Chair for the Urban Infrastructures session.

In the post-war period large-scale infrastructural projects were built to match prevailing cultures, economic and political demands. The physically engineered landscapes that were produced signposted the rapid socio-economic and technological development following the cessation of conflict. The effect of such unprecedented and widespread infrastructural projects on both rural and urban landscapes was comparable to the impact of the industrial revolution in the UK.

The scope of the work not only impacted on the physical landscape, but also the collaborative roles of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and planning professionals. Co-operation and co-production were key in the British context and this mode of working informed new ideas and methods which in turn produced exceptional landscape compositions.

This multi-disciplinary conference and accompanying keynote event, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre, in collaboration with The Modernist Society, and hosted at the Manchester School of Architecture, will explore the relationships between landscape and architectural design in the production of infrastructure. Over four sessions examining Power, Roads, Urban Infrastructure and Transnational Infrastructure, speakers will explore the form, type, material, topography, composition and the relationships of these topics with the socio-cultural, political and economic settings of the post-war period.