An architectural visionary... or vandal? Why the arguments STILL rage over the legacy of Sir Basil Spence

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Shortly after D-Day, a senior Scottish officer dug in near the Normandy beaches was reflecting on life after the war.

Published: 19:33 GMT, 15 November 2026 | Updated: 19:47 GMT, 15 November 2026

Shortly after D-Day, a senior Scottish officer dug in near the Normandy beaches was reflecting on life after the war.

Asked about his plans by a fellow officer, Major Basil Spence recalled watching two beautiful Norman churches being blasted to bits by tanks earlier that day.

Such hopes might have sounded absurd coming from any other soldier, but from the lips of a trained architect, who had been operating an already well-established Edinburgh practice long before war broke out, they were strangely prescient.

As fate’s cruel twist would have it, it was the war which ultimately created the opportunity to fulfil his ambitions after a squadron of Luftwaffe bombers all-but obliterated Coventry’s 14th-century St Michael’s Cathedral in 1940.

His successful bid to raise Coventry Cathedral from the ashes provided Spence with his best-known building; it was hailed as a triumphal combination of continuity and creativity and Spence, who was knighted, a modernist genius.

The success of the project led to a slew of commissions – in Scotland and around the globe – and Sir Basil’s crusade for modern architecture earned him the nickname of ‘Saint Basil’.

But with the clear exception of Coventry and a handful of other notable edifices, public tastes had turned sharply against his brutalist style before he died in 1976.

Coventry Cathedral is the most famous building designed by Sir Basil Spence

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