100 20th-Century Shops
Edited by Susannah Charlton and Elain Harwood (Batsford, £25)
WHEN news emerged of Marks & Spencer’s intention to demolish its London flagship store at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street in 2021, the company clearly didn’t anticipate the opposition it would arouse. Despite the building twice being refused listing, a chorus of voices from the academic and heritage worlds was raised against the plan, backed by a public petition signed by thousands. ‘Here was a “national treasure”, a company with a much-voiced commitment to sustainability, set on sending a solid and reusable building to oblivion,’ writes the Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft in her introduction to this book. Plans for the site remain in the balance.
Britain’s ‘retail landscape’, so long taken for granted, has become a source of concern in recent years, even more so since the pandemic
