First of eight programmes Personal reflections on the best of 20th-century architecture in Britain. 'The definition of good architecture is somewhere you'd like to have a good meal.' Architect Piers Gough looks at the brand new Water Authority Pumping Station on London's Isle of Dogs, designed by John Outram , that's good enough to eat in
Writer Jonathan Meades revisits Marsh Court, a private house-turned-prep-school designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1904 and with gardens by Gertrude Jekyll. Meades finds the place an ever-changing maze.
'I tried to be critical when I first visited the building three years ago but I liked the little monster then and I still do.' Eva Jiricna the architect responsible for designing interiors for Harrods, Joseph and parts of the Lloyds building visits Schlumberger Cambridge Research (architect, Michael Hopkins 1984) and is enchanted by its modernity. 'All too often,' she says, 'people have a fear of the new which verges on the morbid.'
'This may not be architecture as art but it's infinitely artful.' Writer Beatrix Campbell visits the successful Byker housing estate in Newcastle, designed by Ralph Erskine in the early 1970s. It's an epic development - both monumental and modest, and Beatrix Campbell describes why it is such an ingenious design solution.
Stephen Bayley argues that Alexander Fleming House is a building worth preserving in its original design as a monument to modernism. Erno Goldfinger's building, in London's Elephant and Castle, was designed in 1962 and for many, became a byword for soulless post-war development.
'I can't think of a better start for a young artist than to work in a building which is in fact a masterpiece.' Artist Bruce McLean attended Saturday morning classes at the Glasgow School of Art from the age of 6, and went on to study there in the 1960s. But it is only recently says McLean, that he has realised the influence Charles Rennie Mackintosh 's building (1897-1909) had on him.
'It has stood up architecturally to all the insensitive alterations it has had to endure and shines out like a beauty in a bad dress.' First-year architecture student Sophie Hicks delights in the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, Sussex. Designed in 1933 by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff , the building is one of the finest examples of modern seaside architecture in Britain.
Editor of Blueprint magazine Deyan Sudjic examines Creek Vean in Cornwall. It is a house built in 1966 by Team 4, a group of young unknowns. Two of them are now Britain's best known architects, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster. 'Compared with what they went on to build afterwards, Creek Vean was tiny. But size has little to do with the richness of architectural ideas.'
Janet Abrams reflects on the Arab Institute on Paris's Left Bank (architect Jean Nouvel , 1988), one of President Mitterand's portfolio of buildings designed to change the profile of Paris.
Architect Nigel Coates delights in Chelsea Football Stadium's East Stand (Darbourne and Darke, 1972). 'Most people couldn't think of this as architecture,' says Coates, 'let alone architecture worth celebrating. More than ever before, architecture should be allowed to have a real personality to release a sort of energy, and I think this is a pretty good example.'
Television executive and ex-architecture student Janet Street-Porter asked architect Piers Gough to design a house for her in London's Smithfield. For the first time on television, she shows the result.
Peter Palumbo , chairman of the Arts Council, praises Holland House, an office block built in the City of London by the Dutch architect Berlage. 'This beautiful and obscure building,' says Palumbo, 'is the most important piece of early 20th-century architecture that our capital possesses.'
Writer Gillian Darley examines the new award-winning David Mellor Cutlery Factory in the Peak District of Derbyshire. Designed by architect Michael Hopkins and opened this year, it is extraordinary because it is round.
Artist and photographer Jenny Okun visits the Blackburn House in London's Hampstead, by architects Peter Wilson and Chassay Wright (1989). She argues that the Blackburn House - part office, part gallery, part flat - is important because really adventurous domestic architecture is such a rarity.
The Boots factory is a vast glass palace built by Owen Williams in 1932. Iwona Blazwick from London's ICA tours the factory which is acknowledged as a masterpiece of early British modernism. It is, she says, 'a sort of chemical cathedral for cold creams and toothpastes'.
Architect Edward Cullinan thinks the best post-war building in London is the Royal College of Physicians in Regent's Park. Designed by Sir Denys Lasdun in 1960 it is, he says, 'a very, very good building from a much-derided period'.
Internationally renowned architect James Stirling examines the Katharine Stephen Room - rare books library of Newnham College, Cambridge (1988 Birkin Haward/Joanna Van Heyningen). 'I like the building because it's small and monumental,' he says. 'It has achieved an incredible presence which to me is the definition of monumental.'
Architect Sir Norman Foster looks at the jumbo jet, a unique 'building' that flies.
Writer Marina Warner is inspired by Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire.
Artist Michael Craig-Martin marvels at the Lloyd's of London building by Richard Rogers.
Architect Sand Helsel applauds Trellick Tower, a Brutalist tower block in west London, designed by Erno Goldfinger, and completed in 1972.
Sandy Naime , director of visual arts at the Arts Council, looks at St Mary's, a new NHS hospital on the Isle of Wight by Ahrends, Burton and Koralek.
Tessa Blackstone, Master of Birkbeck College, University of London, praises the Michelin building in London.
Court House in Truro, Cornwall is admired by the artist Deanna Petherbridge.
Leicester University Engineering Building is one of only a few buildings that have had a powerful effect on structural engineer Tim MacFarlane : 'For me, this building is a work of art.'
To Alice Rawsthorn, design correspondent of The Financial Times, St Olaf House (1931) is 'a little island of art deco splendour tucked away between the south bank of the River Thames and the railway arches of London Bridge. It's one of those quirky places, where everything down to the tiniest detail was designed in a very particular way.'
Artist Derek Jarman returns to his former art master's house in Wimborne, Dorset which he helped to build.
Alan Bennett wanders through the County Arcade, Leeds (Frank Matcham 1900). 'As a child I would come down here with my dad and two-dozen or so penguins.'
Architect Richard MacCormac considers the Boarbank Hall Oratory near Grange-over-Sands, in Cumbria. Boarbank Hall has been the home of the Canonesses of St Augustine since 1921, and the Oratory was added in 1986.
Jools Holland's love of panoramic views takes him to Britain's then tallest tower, Canary Wharf in London. From a vantage point atop the 50-floor structure Jools looks out over the capital city.
The artist Damien Hirst revisits the Worsley Medical Building in Leeds, where he used to do anatomical drawings as a student.
Architect Will Alsop visits Hauer-King House in Islington, an unconventional private house built with glass walls.
The poet Simon Armitage finds inspiration in the Humber Bridge, then the longest suspension bridge in the world.
Cartoonist Posy Simmonds discovers a remarkable police station in the City of London.
Architect Sir Richard Rogers praises the Alton Housing Estate, in Roehampton, south London. Built in the 1950s by London County Council as a modern utopia, Rogers describes it as one of the best estates of its kind in the world.
Architect Zaha Hadid looks at Sir Norman Foster's Willis Corroon building in the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk.
Last in a series of eight personal reflections on the best of modern 20th-century British architecture. Writer Germaine Greer chooses the Glyndebourne Opera House on the Sussex Downs. The building, which opened in 1994, was constructed in just 18 months and was designed by Michael Hopkins and Patty Hopkins.
