Architecture and the Face of Coal: Mining and Modern Britain

The coal industry in Britain has a rich history and has played a significant role in shaping modern Britain. However, its built legacy has often been overlooked and physically erased. This book provides a critical and comprehensive examination of the architecture of coal in Britain and how it responded to the needs of the industry and its labour force. It explores the relationship between the architecture of coal and the provision of welfare, settlement, and the modernisation of the industry during the post-war period.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 15 December 2022
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd

The coal industry in Britain is facing extinction due to declining coal production and increasing carbon emissions targets. However, coal played a crucial role in Britain's industrial revolution and established the conditions for the modern state. In the 20th century, the coal industry generated massive building programmes for miners' welfare, settlements, and housing. The form, space, organization, and aesthetics of architecture became critical to the industry's modernisation and how it was perceived and understood by its workforce. However, despite the centrality of coal mining and its workers to the development of modern Britain, its built legacy has often been overlooked and physically erased. This book provides a critical and comprehensive examination of the architecture of coal in Britain and how it responded to the needs of the industry and its labour force. Part I explores the relationship between the architecture of coal and the provision of welfare. While this produced a series of enlightened built projects for miners and their communities, especially between the wars, it focuses on the paradigmatic integration of aesthetics and programme seen most emphatically in the creation of over 600 pithead baths. Part II looks at settlement and the relationships between responses to often adverse conditions within domestic environments in mining communities. Part III examines the impact of the coal industry on the built environment and the legacy of coal mining in Britain. It considers the challenges of preserving and interpreting the built legacy of coal mining and the potential for coal mining to contribute to sustainable development in the future. Overall, this book provides a valuable insight into the architecture of coal in Britain and its impact on the development of modern Britain. It highlights the need to preserve and interpret the built legacy of coal mining and to consider the potential for coal mining to contribute to sustainable development in the future.

Dimension: 260 x 210 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781848223561