The Churches We Deserve

Five years ago the position of architecture in this country changed radically. The Festival of Britain, the South Bank Exhibition in particular, marked the final victory of the 'Modem Movement' within the architectural profession; a change which seemed both popular and officially acceptable.The Festival Exhibition did not contain any one building which could be called great architecture; there was little, by European standards, that was even very good. But the glamour and the freshness of the various pavilions, the spaciousness and excellent acoustics of the Festival Hall had good publicity value. And the free, ambling layout of the South Bank reminded visitors of those pleasures of town life which we, in this country, had lost and almost entirely forgotten.The change was radical; but it was not sudden. During the war social conditions had altered a great deal, and after 1945 much of this adjustment became statute, so that building, which for long had been a private perquisite, turned into public business. Hence the abandonment of many quasi-traditional prejudices and increased discussion of architecture at a rational level. It was no longer: 'I'm paying for it, I'll have what I like and I know what I like' but 'We all have to pay for it, so we had better agree on what is best'. Hence, too, the increased prestige of the architect as a technocrat and-this last with much coyness on the part of some architects-as an artist.As a result of all that, architecture is the art most in the public eye at the moment and the Arts Council have at long last recognized this state of affairs by organizing a photographic exhibition of Ten Years (1945-1955) of British Architecture. There is also another innovation: this is the first properly designed Arts Council exhibition

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