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Book: Arthur Lockwood. urban & industrial watercolours of Birmingham & Black Country.

Lady Penelope

master brummie
Not a reference book in the true sense of the word but this is a brilliant book. Graham was lucky enough to be bought a copy for his birthday last year. I think it's easier if I post a couple of excerpts of the foreword:

The fortunes of a city are written most clearly in its architecture – the ups and downs of the industrial economy, the visions of corporate developers, the doctrines of city councils and planners and the ebb and flow of population all leave their mark. Urban renewal has brought many benefits but often at great cost to the character of our cities. In an article for The Daily Telegraph in April 1961St John Betjeman lamented the wholesale destruction of Birmingham’s Georgian and Victorian heritage. He wrote “Few cities have more to show and do less about preserving a remarkable inheritance of architecture….. as Birmingham spreads over the Midlands its planners are so cutting about the heart of the city that soon the old, individualistic Birmingham will be dead.”

Twenty-six years later, in 1987 Arthur Lockwood returned to Birmingham and embarked upon a remarkable project to document the changing character of his native city…….

….The images of foundries, factory shop floors and workshops comprise an invaluable record of the metal processing industries which characterised Birmingham and the Black Country. Many have gone since he drew them as the global economy takes its toll of local jobs and skills.
 
Not a reference book in the true sense of the word but this is a brilliant book. Graham was lucky enough to be bought a copy for his birthday last year. I think it's easier if I post a couple of excerpts of the foreword:

The fortunes of a city are written most clearly in its architecture – the ups and downs of the industrial economy, the visions of corporate developers, the doctrines of city councils and planners and the ebb and flow of population all leave their mark. Urban renewal has brought many benefits but often at great cost to the character of our cities. In an article for The Daily Telegraph in April 1961St John Betjeman lamented the wholesale destruction of Birmingham’s Georgian and Victorian heritage. He wrote “Few cities have more to show and do less about preserving a remarkable inheritance of architecture….. as Birmingham spreads over the Midlands its planners are so cutting about the heart of the city that soon the old, individualistic Birmingham will be dead.”

Twenty-six years later, in 1987 Arthur Lockwood returned to Birmingham and embarked upon a remarkable project to document the changing character of his native city…….

….The images of foundries, factory shop floors and workshops comprise an invaluable record of the metal processing industries which characterised Birmingham and the Black Country. Many have gone since he drew them as the global economy takes its toll of local jobs and skills.
I have a copy of this book. What great foresight this man had to record some of the grittier parts of a city.
 
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