Alistair Fair, shortlisted for the 2019 Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion, will present his research on Modern Playhouse architecture in Britain.
Between the 1950s and the 1980s, a sustained programme of theatre-building took place across Britain. The most prominent example was the National Theatre in London, but the National was only the tip of the iceberg. Supported in many cases by public subsidies, these buildings represented a new kind of theatre, conceived as a public service. Theatre was ascribed a transformative role, serving as a form of 'productive' recreation at a time of increasing affluence and leisure. New theatres also contributed to debates about civic pride, urbanity, and community. Ultimately, theatre could be understood as a vehicle for the creation of modern citizens in a consciously modernizing Britain. In parallel, new approaches to staging and writing posed new demands of the auditorium and stage. This talk – which ties in with the publication in paperback of Modern Playhouses: an Architectural History of Britain’s New Theatres, 1945-1985, will explore some of the key examples.
Alistair Fair is a historian of architecture in Britain between 1918 and the 1990s. He is interested in the relationships between architecture and wider themes in social, urban, and political history. His work therefore locates buildings (both built and unbuilt) in wider contexts, drawing on original archive material and contemporary published accounts. His most recent major publications are Modern Playhouses: an architectural history of Britain's new theatres, 1945-1985 (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Play On: Contemporary Theatre Architecture in Britain (Lund Humphries, 2019).
Having been interested in architecture, town planning, and street lighting design (!) from an early age, Alistair studied Modern History before specialising in Architectural History. Post-PhD he worked in architectural conservation in London before joining the University of Cambridge as a Research Associate and then a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow. He joined the University of Edinburgh in 2013, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
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