Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Picture This

MUCH like Marmite, Concrete polarises opinion — you’re either religiously for or rabidly against.

But there's no denying its impact on the 20th-century built environment, mostly through its boundless plasticity and strength once combined with steel reinforcement.

At this point in time 7.5 billion square metres of concrete are produced annually, roughly equivalent to five bathtubs for every person on Earth.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
church
Books / 4 July 2025
4 July 2025

HENRY BELL notes the curious confluence of belief, rebuilding and cheap materials that gave rise to an extraordinary number of modernist churches in post-war Scotland

HYPNOTIC: People and Guernica in 2024 at the Museum Of Queen Sofa, Madrid. Pic: Ertly/CC
Exhibition / 24 May 2025
24 May 2025

Reading Picasso’s Guernica like a comic strip offers a new way to understand the story it is telling, posits HARRIET EARLE  

future
Book Review / 9 May 2025
9 May 2025

HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come

(L to R) the book cover; Labour Party election poster 1945;
Books / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century