In June of 1955, The Architectural Review (Britain's most acclaimed and well-read magazine of architectural criticism) published a special issue featuring one essay called Outrage by Ian Nairn. As one of Britain’s most famously opinionated (and untrained) architectural critics, it came as no surprise that the issue opened with a prophecy of doom: “that if what is called development is allowed to multiply at the present rate,” then all can be expected is the subsequent loss of the individuality and spirit of Britain’s natural, and urban, landscapes.
Nairn coined this phenomenon “Subtopia” and demonstrated it, throughout the issue, with mugshots of offending lampposts, arterial roads, and garrotted trees. For the first time in North America and the first time in decades in the UK, Nairn’s influential essay is newly available, now in a handsome volume complete with the original images.
