GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
Latest editorial
Robust defence of ‘brutalism’
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a photographic record of an architectural movement which is often wrongly denigrated
(L to R) Leeds Bank House and Preston Bus Station
[Simon Phipps]
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
Brutal North
by Simon Phipps
(September Publishing, £16.99)
SIMON PHIPPS’S Brutal North is a stupendous photographic record of the so-called brutalist architecture of northern England. In it, his instinct for composition and employment of sharp viewing angles captures the spirit of some exquisite buildings.
Deliberately shot on mainly cloudy days and in dissipated light, Phipps achieves a clarity of detail that would be buried by contrast on a sunny day.
The term brutalist is derived from a lazy translation of the French “beton brut,” which simply means “raw concrete.” It describes surfaces of buildings left untreated which often, by design, register the imprint of the textures of the timber used in the forms in which the concrete is poured.
Similar stories
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
HENRY BELL notes the curious confluence of belief, rebuilding and cheap materials that gave rise to an extraordinary number of modernist churches in post-war Scotland
SCOTT ALSWORTH hears the call to burn down and rebuild the video game industry from the bottom up
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an epic exploration of the post war immigrant experience in the US