Charles Rennie Mackintosh and The Coventry Precinct

In May 1940, a month before the first minor air raids on Coventry, Donald Gibson, the city architect had put together an exhibition called the ‘Coventry of Tomorrow’. It focussed on an area that was planned to be the new civic centre located around the cathedral. Part of the exhibition was a small model showing the layout of the new area. The exhibition was a great success and had more than 5000 visitors.

After the Blitz, in November 1940, the perspective of the plans for the city centre had moved onto a much greater scale, given the extensive destruction caused by the bombing. Within a few months Gibson and his team produced their ideas by February 1941. However, as the Goulds describe in their study of post-war Coventry architecture, some of Gibson’s team had then entered the forces and the focus was on more urgent issues such as…