PhD MSc BA PGCE Dip.Local History

Defence Heritage Planning Participation

Academic, campaigner and author, Celia Clark works locally, nationally and internationally.  Her long  term  research, including her MSc. and PhD studies, focuses on the  future of former  military and naval sites, including, dockyards/naval  shipyards.  Two major  books - on dockyard/naval shipyard  architecture and engineering and on futures for historic naval sites are in preparation.

Celia Speaking at The World Heritage Site symposium Portsmouth

Defence Heritage Conference - Portsmouth 6 - 8 June 2012 Celia Clark: Co-Chairman

If you would like to give a paper, please send her an abstract.

The Tricorn The Life and Death of a Sixties Icon - By Celia Clark & Robert Cook

Price £19.99 - Postage £4.90

Love it or hate it – there’s no middle ground in reactions to the Tricorn: the Brutalist, bold, multi-layered and multi-use megastructure built in Portsmouth between 1962 and 1966, and demolished in  2004.  The Tricorn features in histories of architecture.  Its  chunky imagery spawned progeny -  the Lloyds building’s exterior  staircases, the Barbican’s curving upstands  - leading ultimately to  the birth of high-tech.

The Tricorn has been celebrated  - and reviled - in festivals, ballet, music, performance art, videos,  websites, films, virtual fly-throughs, poetry, books, television and radio.   How many other buildings have inspired such an efflorescence?  Despite  its demolition, it still  lives vividly in people’s memories and  dreams. 

Celia Clark and Robert Cook  explore what  makes an architectural icon – and what unmade it.   This book sets  the Tricorn within its architectural context: Brutalism and the 1960s.  The unpopularity of Brutalism and the fact it was a commercial property affected the Tricorn’s fate.  The book draws on two sources not usually combined:  a  collage of documentary material, and the rich seam of people’s descriptions  of life in the building. The Tricorn’s architects: Owen Luder and Rodney Gordon explain the building’s genesis and reflect on its demise.    The 1812 Overture was played at its demolition - a reflection of  the Tricorn’s heroic status in people’s imagination.