This illustrated survey examines the art, design, fashion and architecture of 1920s London alongside wider social and political ideas about Britain, modernism, mass democracy and popular culture. It provides a framework for understanding the cultural maelstrom of the decade. London was at the heart of 1920s debates about the future of Britain. What was the London of the future to be in a world shaken by catastrophic wars, revolutions and scientific miracles? Was the British capital to be a Babylon of unrestrained capitalism, American-style; a mechanistic machine for living, Soviet-style; or a global Imperial capital? London was the place where these alternative visions jostled for space with traditional ideas about Englishness and Britishness. The book discusses these debates in terms of how they were made physical through London's streets and buildings, the clothes, material goods and creative works produced, worn and used by Londoners. It shows London emerging from the decade as a city for the modern world, British-style, newly-democratized, a unique mix of international modernism and distinctly post-modern diversity, irony and pragmatism.
This text accompanies an exhibition at the Museum of London which opens in September 2003.