Professor John R. Gold

BSc(Econ), MSocSci, PhD (Birmingham), FRSA, FRGS

Professor

Profile

Professor John Gold is undertaking research that will lead to the final volume in his trilogy of books on the experiential history of the Modern Movement in British architecture. The first phase of this research, covered in his book The Experience of Modernism (Routledge, 1997), examined the anticipation of future urban forms and patterns of city life by modern architects between 1928-53. The second phase, examined in his recently published book, The Practice of Modernism (Routledge, 2007), investigated the relationship between vision and practice in the years of metropolitan reconstruction (1954-72). The final book, The Legacy of Modernism (c. 2009-10), will use the same blend of oral historical and documentary research to consider the continuing experience of architectural modernism after the denouement of the 1970s up to the end of the twentieth century and reflect on modernism’s lasting impact on our towns and cities.

The outcomes of other recent projects include the book Representing the Environment (Routledge, 2004) on the cultural politics of environmental representation, which was jointly written with George Revill, and two books (with Margaret M. Gold) on the role and staging of cultural festivals. These are Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851-2000, (Ashgate Press, 2005) and the edited collection Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, (published in Routledge’s Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, 2007). He is now working on a companion volume on Festival Cities: Culture, Planning and Urban Life since 1945 (again for publication in Routledge’s Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series) and has been commissioned to compile a four-volume set on The Olympics and the City: sources and interpretations.

John was an undergraduate at the London School of Economics, from where holds a BSc (Econ) degree. He undertook postgraduate research in urban studies, specialising in architectural history, at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University of Birmingham, from where he holds the degrees of both MSocSci and PhD. He is now Professor of Urban Historical Geography and is a member of the University’s Institute for Historical and Cultural Research.

Over the last 20 years, he has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics, the University of Surrey, the University of Birmingham (where he was Honorary Senior Research Fellow, 1998-2006), and Queen Mary, University of London, where he has twice been Visiting Professor. He has organised symposia and given guest lectures and keynote addresses at many international conferences in Britain, North America, Scandinavia and Western Europe. Among many awards, he won the 1999 AESOP Prize for the 'best article in a journal or collection of papers, by an author researching in planning in Europe.'

Books and other Publications (since 1994)

Gold, J.R. and Ward, S.V., eds. (1994) Place Promotion: the use of publicity and public relations to sell towns and regions, Chichester, John Wiley, 268pp.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (1995) Imagining Scotland: tradition, representation and promotion in Scottish tourism since 1750, Aldershot, Scolar Press/Ashgate Press, 228pp.

Gold, J.R. (1997) The Experience of Modernism: modern architects and the future city, 1928‑53, London, E. & F.N. Spon/Routledge, 278pp.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E., eds. (2000) Landscapes of Defence, Harlow, Prentice Hall, 297pp.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (2004) Representing the Environment, London, Routledge, 272pp.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2005) Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851-2000, Aldershot, Ashgate Press, 311pp.

Gold, J.R. (2007) The Practice of Modernism: modern architects and urban transformation, 1954-72, London, Routledge, 336pp.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M., eds. (2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, London, Routledge, 348pp.

Chapters

Gold, J.R. and Ward, S.V. (1994) 'Introduction', in J.R. Gold and S.V. Ward, eds. Place Promotion: the use of publicity and public relations to sell towns and regions, Chichester, John Wiley, 1‑17.

Gold, J.R. (1994) 'Locating the Message: place promotion as image communication', in J.R. Gold and S.V. Ward, eds. Place Promotion: the use of publicity and public relations to sell towns and regions, Chichester, John Wiley, 19‑37.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (1994) '"Home at last!": building societies, home ownership and the rhetoric of suburban place promotion', in J.R. Gold and S.V. Ward, eds. Place Promotion: the use of publicity and public relations to sell towns and regions, Chichester, John Wiley, 75‑92.

