History of Architecture and Design 1890–1939
A course by the Open University
Title card of television broadcast 9 of A305, “Berlin Siedlungen,” first aired 10 May 1975 on BBC2.
Between 1975 and 1982, The Open University broadcast a series of televised courses on the genealogy of the modern movement: A305, History of Architecture and Design 1890–1939. Through twenty-four programs aired on BBC 2, the course team aimed to offer students and viewers a critical understanding of the intentions and views of the world that fuelled the modern movement, and to present some of the alternative traditions that flourished alongside it. The course nevertheless avoided the more dismissive positions of its contemporaries, while engaging political issues of its day such postwar urban planning and the housing question.
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Our exhibition The University Is Now on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture offers a close reading of A305 as a pioneering case study in the use of mass media for mass education. We invite you to watch the twenty-four broadcasts of the course on our YouTube channel, and reflect on the timeliness of authoring new histories and what it means to disseminate these histories in an always-particular moment in time. You can follow the order of broadcasts originally intended by team course leader Tim Benton and primary BBC producer Nick Levinson:
- TV 01
- What Is Architecture? An Architect At Work
- TV 02
- The Universal International Exhibition, Paris 1900
- TV 11
- The International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, Paris 1925
- TV 03
- Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Hill House
- TV 04
- Industrial Architecture: AEG and Fagus Factories
- TV 05
- Frank Lloyd Wright: The Robie House
- TV 06
- R. M. Schindler: The Lovell Beach House
- TV 07
- Erich Mendelsohn: The Einstein Tower
- TV 12
- Adolf Loos
- TV 08
- The Bauhaus at Weimar, 1919–1923
- TV 09
- Berlin Siedlungen
- TV 10
- The Weissenhof Siedlung, 1927
- TV 16
- Hans Scharoun
- TV 13
- Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye
- TV 14
- English Flats of the Thirties
- TV 15
- English Houses of the Thirties
- TV 17
- Wood or Metal? English Furniture in the Thirties
- TV 18
- Edwin Lutyens: Deanery Gardens
- TV 19
- The London Underground
- TV 20
- Moderne and Modernistic
- TV 21
- The Other Tradition
- TV 22
- Mechanical Services in the Cinema
- TV 23
- The Semi-Detached House
- TV 24
- The Housing Question
The A305 television broadcasts were part of a broader body of work which included broadcasting supplements, radio programs, a radiovision booklet, anthologies, and other course materials. Visit the exhibition page of The University Is Now on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture to learn more about this project and the A305 course.
