill of Forse (restored as North Shore Pottery).

The Leet Rodgers Partnership received multiple awards for heritage work. Historic Environment Scotland featured Leet in March 2025 as part of "Three Women Architects In Scotland You Might Not Have Heard Of."

John Chapman – Victor Bisharat, Middle Eastern Architect in New England

John Chapman

Victor Bisharat (1920–1996) studied in Beirut before moving to the United States to work under Eric Mendelsohn. His Jordanian Pavilion for the New York World's Fair (1964–65) featured a lunar surface treatment, combining space-age aesthetics with Middle Eastern identity. Photographs are available at worldsfairphotos.com.

The Koujak-Jaber Building in Beirut demonstrates tessellated geometric facades meeting the lived reality of balconies and curtains, creating compelling contrasts between formal architectural order and human inhabitation.

His High Ridge Corporate Park in Stamford, Connecticut consists of six numbered buildings showing science fiction influences. Rob observed that the work "doesn't hold together as a body of work" and questioned where self-reflection on method and form appeared as the career progressed. Influences from Oscar Niemeyer and Eero Saarinen are evident. Further research is available at modernismmatters.com.

Ana Araujo – The Work of Florence Knoll

Ana Araujo

Florence Knoll founded Knoll Furniture Company after training as an architect under Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Despite this pedigree, employment difficulty in architecture led her to focus on interior design and furniture.

Knoll promoted the use of small material samples for fabrics, a practical design tool now taken for granted. She brokered licensing arrangements for Eero Saarinen's Tulip Chair and Womb Chair, Marcel Breuer's Wassily and Cesca chairs, and Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona collection, making these designs manufacturable and accessible.

Knoll retired at age 48. Araujo suggests this early retirement relates to limited opportunities for women in architecture, forcing lateral movement into design before exiting professional practice entirely. Her architectural training shaped furniture that integrated seamlessly into modernist spatial concepts, yet she called her designs "meat and potatoes" in comparison to the work she made available through licensing.

Araujo's book No Compromise: The Work of Florence Knoll documents this career in detail.

Joe Holyoak – Inspired by Jane Jacobs

Joe Holyoak

Holyoak wrote the introduction to Ideas that Matter: The Worlds of Jane Jacobs, positioning Jacobs as an empiricist critic of orthodox modernist planning's over-reliance on theory. Working from observations made from her house on Hudson Street, Greenwich Village, Jacobs dedicated 90 pages of The Death and Life of Great American Cities to "the use of the sidewalk," examining eyes on the street, public and private boundaries, and density of users.

Jacobs identified four conditions for urban diversity: social density, mix of uses, short blocks, and old buildings (an economic argument for maintaining affordable spaces).

Her long-term opponent Robert Moses promoted highway construction through dense urban neighbourhoods. Jacobs protested and defeated his plans. She was arrested in 1969 alongside Susan Sontag. The documentary Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016) examines her fight against Moses's redevelopment schemes.

Birmingham now administers a Jane Jacobs Award, institutionalizing her legacy of observation-based urbanism and community advocacy.

Ashley Barlow – Arab Modernism in Iraq

Ashley Barlow

Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Gropius both designed projects for Baghdad that remained unrealized. Le Corbusier's gymnasium designs were later repurposed by Saddam Hussein and used as a prison during conflict. These projects remained undocumented until 2004.

The 1958 assassination of the monarchy initiated promotion of Iraqi identity to valorize the revolution, with architecture serving as a nationalist tool. Photographer Latif Al Ani documented this period, creating a visual archive of Iraqi modernism that has become an essential research resource.

Black Heritage Walks Network – Multiple Communities

Marcia, Black Heritage Walks Network

The shared experiences of Irish and Black communities in Handsworth included facing the sign "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs" and contributing to wartime service: 42,000 Irish volunteers and 160,000 West Indian volunteers in WWII. Post-war, both communities built Birmingham's infrastructure.

Irish residents were expected to sign into police stations daily during the 1940s, identified as the "biggest threat" precisely because they were white and could not be easily distinguished. Irish labour built Birmingham's canals, Spaghetti Junction, and other vital infrastructure. Yet 80% of landlords refused to rent to Irish or Black migrants.

Community spaces included a private house on Brecon Road that kept Irish music alive, functioning as an informal "Dun Mhuire" (a community building type from Ireland); Wassifa Sound on Stamford Road; and 5 Soho Road (Monte Carlo), where Irish and Black communities made alcohol together.

Katriona Byrne – Two Ladies at Santa Josefina, Motril, Spain

Katriona Byrne

The church of Santa Josefina Bakhita in Playa Granada near Motril, Spain demonstrates climate-responsive design with landscape working into interior spaces. Cross-sectional strategies create shade and natural ventilation appropriate to the Mediterranean context.

The church is named for Josefina Bakhita (canonized 2000), the first female Black saint. Bakhita was enslaved in Sudan during the late 1800s; her original name was forgotten through the slave trade. She later became a nun and was recognized as a WWII war hero. Caritas Bakhita House in London is named in her honour.

The church architect, Elisa Valero, stated: "Light is the raw material with which you work," reflecting a design approach that foregrounds natural light as the primary architectural material.