The Architectural Review: promoting modernism

Thursday, 20 June 2024 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm

The Architectural Review magazine and its editor Jim Richards had a close promotional relationship with Isokon company throughout the 1930s.

The Isokon company and The Architectural Review magazine had a close promotional relationship throughout the 1930s. This talk will explore the joint project of cultivating audiences and markets for modern design and architecture in Britain and how the pages of the magazines developed as a site for publicity and promotion. It will trace the contribution of people like Jim Richards, editor of the AR, and the network of people and places that were involved in the promotion of modernism.

Jessica Kelly is Senior Lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical studies in Design at London Metropolitan University. Her book, No More Giants: J.M. Richards, modernism and The Architectural Review(Manchester University Press, 2022), explored the history of The Architectural Review magazine and the career of its longest serving editor, the critic J.M. Richards. She also co-edited with Dr Neal Shasore, the volume Reconstruction: architecture, society and the aftermath of the First World War, (Bloomsbury, 2023). Jessica produces and co-hosts the podcast The Architectural History podcast for the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.