HIDDEN PHOTOGRAPHS
OF ENGLAND
G'day folks,
For some 30 years, a
collection of nearly 4,000 slides sat undiscovered in a university basement in
Sheffield. The lost collection of photographs, found inside a forgotten pile of
boxes, has since been digitised by students of the University of Sheffield.
The JR James archive
is a fascinating look at developing post-war Britain,
a highly criticised era, blamed for the loss of English architectural
heritage at the hands of socialist urban planners. Amassed over several
decades, is a notably diverse depiction of England. It contains a
considerably picturesque, charming and quaint England alongside some
of the most radical concrete buildings the UK has ever witnessed.
JR “Jimmy” James was chief planner at the Ministry of
Housing and Local Government from 1961-1967, as well as a professor at
Sheffield University before his untimely death in 1980. He was known as a
“titan of post-war planning”, lumped amongst those responsible for having
destroyed many post-war British towns.
After the devastation of the World War II Blitz, England
was faced with chronic housing shortages. To solve the overcrowding, town
planners came up with utopian experiments to build “new towns”, “streets
in the sky” and “garden cities”. Influenced by Brutalist architects like Le
Corbusier, more than 20 of these designated “new towns”, were built in the
first 25 years after the war.
Check out some of his photographs:
Clancy's comment: Amazing shots, and no doubt some of you will recall some of these areas.
I'm ...
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