Gold, J.R. and Ward, S.V. (1994) '"We're going to do it right this time": cinematic representations of urban planning and the British New Towns, 1939 to 1951', in S.C. Aitken and L. Zonn, eds. Place, power, situation and spectacle: a geography of film, Savage, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 229‑58.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (1996) 'Modernity, popular protest and the land question in Highland Scotland: evaluating the experience of Leverhulme's Hebridean ventures, 1917‑25', in C. Barker and M. Tyldesley, eds. Alternative Futures and Popular Protest II, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, 1‑15.

Gold, J.R. and Halliwell, L. (1996) 'Social Surveys', in S.F. Watts, ed. Environmental Science: essential methods and techniques, London, Routledge, 391‑424.

Gold, J.R. and Ward, S.V. (1997) 'Of plans and planners: documentary film and the challenge of the urban future, 1935‑52', in D.B. Clarke, ed. The Cinematic City, London, Routledge, 59‑82.

Gold, J.R., Gold, M.M. and Revill, G.E. (1997) 'Mastering the niche: the experience of taught masters programmes in British geography departments', in P. Knight, ed. Masterclass, London, Cassell, 85‑95.

Gold, J.R. (1998) '"Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People": Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Migrations', in C. Barker and M. Tyldesley, eds. Alternative Futures and Popular Protest IV: selected papers, vol. 1, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, 1‑12.

Gold, J.R. (1999) 'In Search of Modernity: the urban projects of the Modern Movement, 1929‑1939', in J. Peto and D. Loveday, eds. Modern Britain, 1929‑1939, London, Design Museum, 40‑51.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'The Power of Narrative: the early writings of Charles Jencks and the historiography of architectural modernism', in L. Campbell, ed. Twentieth-Century Architecture and its Histories, Otley, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, 206-21.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (2000) 'Landscape, defence and the study of conflict', in J.R. Gold and G.E. Revill, eds. Landscapes of Defence, Harlow, Prentice Hall, 1-20.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'Towards the Functional City? MARS, CIAM and the London Plans, 1933‑1942', in T. Deckker, ed. The Modern City Revisited, London, Routledge, 81-99.

Gold, J.R. (2002) 'The real thing? Contesting the myth of documentary realism through classroom analysis of films on planning and reconstruction', in T. Cresswell and D. Dixon, eds. Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 209-25.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2003) 'Representing Culloden: social memory, battlefield heritage and landscapes of regret', in S.P. Hanna and V.J. Del Casino, Jr., eds. Mapping Tourism: representation, identity and intertextuality, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 108-31.

Gold, J.R. (2003) '"Roll On Columbia": Woody Guthrie, Migrants' Tales and Regional Transformation in the Pacific Northwest', in G.O. Carney, ed. The Sounds of People and Place: a geography of American music from country to classical and blues to bop, fourth edition, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 79-92.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘Introduction’, in J.R. Gold and M.M. Gold, eds. (2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, London, Routledge, 1-11.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘Athens to Athens: the Summer Olympics, 1896-2004’, in J.R. Gold and M.M. Gold, eds. (2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, London, Routledge, 15-47.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘The rise of the Paralympics’, in J.R. Gold and M.M. Gold, eds. (2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, London, Routledge, 84-99.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘Afterword’, in J.R. Gold and M.M. Gold, eds. (2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World’s Games, 1896-2012, Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, London, Routledge, 318-20.

Gold, J.R. (2008) ‘Modernity and utopia’, in P. Hubbard, T. Hall and J.R. Short, eds. Compendium of Urban Studies, London: Sage, 67-86.

Journal Articles

Gold, J.R. (1994) 'Change and decay? comparative thoughts on the new managerialist dynamic', International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 3, 86‑9.

Gold, J.R. (1994) 'An ill wind', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 18(2), 139‑41.

Gold, J.R. (1994) 'Los limites la limitado: el lenguaje del espacio y del lugar' ('Boundaries and boundedness: the language of space and place'), Historia y Fuente Oral, 12, 69‑76 (in Spanish).

Haigh, M.J., Revill, G. and Gold, J.R. (1995) 'The landscape assay: exploring pluralism in environmental interpretation', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 19(1), 41‑55.

Gold, J.R. (1995) 'Classics in human geography revisited, Commentary I: P. Gould and R. White Mental Maps', Progress in Human Geography, 19, 105‑6.

