From the archive: Mickey Mouse, Michelangelo and the elusive arts – exploring the art of the new towns
Posted on 29th May 2025 by Charlotte Llewellyn
The UK’s post-war New Towns are well known for their art and sculpture, from the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee, the Hippos of Glenrothes, to the Family Group in Harlow. Today, art remains an important medium through which to tell the story of the New Towns, through initiatives such as Milton Keynes’ Discovery Centre or Harlow declaring itself as the world’s first sculpture town.
In the 1978 edition of Town and Country Planning, Robert Cowan pondered the role of art and artists in the New Towns and society more broadly. At the time of writing, Cowan was concerned with art moving to the periphery of human life and increasing social isolation. Through exploring art in the UK’s new towns, Cowan highlighted the new purpose of art as a means for increasing human connectivity with each other and the places and spaces we inhabit.
‘To find ways of helping local residents to express and communicate their opinions, feelings and experiences of life, and to participate fully in the creative and decision-making processes involved’
Art and artists played a central role in many of the UK’s New Towns, with many development corporations employing town artists to foster a sense of place and identity for the residents of these new communities and to enhance the accessibility of art and culture for the residents.
In Livingston, the town artist Dennis Barnes worked on artistic projects ranging from murals for underpasses to the creation of street furniture to enable locals to identify with their new town and increase people’s desire to maintain and care for the town.
Meanwhile, in Peterlee, the town sponsored Stuart Brisley and John Porter, whose work focused on helping the new town community re-identify with the town’s mining roots by creating a people’s biography of Peterlee.
Down south in Bracknell, the South Hill Park Arts Centre aimed to make the arts more accessible to the community by taking exhibitions and performances on the road to schools, village halls and town centres.
‘Some of the innovators in the arts in new towns have tried not to provide art, but to encourage the human communication on which art depends’
Cowan sums up the work of artists of the New Towns through the term ‘animation’: the process fostering a community consciousness. It is vital we recognise that art is so much more than the creation of something beautiful or intriguing; it is a form of communication that allows us to connect with one another and our environment. The role of art and artists in our built environment and new communities will always remain essential to human thriving.