ABSTRACT
As World War II approached, foreignness took on a new urgency. No longer merely synonymous with immigration or the shape of a roof, foreignness became inextricably tied to the plight of those who had to flee Nazi Germany. London called to the refugees and freedom beckoned. England was seen as the center of the free world, with the BBC as its voice. The international style in thirties England was a loaded cultural fact that cannot be divorced from the two Highpoints. The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea by Chermayeff and Mendelsohn, or the Impington Village College buildings by Gropius and Fry, which are now listed buildings and considered emblematic of thirties modernism in England. The catalogue cautioned that England after the war must be England, and not a schematically planned and blue-printed Utopia. By all means distrust the planner who promises an England gleamingly and glitteringly streamlined.
