Author Description

In Designing the British Post-War House Fiona Fisher explores the development of domestic design and re-consider its significance for the progress of architectural modernism in Britain, through a detailed study of successful modernist architectural and design practice, Kenneth Wood Associates. The firm is representative of an expanding, geographically distinct category of post-war architectural and design practice - that of the small and successful modernist firm that flourished in Britain's expanding suburbs after the removal of wartime building restrictions. Such firms, which played an important role in the development of British domestic design, are currently under-represented within architectural histories of the period. The private house represents an important site in which new spatial, material and aesthetic parameters for modern living were defined after the Second World War. Although much has been written about the role of the private house and its interior in the development of architectural modernism in post-war Europe and North America, this has been less closely examined within a British context. The book explores the British architect-designed house as a 'vehicle for the investigation of architectural ideas' by Britain's second generation modernist architects and designers, and demonstrates the ways in which architectural discourse and practice intersected with the experience, performance, and representation of domestic modernity in post-war Britain.