How did we get from the fortified tower to the grand open mansion and back again to the gated communities of today? How did we lose the marketplace to the out-of-town shopping mall? When did the appearance of libraries and prisons become so important? What does the way we arrange our city centres say about us? Can architecture really make a difference to our quality of life? In this beautifully illustrated book, David Dimbleby tells the dramatic and heroic story of Britain's architecture - the extraordinary buildings that define a nation and which grew out of the experiences and beliefs of the British people. This fascinating account of a thousand years of change in Britain's buildings tackles these questions and many more, and is filled with specially commissioned photographs and historic art.
David Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in Bristol in the 1960s and is now a major presenter of current affairs programmes and documentaries, having presented Panorama, The Dimbleby Talk-In, Question Time and the BBC's general election programmes. He is the author of A Picture of Britain.
Title: How We Built Britain
Author: Dimbleby, David
ISBN: 9780747592877
Binding:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 2008-04-07
Number of Pages: 288
Weight: 0.7985 kg
'A lively, literate and stimulating tour' Spectator 'Meticulously researched and stunningly illustrated ... fascinating and authoritative' City Magazine 'A thoroughly enjoyable and worthily Betjemanesque book' Sunday Express 'He is perfect for this gig - a broad history of our buildings and what they say about us' New Statesman