[1][2] In 1927, Hastings took over (alongside Christian Berman) the editing of Architectural Review and Architects' Journal;[1][2] he set about rearranging the format, including changes in typography and image (for which he commissioned artwork from Eric Gill), but also the content.
[2] In the following years, he employed a new generation of writers to contribute to the publications, including Osbert Lancaster,[2] Robert Byron,[1][2] Evelyn Waugh,[1] Cyril Connolly,[1] Sacheverell Sitwell,[1][2] P. Morton Shand[1] and (from 1930) John Betjeman;[1][2] during the Second World War, Nikolaus Pevsner assisted, while J. M. Richards was serving in the armed forces.
"[1] He rarely talked publicly and was known to go on vacations without announcement and miss editorial meetings, returning, though, with a new draft article or photographs of continental cities.
In 1936, with William Tatton Brown and his wife Aileen, Hastings formed a three-strong 'Town Planning Committee' within CIAM exploring ideas related to 'linear cities'; Tatton Brown subsequently presented a paper based on the work, The Theory of Contacts and its Application to the Future of London, at the CIAM V Congress in Paris in September 1937.
[4] Throughout the 1930s, he promoted modernism, with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography commenting that he "saw the logic of this as a bright new future for society", although he later campaigned for 'new monumentalism' and 'new empiricism', before going on to favour the "picturesque" in town planning, in reaction to the more rigid axial-planning which was fashionable at the time amongst architectural circles; this led to his promotion of the notion of "townscape" and his criticism of poor planning in British architecture.