Gold, J.R. (1995) 'The MARS Plans for London, 1933‑1942: plurality and experimentation in the city plans of the early British Modern Movement', Town Planning Review, 66, 243‑67. This paper received special commendation in the competition for the Wesley Dougall Prize (see item 14 under 'Prizes, Grants and Awards' section above).

Gold, J.R. (1996) 'Representation and encounter: remapping the unfashionable', Oxford Art Journal, 19, 98‑100.

Gold, J.R., Haigh, M.J. and Revill, G. (1996) 'Interpreting the Dust Bowl: teaching environmental philosophy through film', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 20, 209‑21.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (1996) 'To be free and independent: crofting, popular protest and Lord Leverhulme's Hebridean development projects, 1917‑25', Rural History, 7, 191‑207.

Gold, J.R. (1998) 'Creating the Charter of Athens: CIAM and the Functional City, 1933‑43', Town Planning Review, 69, 221‑43. This paper won the AESOP Prize for the 'Best Article in a Journal or Collection of Papers Published in Europe, by an Author Researching in Planning in Europe'.

Gold, J.R. and Coaffee, J. (1998) 'Tales of the City: Understanding urban complexity through the medium of concept mapping', Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 22, 285‑296.

Gold, J.R. (1998) '"Roll On Columbia": Woody Guthrie, Migrants' Tales and Regional Transformation in the Pacific Northwest', Journal of Cultural Geography, 18 (1), 83-97.

Gold, J.R. (1998) 'The New Towns on CD‑ROM', Planning Perspectives, 13, 317‑ 22.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (1999) 'Landscapes of Defence', Landscape Research, 29(3), 229-39.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'In spite of planning' (review essay), Journal of Urban History, 26(4), 536-42.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'Exposition and Imagination: revisiting the future city at Montreal's Expo '67 and New York's World's Fair', Fennia, 178 (1), 113-24.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'Classics in human geography revisited, Commentary: E. Relph Place and Placelessness', Progress in Human Geography, 24(4), 615-17.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (2000) 'Landscape, defence and the study of conflict', in J.R. Gold and G.E. Revill, eds. Landscapes of Defence, Harlow, Prentice Hall, 1-20.

Gold, J.R. (2000) 'Towards the Functional City? MARS, CIAM and the London Plans, 1933‑1942', in T. Deckker, ed. The Modern City Revisited, London, Routledge, 81-99.

Gold, J.R. (2001) 'Creating the Charter of Athens: CIAM and the Functional City, 1933‑43', AESOP News.

Gold, J.R. (2001) 'Under darkened skies: the city in science-fiction film', Geography, 86(4), 337-45.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2002) 'Understanding narratives of nationhood: film-makers and Culloden', Journal of Geography, 106, 361-70.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (2003) 'Exploring landscapes of fear: marginality, spectacle and surveillance', Capital and Class, 80 (May), 27-50.

Gold, J.R. (2004) 'Modernism and reconstruction: architects, networks and plans’, Planning Perspectives, 19, 333-38.

Gold, J.R. (2004) ‘York: a suitable case for conservation’, Twentieth Century Architecture, 7, 87-99.

Gold, J.R. (2006) ‘The making of a megastructure: architectural modernism, town planning and Cumbernauld’s central area, 1955-75’, Planning Perspectives, 21, 109-31.

Gold, J.R. and Revill, G.E. (2006) 'Gathering the voices of the people?: Cecil Sharp, cultural hybridity and the folk music of Appalachia', GeoJournal, 63, 55-66.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘“The Graves of the Gallant Highlanders”: memory, interpretation and narratives of Culloden’, History and Memory, 19(1), 5-38.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2007) ‘Access for all: the rise of the Paralympics within the Olympic movement’, Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 127 (3), 133-41.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2008) ‘Olympic cities’, Geography Compass, 2, 300-318.

Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. (2008) 'Culture and the City', History in Focus, 13, http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/City/articles/gold.html

Professor John R. Gold

Professor

Profile

Books and other Publications (since 1994)

Contact

Selected Publication