Not Suitable for Miners

It is a truth considered practically self-evident that modernist architecture was always an imposition on the proletariat. It might occasionally be embraced by Labour governments or Communist councils but, we are led to presume, given a genuine democratic choice ordinary folk would always choose something rather more homely. Now, at least one reason why this is largely accepted is because of the obscurity of competing examples. Looking at architecture from the inter-war years, 'classical' modernism appears confined to factories, luxury flats and private houses, with a few more populist outbreaks at the seaside, in the cinema or on the London Underground. However, among the most prolific patrons of Modernist architecture in those years were the Miners Welfare Committees, who built according to some estimates hundreds of pithead baths, most of them paid for by the miners themselves, rather than by the pit owners - and almost all of them have been demolished as part of the attempt to obliterate any record of mining from the British Isles.

They often feature in histories of Modernism in Britain, but less so the further away from the event. So my 60s Pelican History of English Architecture gives them as much prominence as the contemporary tube stations and houses, while Paul Overy's recent Light Air and Openness, a history of Modernism's hygiene fixation, mentions them only in passing, as if to do so would destroy the thesis of Modernism-as-imposition and suggest that, perhaps, people preferred not to be covered in muck. So, I've been trying to collect photographs and information on these (along with similar stuff on the architecture of the Co-Op societies, for the purposes of the Ingsoc book, which I intend to write eventually). This is a bit of an undertaking, as only a handful are listed, and those are derelict. Some of these pictures are from this website, courtesy of Chris Matthews, and some more from here, courtesy of Anne Ward. Here you can see the effect on the miners' architects of everything from Gropius' Labour Exchange and Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, to moderne cinemas, to the more obvious presence of W.M Dudok, used out of choice, making a specific statement of modernity in an area all to often reduced to Hovis adverts. All of these should be presumed demolished.

Meanwhile, there's an exploration of the listed, derelict Lynemouth Colliery Baths here and a 20th Century Society piece on one in the Forest of Dean here (thanks to Nemesis Republic for these). In both cases any trace of streamlined forms, light/air/openness and optimism have been long since gutted, in a building form so specific and in areas so far from being metropolitan that they are practically immune from being Urban Splashed. So we have an entire building type, one which contradicts much of the official history, either completely obliterated or rotting away.