Ian Nairn – författare

TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014'This book is a record of what has moved me between Uxbridge and Dagenham. My hope is that it moves you, too.' Nairn's London is an idiosyncratic, poetic and intensely subjective meditation on a city and its buildings. Including railway stations, synagogues, abandoned gasworks, dock cranes, suburban gardens, East End markets, Hawksmoor churches, a Gothic cinema and twenty-seven different pubs, it is a portrait of the soul of a place, from a writer of genius.

This volume covers some of the finest landscape and architecture in southern England, much of it set within the South Downs National Park. The county’s small towns and villages feature a pleasing mix of stone, timber, and brick houses of every period. Among numerous atmospheric country houses are the Tudor ruins of Cowdray, the Elizabethan mansion at Parham, and the French-inspired Petworth in its great park, famously captured in Turner’s paintings. On the grandest scale is the mighty Arundel Castle, seat of the Duke of Norfolk, while Chichester, the only city in West Sussex, boasts one of the country’s most important 12th-century cathedrals. Among many major ecclesiastical and educational establishments built in the 19th century, none is more impressive than Lancing College set high above the coast. New research accompanies 130 specially commissioned color photographs in this authoritative and expert guide.

A newly expanded volume on England’s preeminent “Home County,” exploring its mix of rural and urban architecture as well as its many major historic buildingsSurrey, originally published in 1962, was the first Buildings of England volume that Pevsner shared with another author, and Ian Nairn’s brilliant, provocative descriptions have been treas­ured by many ever since. For centuries Surrey has been the playground for London, and home to thousands of its commuters. Yet much of the county is still deeply wooded or surprisingly bucolic. This fully revised and enhanced edition, the first since 1971, is packed with new information on its major historic buildings – Waverley Abbey, Farnham Castle, Sutton Place and Loseley Park among others – and much-expanded accounts of its Victorian set pieces – Royal Holloway College, Holloway Sanatorium and Charterhouse School – alongside fresh appreciation of the twentieth century, including its principal monument, Guildford’s cath­edral. To the fore in Surrey is domestic architecture: medieval farmhouses, seventeenth-century gentry houses in the Artisan Classical style, eighteenth-century country houses, Victorian and Edwardian businessmen’s residences, designed most famously by Norman Shaw, Lutyens and Voysey, and high-class suburban estates. Into this small county is fitted architecture of endless variety, ranging from Georgian designed landscapes to military cemeteries, from seminaries to shooting clubs, and from lime kilns to lunatic asylums.

A new edition of Britain's Changing Towns (1967), introduced, edited and updated by Owen Hatherley.These essays show Nairn writing about cities and towns as wholes rather than as collections of individual buildings. In each of them, there are several things happening at once - assessments of historic townscape, capsule reviews of new buildings, attempts to find the specific character of each place.Includes sixteen essays on places as varied as Glasgow and Norwich, Llanidloes and Sheffield, by the finest English architectural writer of the 20th Century.

Following on from the bestselling Nairn's Towns - a celebration of the city of Paris by cult figure Ian Nairn. Illustrated with original black and white images taken by Nairn himself. More than a guide book - this is a journey of discovery. Out of print since 1968, this is a unique guide book from the late, great architectural writer, Ian Nairn. Illustrated with the author's snaps of the city, Nairn gives his readers an idiosyncratic and unpretentious portrait of the 'collective masterpiece' that is Paris. 'Once you discover [Nairn]...you want to read everything he's written.' - Daily Telegraph

'Without any doubt, London is one of the best cities in the world for modern architecture. But it is also one of the biggest cities in the world, and it does not make a display of its best things. A visitor looking for new buildings in the City and the West End might well be justified in turning away with a shudder. Yet delightful things may be waiting for him in Lewisham or St. Albans.' Ian Nairn, from the 'Foreword' to Modern Buildings in London. As one of the few architectural critics to eschew purely aesthetic modes of analysis, Ian Nairn's timeless books on modern urban cities have been hailed as some of the most significant writing about contemporary Britain, while also being praised as alternative 'guidebooks' for curious travellers. First published in 1964, Modern Buildings in London celebrates the character of buildings that were immediately recognisable as 'modern' in 1964, many of which were not the part of the well-known landscape of London but instead were gems that Nairn stumbled across. Written 'by a layman for laymen', Nairn's take on modern design includes classic buildings such as the Barbican, the former BBC Television Centre and the Penguin Pool at Regent's Park Zoo as well as schools, old timber yards, ambulance stations, car parks and even care homes.