Where We Live
The Fractured Art of British Housebuilding and How to Build the Homes We Need
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Icon Books
Published:18th Jun '26
Should be back in stock very soon
Britain is in the grip of a housing crisis.
It has, in fact, been in the grip of a housing crisis since the Industrial Revolution, when the population soared and people crammed into towns and cities in search of work. What followed is a tale of suburbia, green belts and, since the 1980s, the increasingly common sight of mass-produced and near identical housing across the land.
This book argues that British house building over the centuries has been an art. An art of which we can be proud and an art we can still learn from. The artistry involved includes not just the design and appearance, but the setting of homes into the fabric of urban and rural landscapes and the very fabric of people's lives. We need to get the art of new housing right before building ever more homes that, while considered a necessity, no one truly likes.
Where We Live is at once a critical history of the art of British housebuilding urban, suburban and rural, a study of where British housing has lost its way for the best part of a century, and a source of inspiration and hope for the future.
A swift, crisp, poised, historically accurate scrutiny of English domestic architecture and its rare triumphs whose examples are all too seldom acted upon. Jonathan Glancey's polemic is far from shrill - and all the more effective for its understanding of the ever-changing, ever changeless problems that the provision of shelter suffers * Jonathan Meades, writer and filmmaker *
In this thought-provoking book, Glancey challenges us to recognise contemporary housing's lack of connectivity with location, with history, and with everyday lives, and to argue for a holistic vision of what a good place could be. This is a manual for understanding where and how we could live; and a call to arms to make it happen. * Austin Williams, director, Future Cities Project *
Jonathan Glancey is Britain's most perceptive writer on architecture. His account of why and how our houses look the way they do is engaging and authoritative, and his ideas for countering the waves of 'Anywhere' homes that blight so many villages should be read by everyone with an interest in the subject. * Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Professor of Architecture, University of Cambridge *
Part architectural critique, part social sermon ... a commendably heartfelt book. Yes, Glancey writes, things are bad, and they may have been thus for a while - but this isn't a defeatist lament * The Telegraph *
ISBN: 9781837732487
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
288 pages