It is 75 years since Basil Spence’s winning design for Coventry Cathedral was first revealed to the public, his drawings perhaps first alluding to the establishment of a modern church architecture in Britain. His proposal was one of 219 submitted in competition with other architects, though only 15 entries were effectively published. By contrast, the remaining 204 submissions were subject to ridicule following their exhibition at the King Henry VIII School in Coventry.

Now, on the competition’s Diamond Jubilee, the 75 exhibition returns to Coventry’s unsuccessful entries as part of a wider study on the representation of architectural competitions and the unbuilt in Britain. Prioritising contemporary submission material and mediated debate, this exhibition identifies Coventry’s losing proposals as under-explored yet valuable contributions displaying an overlooked diversity of design in Britain’s early attempts to define a post-war ecclesiastical architecture.