Cruickshank & Seward - Manchester’s Modernists
A talk by Richard Brook, Professor in Architecture at Lancaster University
19.00-21:00 on 22nd April 2025
at the Alan Baxter Associates Gallery, 75 Cowcross St, London EC1M 6EL and online.
Docomomo members go free. To book a member’s ticket please see here. To become a member see here.
Tickets for attendance in person and online are available here. Tickets will also be available on the door.
A link to watch the talk online will be sent to attendees before it begins.
Cruickshank & Seward were once Manchester’s pre-eminent modernist practice. Some of their unbuilt projects in the 1970s placed them on the precipice of international success. They are most well known for their contribution to the planning and construction of the former UMIST campus, a suite of buildings in white concrete, generally regarded as the best twentieth century grouping in the city. In this talk, Professor Richard Brook will introduce a longer history of the practice, from their beginnings in the 1920s through to a series incredible unbuilt architectural proposals, wrapped up in post-colonial politics, including the statecraft of Gaddafi’s Libya! He will show their journey from the trenches of the First World War to the global economic collapse of the mid-1970s and illustrate their practice as entwined with the major events of the century.
Richard Brook is Director of Research and Post-Graduate Studies at Lancaster University. His doctorate used the work of Cruickshank & Seward to explore the array of forces acting on the construction of cities in the second half of the twentieth century. He is the author of The Renewal of Post War Manchester (2025), an Advisor to the Modernist Society and a member of the Twentieth Century Society’s Casework Committee.
@mainstream_modern