Designs on Democracy

Designs on Democracy provides an ambitious revision of how we understand the pivotal period of the formation of the profession of architecture in twentieth century Britain, spanning the excitable discussions about the reconstruction of the profession for a democratic age after WWI, and the reconstruction and planning following WWII.

Neal Shasore is an architectural historian of twentieth century Britain. Trained as an art historian at the University of Oxford, he subsequently held positions at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the University of Westminster, and the University of Liverpool, where he held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. After lecturing at the University of Oxford, he became Head of School at the London School of Architecture (LSA) in June 2021. A former Honorary Secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB), he is a Trustee of the Twentieth Century (C20) Society and the Architectural Heritage Fund.

Introduction: Reconstructing the Professor for a Democratic Age
1: Propaganda: Publicity and the Arts of Display at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley
2: Slump: Public Relations and the Building World
3: Machine-Craft: Forging Public Institutions
4: Vigilance: Preservationism and a Proprietary Public
5: Manners: Public Propriety and Civic Design
6: The Architectural Mind: Topographical Projections on the Public Realm