Icons Of Modernity

Something was missing as I waited to turn right at the lights in Welwyn Garden City on the way to John Lewis. Much of the 'Welgar' Shredded Wheat factory has been demolished. It has been looking increasingly derelict since production ceased in 2008 but it was a shock to see much of it gone. MrQ remembers seeing it from the train on the way to and from the billet in Knebworth where he was evacuated from London to during the war.

Shredded wheat was invented in America and the factory, with its one hundred feet long ovens, at Welwyn Garden City was designed by Louis de Soissons and built in 1926. The concrete grain silos on the left of my image will be retained in the planned residential development as they are listed. Le Corbusier and others considered grain silos to be icons of architectural modernity in the 1920s and up to the 70s when postmodernity emerged.