Elain Harwood obituary

The architectural historian Elain Harwood, who has died unexpectedly aged 64, chronicled the postwar architecture of England and overcame opposition to achieve its acceptance as heritage. She wrote in the preface to her major book Space, Hope and Brutalism (2015): “The values of the welfare state formed me and I grew up believing they would last forever.”

The book was the summation of a long programme of research, growing out of the listing programme for English Heritage (now Historic England), for which she became the co-ordinator and main spokesperson, having joined the organisation in the mid-1980s.

Her colleague and mentor at English Heritage, Andrew Saint, published his groundbreaking study of postwar school buildings in 1987 and, from a broad background of interest in Victorian and 20th-century architecture, Elain increasingly specialised in the years after 1945. With Saint, she co-authored the buildings guide London (1991) in the series Exploring England’s Heritage.

In 1992 English Heritage set up its Post-War Listing Steering Group, chaired by Bridget Cherry, which operated for a 10-year period and conducted methodical research – in-house and by consultants – based on building types (schools, housing, churches, town halls, etc). Elain soon became the group’s linchpin, visiting every site by train and bicycle and winning converts by her depth of knowledge and force of personality.

The enterprise was controversial and her then colleague Martin Cherry recalled how “while sometimes getting on the wrong side of management by upsetting ministers in conveying truth to power, she was the single major force during those years of changing attitudes to modern architecture. She was not easily cowed.” Designs after 1945 in traditional styles, shunned by most advocates of modernism, were not excluded, helping to soften the opposition.

Elain had been involved in the Thirties Society and in 1992 it became the Twentieth Century Society (C20). Its journal was renamed as Twentieth Century Architecture and published in a new and better-designed format, including landmark articles by Elain from the first issue onwards. She joined the editorial committee for the fourth issue in 2000 and in later years took the leading role in editing and production.

The monograph series Twentieth Century Architects, a collaboration between C20 and English Heritage, plus RIBA Publishing and latterly Liverpool University Press, provided short, well-illustrated books on architects and practices who had never before received such treatment. Elain’s sheer energy and drive contributed to 21 books over 14 years, including her own on Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the architects of the Barbican, and a forthcoming volume on Ernö Goldfinger, co-authored with me, after we had worked together on Tayler and Green (1998).

A collaboration between C20 and Batsford generated two book series, one which she edited with Susannah Charlton, based on a hundred examples of different building types, and one on styles and periods, of which Elain was the main author. This second series comprised Post-Modern (2017, with Geraint Franklin), Art Deco Britain (2019), Mid-Century Britain (2021) and Brutalist Britain (2022). The books not only displayed Elain’s extraordinary knowledge of interesting buildings hidden in remote locations but also her insistence on nothing but the best photographs, often taken by herself.

These books were aimed at a non-specialist public and, at a time when much academic architectural writing cares more for theory than objects and facts, Elain put the latter at the centre of her work. This is above all evident in Space, Hope and Brutalism, which was awarded the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHG) Alice Davis Hitchcock medallion.

The first draft was at least twice the length of the 700-page finished book, and must represent the largest ever accumulation of information on the subject, now unrepeatable owing to the loss of living witnesses. The photographs by James O Davies, including dramatic twilight scenes showing interiors and exteriors together, were included in an exhibition, Brutal and Beautiful: Saving the Twentieth Century, staged at the Wellington Arch in London in 2014, dispelling preconceptions about grey concrete. The same images fill England’s Post-war Listed Buildings (2015), illustrating and describing every listed item, the third version of a title first issued in 2000.

Born in Beeston, Nottingham, Elain was the elder child of Harold Harwood, who worked in light engineering (during the second world war his team made the mechanisms for the bouncing bombs of the Dam Busters), and Maureen (nee Chadwick), one of his work colleagues. Elain recalled a visit to the new Nottingham Playhouse with the Brownies as an early moment of architectural awakening.

After attending Bramcote Hills grammar school, Beeston, she went on to study history at Bristol University in 1976, where, as road crew for “student ents”, she developed an abiding interest in post-punk bands. She also began exploring out-of-the-way buildings in Bristol, using the photographer Reece Winstone’s illustrated guidebooks.

She hoped for a career in museums, but after a period in London and Nottingham volunteering and doing odd jobs, she sat the civil service exams and passed, joining the Department for the Environment. When part of the department became English Heritage she went with it, and landed in what had previously been the Historic Buildings Division of the Greater London Council, a lively hub of historical research and conservation activism. From 1987 she was employed directly by that body as a historian and later became a senior architectural investigator; she was a popular if independent-minded colleague.

Early in her career, Elain joined the Victorian Society, the Thirties Society, the Cinema Theatre Association and the SAHGB, becoming a significant contributor to all of them. Taking the postgraduate diploma in historic building conservation at the Architectural Association in 1984-86, she wrote a thesis on Victorian asylums and in 2010 gained a doctorate at Bristol University with a thesis on the rebuilding of the South Bank in London.

In addition to more specialised studies for Historic England, Elain wrote Nottingham in the Pevsner Architectural Guides series (2008). She was an unstinting aid to authors revising the Pevsner county guides and a co-author for Northumberland.

The catalogue of achievements should be supplemented by others: television appearances on the 90s BBC series One Foot in the Past; walks and coach trips for C20 and other societies; entries and editorial advice for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; writing obituaries for the Guardian; and carrying out interviews for the Architects’ Lives series of National Life Stories on whose selection panel she sat.

She gave lectures across the world; and undertook the annual convening and delivery of an intensive 20th-century unit for Cambridge University’s master’s course in building history. In 2022 she was awarded an honorary fellowship of the RIBA. She also ran the Paris marathon to raise funds for the Goldfinger book, partook in long-distance cycling events and taught spin classes.

Elain was a sociable loner with a close circle of friends and a much wider audience of appreciative fans. She is survived by her mother and her brother, David.

Elain Harwood, architectural historian, born 10 June 1958; found dead 19 April 2023

This article was amended on 12 May 2023. Elain was not seconded to the Museum of London before joining English Heritage as previously stated.

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