British postmodern architecture on show at Sir John Soane’s Museum

‘The Return of the Past: Postmodernism in British Architecture’
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London WC2
16 May – 26 August

The current rehabilitation of architectural postmodernism – as evidenced by the recent listing of 17 buildings – continues at Sir John Soane’s Museum, where an exhibition looks at the early ‘radical moment’ of British PoMo in the late 1970s and early 1980s, showcasing pivotal works by CZWG, Jeremy Dixon, James Stirling, Terry Farrell – whose TVam (above, photo: Richard Bryant) provided the moment with perhaps its defining image – and John Outram, whose sui generis compositions (below) illustrate the difficulty of defining it.

The show explores PoMo as a reaction to the effects of modernism on British towns and cities, and as a way of moving beyond its intellectual and stylistic confines. It features drawings, models, paintings, photographs, press clippings, brochures, books, furniture and fragments of actual buildings, many of which have never been exhibited publicly.

Unbuilt design by John Outram for developers Rosehaugh-Stanhope, for a site at 200 Queen Victoria Street

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