Dreamed up by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s, the Italianate village on the north Wales coast is still a delightful lesson in how to take frivolity in design seriously.
https://apollo-magazine.com/portmeirion-clough-williams-ellis-north-wales/
Gillian remembers the architectural historian of great wit and erudition who was always keen to share his enthusiasms.
You can read this and all Gillian’s articles for Apollo Magazine from the following link:
Gillian delivered her paper, Constructive Relationships or Obstructive Monopoly? The Darleys of Dublin, in June 2025 at Trinity College Dublin. More details here.
It will be included in a forthcoming open access publication from UCL Press, to be titled Enabling Architecture: Sourcing, selecting, and supplying stone, due 2026/27.
Gillian joined BBC Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’ as a guest contributor to discuss the life and work of John Soane, architect of the old Bank of England and collector of the antiquities displayed in his home which became a museum. You can listen to the podcast here:
Gillian joined Tom Dyckhoff for a podcast exploring architecture on television in Britain in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Dyckhoff is a historian, writer, teacher and broadcaster about architecture, geographies, design and cities.
https://www.sahgb.org.uk/podcast-episode/architecture-and-media-architecture-and-tv
Gillian leafs through Alberto Ponis’s sketchbook covering the early 1960s, particularly the years 1962 and 1963—the years Ponis spent in London working in Denys Lasdun’s office.
A facsimile edition of Nikolaus Pevsner’s 1945 King Penguin book with Gillian providing a new introduction.
Gillian was awarded an RIBA Honorary Fellowship for her significant contributions to architecture.
Excellent Essex – Old Street Publishing, hardback (Sept. 2019) paperback (April 2021)
Talking, including podcasts
Dr Simon Machin and I on Octavia Hill, Episode 31 http://redheavenproject.com/episodes/octaviahill
Odes on Essex, BBC R3 Essay series, The Essex Way, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-essex-way/id471685852?i=1000507050903
Gresham College: Britain’s First Environmentalist. Marking 400 years since John Evelyn’s birth. Livestreamed October 29, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOik751LhHk
Participant in Princeton Womxn in Design and Architecture conference on Minnette de Silva, March 2021.
https://wda.princeton.edu/conference/2021/minnette-de-silva-constructive-dialogues
Writing
Growing Up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes (2021) – Review
https://drawingmatter.org/growing-up-modern-childhoods-in-iconic-homes-2021-review/
Essay around ‘Hage‘, a walled public garden designed for development area in Brunnshog outside Lund by Norwegian practice, Brendeland & Kristoffersen. (2022)
https://raangen.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/hage_folder_eng_web.pdf
Contribution, North Bucks Monorail City, in Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects (Reaktion, 2021)
Still on Essex
Chapter 10, ‘A case study in vulnerability: Bradwell A, a trial environment for nuclear power’ in ed. Dr Johanna Dale. St. Peter-on-the-Wall: Heritage and landscape on the North Sea coast (UCL Press, summer 2023. open access)
Chapter: ‘Plotlands to New Towns’ in Radical ESSEX (Cornerstone Publications 2018)
Recent reviews, journalism and other news
Apollo Magazine, regular features and online contributions, LRB blogs.
Gillian explores how we might think about heritage today and tomorrow, and in the light of past mistakes, in an essay taken from London of the Future – which asks what the capital will be like in 100 years’ time.
https://www.ribaj.com/culture/book-london-society-london-of-the-future-gillian-darley-heritage