IT WAS DERIDED by the eminent ex-pat German architecture critic Sir Nicklaus Pevsner. Abhorring the proliferation of factories along the roads radiating out of London, he delared ‘perhaps the most offensive of these modernistic atrocities’ to be the Hoover Building. It is now a landmark admired by thousands of passing travellers each day.
Pevsner’s comment seems harsh, as he was a vocal promoter of Modernist architecture. What offended him and disciples of the Modernist movement is that it allowed vulgar decoration in the form of
