"There were a huge number of posters produced during the war, and so the relatively few we pick out end up telling us as much about ourselves and our present day anxieties as it does about the war." A really good essay at Quad Royal on WW2 posters and what they mean to us now. (I'd love to see a similar post for the US, too.)

"Designed by Russell Diplock Associates and built by Bernard Sunley, Arlington was a high spec building."

"Sarah Wigglesworth Architects has devised a scheme that could save east London flats Robin Hood Gardens from the bulldozers. The architect has shown how the blocks could be remodelled into modern family homes." I doubt this has any chance given the priorities of Tower Hamlets and central government, but it'd be nice if it did.

"The new festival – especially if it gives in and rebuilds the Skylon – will be an exercise in nostalgia, in morbid and wildly inaccurate historical analogy, at a time when we desperately need an infusion of the original festival's socialist, futuristic spirit."

"We can all expect to have to pull into a motorway service station from time-to-time." An interview with the author of Food on the Move.

"John Madin’s 1974 Birmingham Central Library was designed to be flexible, for a possible future without books. English Heritage would like to see it listed, but the city’s political elite say it is impossible to refurbish for modern needs and want it demolished." Shame.

'Started in March by Lyon’s urban regional authority, the tour spotlights four avant-garde housing projects and one priory, all within easy reach of central Lyon. Along the way, it traces “the development of a new language in architecture,” said Gilles Ragot'

A visually striking (but as migusrki points out, somewhat fiddly to use) site about the interaction of London's Elephant and Castle with the post-war rebuilding, whose planning was informed by the advent of mass motoring. There's some interesting interplay with the City's highwalks in here.

Bob Stanley on the London highwalks (also named here as "pedways", which is apparently the more common term for them in Canada, although there they tend to be underground not elevated). It's a good overview. I need to find Drawing 3400B.

"Who had the brilliant idea of plonking the conservatory on the top of the Barbican Arts Centre? ... It’s another of those eccentric elements which make the Barbican. But they’ve cut the budget, cut the gardeners, and cut the opening times and the whisper is that John Tusa wants to get rid of it altogether. And of course you can make something so ragged that it becomes its own argument for demolition."

"Unlike traditional forms of nostalgia, this is not at all based on lived experience. Most of those who have bought this poster, or worn the various bags, T-shirts and other bits of tat based upon it, were probably born in the 70s or 80s, and have no memory whatsoever of the kind of benevolent modernism it seems to exemplify."

Makes similar points to my (less articulate, more ranty) post about Robin Hood Gardens, at greater length and with lots of photos. A good post, anyway. (Apologies for mangling the title.)

Stephen Bayley on Robin Hood Gardens, Margaret Hodge and concrete buildings. "Margaret Hodge's remarks about concrete are ignorant prejudice." ... "the campaign against is uninformed and unfair".

I think the Guardian have come up with a way of parting me from my money for at least three more of the next twelve days with their latest poster series (actually more like miniature books) on modern buildings.

... and about to be demolished. More proof that nobody values 60s architecture (not that it was needed; ask Mondial House or Drapers Gardens, both now lost to London).

This is a US-specific piece on 20th century architecture under threat, but London's seen the loss of plenty over the last year, too. Sigh.