Back to school: understanding the evidential value of the modern documentary

Abstract

Documentary films hold the potential to reveal alternative forms of evidence and ambience to the architectural historian. This account investigates that potential through a selection of documentary films on education and schooling made in the United Kingdom between 1930 and 1960. Following an analysis of the defining characteristics the modern documentary movement, four formative films that explain and expose modern educational reform and school building are described in some detail with a focus on the depiction of architectural contexts and yet an absence of the architect as protagonist. In conclusion the role of the documentary genre in providing alternative, if consciously staged or flawe..