Isle of Wight What's On Guide: 2024 Events OnTheWight

Basingstoke and its contribution to world culture: Rupert Willoughby

Thursday 16 8.00pmJanuary
2014

Talk

Medina Theatre

Medina Theatre
Fairlee Road
Newport
Isle of Wight
PO30 2DX

01983 823884

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Basingstoke and its contribution to world culture: Rupert Willoughby

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Basingstoke

Vectis Decorative and Fine Arts Society Lecture

Doors open at 7.15pm. Tea, coffee and bar are available before the lectures which begin at 8.00pm.

We ask you to be seated by 7.55pm. They finish at approximately 9.15-9-30pm Guests are welcome at a cost of £7 and £2 for students.


16/01/2014 Thursday This lecture is about the post-war development of a typical English town. What motivated the planners who imposed the absurdities of Modernist architecture on our landscape? Hilarity is guaranteed.

Renowned for its dullness, Basingstoke is distinguished only by its numerous roundabouts and absurd Modernist architecture. Rupert explains that the post-war planners, who inflicted such features as ‘the Great Wall of Basingstoke’ on the town, were politically-motivated and bent on destroying all traces of its past.

He reveals the nobler Basingstoke that is buried beneath the concrete, and the few historic gems that have survived the holocaust. Hilariously told, it is a story that neatly illustrates the ugliest episode in England’s architectural history. As Betjeman wrote prophetically, ‘What goes for Basingstoke goes for most English towns’



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