Architecture news

• Brutal but beautiful: Southbank Centre’s Grade II listing is the cherry on a concrete cake

  10-02-2026 17:40
  As one of the longest-running battles in British heritage comes to an end, the listing of the London arts complex vindicates the audacity of this sensational droogs’ paradiseBritain’s battle of brutalism has finally reached an exhausted conclusion with the listing of London’s Southbank Centre. The so-called “concrete monstrosities” of the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and its skatepark undercroft have finally been Grade II-listed by the Departm
  
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• Campaigners welcome ‘long overdue’ listing of brutalist Southbank Centre

  10-02-2026 15:12
  Decision to grant Grade II status marks turnaround for what was once voted ‘Britain’s ugliest building’The Southbank Centre, once voted Britain’s ugliest building, has been granted listed status, in a decision hailed by campaigners as the coming of age of brutalism.Successive governments have resisted six separate proposals to list the centre – a set of concrete buildings made up of the Hayward Gallery, the Purcell Rooms and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, plus a makeshif
  
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• Back gardens in the sky! The riotous, post-apocalyptic buildings of ‘eco-brutalist’ Renée Gailhoustet

  10-02-2026 09:00
  The French architect, who once had her nose broken by Jean-Marie Le Pen, created apartment blocks with cascading terraces that seemed to have surrendered to nature. They are still loved by their residentsWhen the French architect Renée Gailhoustet died in 2023, the residents of Le Liégat, a social housing block she completed in 1982, put up a large handmade sign saying: “Merci Renée.” Architects are often accused of designing impersonal rabbit hutches that they t
  
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