ABSTRACT
The history of school architecture since the Second World War shows, more than perhaps in any period, the influence of new forces at work in society as a whole. In particular the assistant county architect, Stirrat Marshall, had complete faith in the possibilities of a machine aesthetic and saw in prefabrication and in joint planning by architects, administrators, educationalists and manufacturers an opportunity to create an architecture based on human activities and purposes. The structure of secondary education has, by contrast, been subject to much greater change than that of primary education and this has had a considerable effect on the evolution of secondary-school design. To accept that, in general, school architects in England have shown themselves to be notably responsive to new educational and social thinking usually implies, however, a sympathy with a particular outlook, both in architecture and education.
