Born in 1930, Ian Nairn began his career as a pilot, but resigned in the mid-Fifties to pursue a vocation as an architectural critic and visionary. In 1955 he published a special issue of the ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW called "Outrage," in which he denounced much of the architecture he saw on a trip from Southampton to Carlisle. Catapulted to celebrity as a result, he appeared in a BBC series, and later published another polemic called "Counterattack against Subtopia," a word Nairn had coined himself comprised of a corruption of the two words suburban and utopia. A subtopia was not a desirable place, but somewhere to be avoided.
Thereafter Nairn became something of a celebrity in the newspapers and on television as he traveled Britain and Europe commenting on what he considered the best and the worst in architecture. His judgments were frequently quirky (modern as well as classical buildings excited him) but they centered around notions of sustaining communities. Hence his fondness for meeting-places such as the pub.
As time passed, so Nairn became more and more passionate about his work. Some of his later television programs displayed a depth of emotion that seems almost embarrassing today, as he fulminated against what he perceived as the short-sightedness of town planners as they knocked down old buildings and constructed concrete monstrosities in their place.
In his private life, Nairn was seldom a happy man, and often found his only solace in drink. Although more than happy to spend some of his filming days in the pub, alcohol eventually got the better of him, and he died at the tragically early age of fifty-three from cirrhosis of the liver.
Narrated by Bill Paterson with contributions from architectural critics such as the Jonathans Glancey and Meades, this program profiled a unique talent - perhaps somewhat shy and gawky in his public persona, but nonetheless passionately committed to the cause of sustaining beauty in buildings whether ancient or modern.
