Historian of shopping precincts, leisure centres, power stations, derelict landscapes, inner cities, new towns, & city centre redevelopment. @c20Society trustee
instagram.com/osaumarezsmith
Joined July 2014
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My @OUPHistory book "Boom Cities, Architect Planners and the Politics of Radical Renewal in 1960s Britain", is out now in affordable paperback.
It covers a constellation of ideas about the rebuilding of city centres for affluence and the car in the 1960s.
global.oup.com/academic/prod…
I couldn’t be happier with this review of the Modern British City, which captures exactly what we hoped to achieve: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n13/…
I'm on the scientific committee for the Symposium of urban Design History and Theory conference, whose next meeting will be 15-18th of September in Sheffield. The call for sessions is now open: sudht.org/callforpapers/
Review of an excellent exhibition about Willow Pattern at the Spode Museum: spectator.com/article/the-jo…. Really advise going.
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
OUT NOW! Palace of the Ether: Broadcasting House and the Architecture of the BBC, 1922-1932, by Elizabeth Darling considers the architecture & design of broadcasting in the 1920s/30s, examining the buildings of the BBC's founding decades, in particular Broadcasting House, London.
Something happier from Coventry: the delightful confection of Festival fru fru that is Alfred H. Gardiner’s Christ Church, Coventry (1953-8).
I’m so so angry about this. The lovable urbane Bull Yard and Coventry council’s advertising their net zero aims in front of the utter vandalism they’ve wrought.
Grotesque plans to demolish huge swathes of Central Coventry (coventrycitycentresouth.co.u…) including my favourite late addition to the precinct, Bull Yard (1963-9): a humanely civic-scaled square, with elegant bronze clad mullions, good lettering, & the splendid William Mitchell pub.
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
The Modern British City 1945–2000 edited by Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler and Otto Saumarez Smith the-tls.com/history/twentiet… Goodness I love @TheTLS wonderful review essays this week: one by Claude Rawson and this one by David Kynaston - that makes me want to buy this book immediately!
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
Very excited to be giving The Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture 2026 | Modern British History | Oxford Academic academic.oup.com/tcbh/pages/…
Lecture on Brutalism and the Transformed City on Youtube:
youtube.com/watch?v=d9EDaY1E…
I'm giving a webinar lecture for the British Architectural Library Trust on 'Brutalism and the Transformed City' tomorrow. Details here:
thebaltrust.org/part-2-bruta…
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
The Modern British City 1945–2000 • Book Launch
Monday 26 January 2026 at 6.30pm
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London @C20Society
secure.c20society.org.uk/Def…
Join editors Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler and Otto Saumarez Smith in conversation with contributor Holly Smith.
ALT Image: Kelvin Grove Flats, Scott, Dean, Neil and Gaudy the dog, Westmoreland Street, Sheffield, 1978. Photography by Peter Mitchell.
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
EVENT: Join C20 for the book launch of The Modern British City 1945–2000
🗓️ Monday 26 Jan 2026, 6.30pm
📍 The Gallery, 70 Cowcross St, London + Online
🎟️ Book tickets now: secure.c20society.org.uk/Def…
Published by @LHArtBooks, The Modern British City, 1945–2000 is a new book charting the extraordinary changes that took place in British cities between the end of the Second World War and the early 21st century. Bringing together architectural, urban and social historians, it integrates histories of planning, deindustrialization, decolonisation, consumer capitalism and mobility to reveal a more diverse, contradictory and fluid city of the recent past.
Join editors Simon Gunn, Peter Mandler and Otto Saumarez Smith in conversation with contributor Holly Smith. The discussion will aim to touch on many aspects of this new urban history from gentrification to multiculturalism, shopping to night-life, high-rise living to homelessness. Copies of the book will be on sale.
ALT Kelvin Grove Flats, Scott, Dean, Neil and Gaudy the dog, Westmoreland Street, Sheffield, 1978. Photography by Peter Mitchell
Slightly surreal for the Modern British City to be co-reviewed in the Literary Review alongside @hol__smith's wonderful Up in the Air, on the page after my father's new book on Vanbrugh. 3 good books I think, & Jerry White concludes of MBC that 'Its richness is truly staggering'.
Thrilled with this: it has a wonderful array of work by many of my favourite historians, which cumulatively makes the pitch for understanding modern British History through the lens of the urban. Lund Humphries have done a wonderful production job, & it is a big beautiful book.
Launch event for the Modern British City at @C20Society on January 26th: secure.c20society.org.uk/Def…. Please come!
The book is out with @LHArtBooks next week.
Otto Saumarez Smith retweeted
COMING SOON!
The Modern British City 1945-2000 brings together architectural, urban and social historians, to chart the extraordinary changes that took place in British cities between the end of the Second World War and the early 21st century...
Pre-order lundhumphries.com