Destruction and Renewal: Coventry’s Post-War Experiments with Civic Space

Destruction

A heartland of the aircraft and munitions industries, Coventry was a strategic target during the Battle of Britain. During the Coventry Blitz, air raids escalated throughout 1940, culminating in Operation Moonlight Sonata, when more than five hundred Luftwaffe aircraft dropped high explosives, incendiary bombs, and landmines on Coventry’s compact commercial, industrial, and residential centres. Most striking was the destruction of the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael, which was set aflame by incendiary bombs, destroying all but its outer walls and spire. Between November 1940 and April 1941, two-thirds of the city’s rated properties were damaged or completely destroyed.

Renewing Spaces

Even before the war, Coventry’s infrastructure was inadequate for its growing population. A lack of planning in the early twentieth century had led to deficient housing and factories, poor waterworks, and ever-congested road networks. By 1940, the designs of architect Donald Gibson and his assistant Percy Johnson-Marshall had been presented to Coventry City Council, as part of a public exhibition entitled Coventry of Tomorrow. Policies forwarded by Coventry’s Labour-led council envisioned ambitious changes to the city’s public spaces, services, and amenities.

As the new City Architect, Gibson was granted a relatively blank canvas for the redevelopment of Coventry’s civic centre. Backed by the Redevelopment Committee in early 1941, his plan to democratise Coventry’s spaces and services into a centralised city core was notably radical. Though Coventry’s population had exploded in the early twentieth century, the city centre remained medieval in scale. The city would need to be zoned appropriately to create functional urban spaces for the next generation of Coventrians. 

Consumer Generation

After the war, Coventry’s population and economy flourished. Over seventy per cent of the city’s labour force was employed in the lucrative motor and engineering industries. Wages were high, and Coventrians had money to spend – but the city lacked sufficient shops and entertainment facilities. With an economy based largely on industry and manufacturing, Coventry had developed a reputation as an educational and cultural desert.

To overcome this, the council would not only have to create new public spaces but also cultivate a new public to inhabit them.

Rebirth of Coventry Cathedral

The decision to rebuild the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael was made swiftly after its destruction, but construction could not begin until after the war. In a 1940 BBC Christmas broadcast, Richard Howard, Provost of Coventry Cathedral, called for international peace, unity, and reconciliation: ‘Hard as it may be to banish all thoughts of revenge, we’re bracing ourselves to finish this tremendous job of saving the world from tyranny and cruelty.’

In 1951, architect Basil Spence was chosen to design the new cathedral. Rather than rebuild on the site of the bombed cathedral, a new structure would be built and connected to the ruins by a canopy. The ravaged walls and spire of the old cathedral would remain untouched as an open-air memorial. 

Construction took place from 1956 to 1962, when the new cathedral was consecrated. Architecturally, the building incorporated elements of modernism and brutalism. Particularly noteworthy was the way light refracted and reflected across contrasting materials and surfaces. The south-facing entrance allowed sunlight to pass through the Screen of Saints and Angels, designed by John Hutton. The east-facing baptistery window – made of nearly two hundred panels of coloured glass – was created by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. The nave was illuminated by floor-to-ceiling stained-glass panels designed by Lawrence Lee, Keith New, and Geoffrey Clarke, which remained invisible from the main entrance.

In a culture of increasing secularisation, the Diocese of Coventry developed an enduring commitment to international reconciliation. Appointed in 1958, Provost H.C.N. Williams argued that while rural parishes traditionally served as sources of welfare, culture, and education, the urban church struggled to foster meaningful relationships with its community: ‘If fragmentation is the great disease of the twentieth-century community, it follows that mutual dependence, reconciliation, trust and unity are among its greatest needs.’

An influx of publications by local clergy reflected the diocese’s emphasis on practical theology. The cathedral community established chaplaincies within the church and reached beyond it through community and adult education programmes. Internationally, the cathedral’s ministry focused on post-war reconciliation and reconstruction, notably in Dresden and Corrymeela.

The (Civic) Belgrade Theatre

In contrast to the religious space of the new cathedral, the creation of the Belgrade Theatre represented an effort to develop a secular cultural space. Perpendicular to the shopping districts of the Lower and Upper Precincts, Corporation Street was intended as part of Coventry’s dedicated entertainment zone. Early plans included shops, cinemas, and a civic theatre. However, as public interest in cinemas declined with the rise of television, the theatre was seen as a more viable cultural investment.

Designed by then-City Architect Arthur Ling and funded by Coventry City Council, the Belgrade Theatre was situated on a spacious plot at the corner of Corporation Street and Upper Well Street. As Britain’s first post-war municipal theatre, the Belgrade was distinctly civic. Behind the stage, it offered bedsit flats for visiting actors overlooking Corporation Street – a rare feature in post-war theatre design. When it opened in 1958, the theatre’s architecture embodied a unique approach to public space. Visitors could freely roam the layered foyer without purchasing a ticket. Spectacle extended beyond the auditorium: the foyer displayed public art, including the Four Seasons mosaic by Martin Froy and spiralling chandeliers by Bernard Schottlander.

Wholly owned by the city council, the Belgrade Theatre fostered both an inward-looking civic culture and an outward-facing spirit of internationalism. During construction, the Yugoslav government gifted timber for the building, prompting the theatre to take the name of Yugoslavia’s capital as a symbol of solidarity. The Belgrade’s early programme aimed to expose local audiences to translated international plays alongside contemporary British ‘kitchen-sink’ dramas – including the premieres of Arnold Wesker’s trilogy.

Renewal or Stagnation?

While considerable efforts were made to create new forms of public life and civic identity in post-war Coventry, the economic downturn of the 1970s and the decline of industry eroded the foundations on which this vision was built. Nevertheless, the architectural landmarks of the 1950s and 1960s remain as enduring glimpses into a past defined by civic pride, cultural ambition, and collective reconstruction.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources

Anon., Our Story of Forgiveness, Coventry Cathedral, n.d. [online] https://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/our-story/the-story-of-coventry-cathedral [accessed 30 June 2025]

Anon., Our History, Coventry Cathedral, n.d. [online] https://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/our-story/history [accessed 30 June 2025]

Anon., New Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral, n.d. [online] https://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/locations/the-new-cathedral [accessed 30 June 2025]

Williams, H. C. N., 20th Century Cathedral: An Examination of the Role of Cathedrals in the Strategy of the Church in the Changing Pattern of a Twentieth Century Community (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964)

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Watts, Frazer, ‘The Social Contribution of an Urban Cathedral: The Vision of Coventry Cathedral in the 1960s’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, 44.4 (2023), 490–501