High-Tech Britain

Buildings of the Space Age

A showcase of Britain’s most astonishing examples of High-Tech buildings from the late twentieth century and beyond.

A showcase of Britain’s most astonishing examples of High-Tech buildings from the late twentieth century and beyond.

Like the Lotus Esprit, the Atari home computer and the sounds of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, the glossy colour, clip-on components and bristling silhouettes of High-Tech architecture provide a polaroid snapshot of 1980s modernity. High-Tech was an international style forged in Britain, taking inspiration from Victorian engineering and science fiction alike. Geraint Franklin traces its trajectory from 1960s radicalism to the global mainstream, taking in such late 20th-century landmarks as the Lloyds building, the Sainsbury Centre, the Schlumberger Cambridge Research Centre and the Eden Project in Cornwall.

High-Tech Britain revisits the work of the ‘big four’ practices of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Michael and Patty Hopkins and Nicolas Grimshaw. From their teams emerged a younger generation of designers including Eva Jiřičná, Ian Ritchie, Richard Horden and Jan Kaplický who took the language in new directions. Alongside are profiled lesser-known stories such as the Patera kit building quietly rusting in London’s Docklands and the workshop at Hooke Park, Dorset, engineered from waste wood. Illustrated with new photography by John East, High-Tech Britain is an authoritative survey of the most groundbreaking examples of this extraordinary moment in British architecture.

‘An essential guide to the big, shiny style that ruled modern Britain.’ – Rowan Moore

‘How did buildings as bright and light as 8-bit computer games and eighties sports cars come to dominate our urban landscape? Geraint Franklin tells a fast-paced design story beside John East's glorious images, full of fun palaces, floating canopies and facades of gleaming perfection.’ – John Grindrod

‘This is a book that is about more than nostalgia. It reminds us that there was a time when the future of architecture was full of possibilities.’ – Deyan Sudjic

‘Geraint Franklin deftly summarises the architectural and engineering revolution of high-tech, exploring its roots, and setting its British-designed examples in a global context. He explains its 21st century transition into an ecologically aware movement that remains true to its original fascination with unconventional materials and kit-of-parts construction.’ – Hugh Pearman

‘High-Tech is that most British of architectural fetishes, a collision of Victorian engineering and comic strip sci-fi, it was the UK's major contribution to modernism.  This survey takes in the whole range of High Tech, from trad to rad, a wonderful homage to a period still surprisingly fragile and endangered.’ – Edwin Heathcote

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