Elain Harwood

Elain Harwood Hon.FRIBA (10 June 1958 – April 2023) was a British architectural historian with Historic England and a specialist in post–Second World War English architecture.

Harwood was born on 10 June 1958 in Beeston, Nottinghamshire.

She was the eldest daughter of Harold Harwood and Maureen (née Chadwick).

She attended Bramcote Hills Grammar School before reading history at Bristol University.

Bristol's derelict terraces and docklands were what first drew her to the city, but it was also the home of the architect Berthold Lubetkin, and an exhibition of his work together with the Thirties exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1979 kindled Harwood's interest in modernism and the modern buildings of her childhood – schools and the Nottingham Playhouse.

Harwood was an active member of the Cinema Theatre Association, the Thirties Society (later The Twentieth Century Society), The Victorian Society and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.

She studied building conservation at the Architectural Association between 1984 and 1986.

Harwood took a temporary job in January 1984 at what was to become English Heritage (later Historic England), and remained there for the rest of her career.

In 1987 she joined what had been the Greater London Council Historic Buildings Division, by then absorbed into English Heritage, just as research was needed on post-war buildings.

She was a presenter on BBC Two's One Foot in the Past series in the 1990s.

She led walking, cycling and coach tours around interesting architectural locations.

In 1995 she was responsible for researching the suitability of Jimi Hendrix receiving a blue plaque on Brook Street, Mayfair, about which was said "I think it's the most exciting one we've had for a long time. We've never had a rock musician before."

She held the position of senior architectural investigator.

Harwood was for many years a nominated Trustee of The Twentieth Century Society and organised many lectures and study visits for the society's members.

She helped civic societies, local action groups and individuals across the UK in campaigning to save twentieth-century buildings from inappropriate change and total demolition, and lectured to both lay and academic audiences.

She was Joint Series Editor of a series of monographs on Twentieth Century Architects, published by English Heritage and continued by Liverpool University Press.

Between 1996 and 2004 she was responsible for most of the organisation's recommendations for listing buildings from the period after 1945, as well as for research programmes on earlier cinemas and flats.

She completed a PhD on the building of London's South Bank at Bristol University in 2010.

Of the influence modernist architecture in the East Midlands had on her as a child, she said that "every escape from the normal and humdrum was in buildings from the Fifties and Sixties – the theatre, the swimming baths, the library".

In 2015 she cycled from Paris to Geneva to raise funds for the society's journals.

She was a "major contributor" to Cambridge University's MSt in Building History, developing and teaching Twentieth Century and Post-War programmes.

She lectured across the UK and internationally.

2016 – Space, Hope and Brutalism, a project that Harwood developed over 18 years, won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.

2022 – Awarded an Honorary Fellowship of RIBA

Harwood was found dead on 19 April 2023 at her flat in Islington.

Ben Derbyshire, the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, described her death as a "huge loss to Historic England, heritage in general, C20th architecture in particular and anyone who knew and enjoyed her amazing spirit".

The architectural critic Hugh Pearman called her "the great and ever enthusiastic chronicler of British post-war architecture."

The director of Save Britain's Heritage, Henrietta Billings, said that "the rising levels of public interest in Brutalism and other previously unloved periods of modern architecture are largely down to her".

The chief executive of Historic England, Duncan Wilson, described her as "outstanding in her field, a fierce advocate for twentieth-century architecture and a true heritage champion".

The director of the Twentieth Century Society, Catherine Croft, praised her "unmatched expertise, enthusiasm and generosity" and went on to describe her legacy as incomparable.