The Dirty Modern Scoundrel Christmas Gift Guide 2017

Hello my lovelies. What on earth do you get that grouchy social geographer, town planner or brutalist fanatic for Christmas? Well, the Dirty Modern Scoundrel Christmas Gift Guide hopes to solve all your present buying woes.

For the intrepid urban explorer:

Blue Crow Media's wonderful modernist map series, covering Concrete New York and Brutalist London, is inspiring and great fun.


And there's also Alice Stevenson's remarkable book of urban discovery, complete with her beautiful illustrations.

For the socially conscious architect:

Get your social housing kicks in this stunning book of historic and contemporary designs, giving some hope to the future as wankers continue to destroy the world at an alarming rate (a seasonal rendition of Jarvis Cocker's Cunts Are Still Ruling the World is always welcome).

For the ardent psychogeographer:

Run (don't walk) to Uniformbooks, whose excellent list includes this wonderful book by Ian Waites on the estate he grew up on in Lincolnshire, Middlefield.

For the model village geek:

Well, it has to be Tim Dunn’s charming book, covering the small, the epic and the downright eccentric.

For the grouchy town planner:

Ahem. Okay so I'm going to say Outskirts. It's my book telling the story of the green belt (everything from utopian do-gooding Victorians to  and my family's experience of living on the edge it. More info here.




For the concrete obsessive:

There's Brutal London, with pop-out buildings from Zupagrafika, photos by Peter Chadwick and words by me. Or there’s Simon Phipps’s extraordinary opus, Finding Brutalism.

For the modernist flag-bearer:

How about membership to the Twentieth Century Society, who run amazing tours of modernist buildings around the country, and produce the most beautiful magazine. They do amazing work helping to protect our modernist heritage.

Or there's the super-cool Manchester Modernist Society, and their wonderful Modernist magazine and trinkets of joy, well worth supporting.


 


For the stylish midcentury host:



Swank it up with designs by Kate Marsden (including some groovy Croydon ones) and surface pattern designer Gail Myerscough or designer Melissa Price, along with Oscar Francis.

For the dazzling postmodernist:

Quirk your way through this collection of British postmodernist buildings, jazzier than a rail of batwing jumpers from EastEnders' Kathy's market stall circa 1986, beautifully presented in this VERY YELLOW book. Or there’s Tom Dyckhoff’s elegant demolition of the ‘iconic’ era.



For the wit:

You can’t go wrong with Ian Martin’s genius collection, Epic Space.

For the Modernist art lover:

It's an almost impossible choice, but there's beautiful designs by Stefi Orazi and Peter Chadwick or prints by Paul Catherall.

And for the postwar history buff...

Go on, get them Concretopia, and make this dirty modern scoundrel happy.



And then, for your soul:

Why not donate to housing and homeless charities, such as Shelter, Centrepoint or St Mungo’s. Or to this Red Cross campaign to raise money for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Comments

Popular Posts