The British high-tech movement remained in the ascendency from the 1960s until 1984, when an intervention by HRH Charles Prince of Wales over a competition-winning design by ABK Architects (previously Ahrends, Burton and Koralek) for an extension to the National Gallery in London signalled an end to High Tech architecture in the UK.
Between 1961 and 1967 in California, the SCSD (School Construction Systems Development ) project[13] offered architects and educationalists more options than had been available previously - providing greater column-free floor space by using longer spans, and flexible room layouts below.
A deep structural zone into which power, H&V, lighting and concertina partition tracks could be accommodated reduced the need for the rigid restrictive planning grids that had hampered the earlier systems.
However, notwithstanding its origins for military use, light weight design principles were seized upon by American architect and philosopher Richard Buckminster Fuller,[17][18] who advocated the use of slender or tensile structural components as they would be less wasteful of Earth's scarce resources than would be their bulkier traditional counterparts.
In addition, a small group of sympathetic structural engineers, including Frank Newby, Anthony Hunt, Ted Happold, Mark Whitby and Peter Rice, became essential to the development of the movement.
Noteworthy architectural practices In the austere post World War II Britain, illustrations associated with the comic-book heroes, science fiction writing, aircraft and aerospace industries and military hardware such as the Bailey Bridge provided inspirational imagery for the British High Tech architects.
Furthermore, in 1951, the Festival of Britain[39][40] intended to lift the spirits of the nation following the austerity of WWII, brought together under the architectural Directorship of Hugh Casson a group of leading architects and engineers to create a series of mainly temporary exhibition buildings located primarily on South Bank area of London.
Science Fiction images from Paolo Soleri,[41] Georgii Krutikov,[42] Buckminster Fuller, Robert McCall, Syd Mead,[43] and, of significance, British author Arthur C. Clarke, (who in 1948 wrote the short story, first published in 1951, "Sentinel of Eternity", which was used as a starting point for the 1968 novel and film 2001: A Space Odyssey), provided a rich source of inspiration for the High Tech movement.
UK Local Authorities in the 1970s, both at seaside locations and as a part of urban regeneration initiatives, sought to recreate the fun attractions of sun-bathing and swimming in artificially-created waves.
Industrial components, batch-produced in factories using newly invented materials or new manufacturing processes allowed the construction/assembly of High Tech buildings to move forward.
This coincided with a group of women such as Alison Smithson, Wendy Foster, Su Rogers, Georgina Wolton and Patty Hopkins[85] establishing themselves as equals in what had been up until then a predominately male-oriented profession.
The mid 1980s saw not only the damning "is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend" speech by HRH Charles Prince of Wales,[86] but also the death of several key proponents of British High Tech architecture – among which were Buckminster Fuller (1983), Jean Prouvé (1984), Walter Segal (1985) and Reyner Banham (1988), each of whom were significant for their teachings as well as for their building designs.
[88] In both the worlds of science fiction, space travel and in areas of extreme climatic conditions on Earth, the imagery of British High Tech architecture endures in real projects as well as those imagined.