JO UNDERHILL / STRUCTURALEYE

    In my second article as concrete correspondent for Umbrella Magazine I talk about photographing the little known brutalist gem of the Spiritualist Church, Brighton. An unusual designed building that really stands out, it was great to photograph and the church very kindly gave me permission to document the interior which is rarely seen. The full article and more photographs of this unique church can be seen here . The next column will be out next year!

    Oracle Time Magazine featured a lovely positive article about brutalist architecture in London in their June issue of the magazine and online.  Along with photographs from my ongoing personal project Beautiful Brutalism they also featured the work of photographers Simon Phipps and Hayley Goodwin. The online article can be read here .  

    I'm pleased to annouce that I will be working with Umbrella Magazine as a 'concrete correspondent'. In my column I will be talking about buildings I have photographed for my personal photography project - Beautiful Brutalism. My first column is about the wonderful National Theatre by Denys Lasdun in London and the article can be read here .  The next column will be published next month!

    During the first lockdown in March 2020, the 20th Century Society started a small project on Instagram asking people to pick their favourite C20 detail. I was thrilled to be asked to contribute and after much thought I decided to pick the iconic precast concrete 'diamonds' of Welbeck Street Car Park as my favourite detail from a twentieth century building. It soon picked up momentum and at the end of the year the project was published in this wonderful book celebrating details from all kinds of architecture and design from all over the world. Being one of the fifty contributors is fantastic. I'm hoping it introduces more people to the wonderful Welbeck design which is sadly now gone and other fabulous designs from this great era of architecture. For more details please visit here .

During the pause of lockdown these last few months I have been selling prints as part of the artist support pledge set up by Matthew Burrow Studio to help creatives through these difficult times. The pledge was once £1000 worth of prints were sold I would buy another artists work for £200. I want to say a big thank you to all who have bought prints and I purchased artwork from another artist, it was great to be able to share the support. I have wanted to set up a print sale page for over a year and after the success of selling prints through my Instagram account I have been working on a more permanent print sale page which is now live and can be found on my website structuraleye . I will be changing and updating this page a few times a year but if you see an image on my website that isn't featured on the print sale page you would like to purchase, please don't hesitate to get in touch for more information.

I have wanted to visit and add some brutalist playgrounds to my Beautiful Brutalism project for a long time. I remember playing on a concrete tube we called 'the saddle' at my old primary school and loved it. So have fond memories of these concrete playgrounds. Unfortunately not many have survived but last November I researched and visited a playground that was still standing down in South Clapham beneath Belgravia House tower block. This was a fantastic playground with a spiral slide and tunnels to run through the hill that housed the slide. It was great to see the playground was well maintained and looked like it was still used. I couldn't resist and have to say the slide was fantastic! The whole project can be seen here. Then earlier this year I visited the Aintree Estate playground in Fulham. The two tower blocks, Hartopp Point and Lannoy Point are due to be demolished this year so wanted to visit before access was difficult and the area the playground is sit...