Commonplace | High Street Banks

Issue Three | High Street Banks

By Lisa Brown 

Commonplace is a photographic magazine celebrating modernist buildings and places across Britain and Ireland.

Born from a collaboration between the modernist and Uhm! Publishing, it explores the in-between places and small sites that lie beyond the mainstream modernist canon—those commonplaces that deserve a second look.

In issue three, Lisa Brown pops out to the bank - only to find it closed.

Once an abundant sight, the typology of the high street bank is a rapidly diminishing one. Reassuringly solid and replete with quality materials such as marble, slate, tile and brushed metal, these buildings embodied the might of the financial sector and invited us to feel confident in trusting them with our cash. Often comfortingly familiar, you might occasionally come across a building of particular note. 

This is mainly a collection celebrating the details: the well‑known and the not‑so‑well‑known names, the obscure regional companies long lost to history or merged and absorbed by larger concerns. The enchanting façade features — such as inset letterboxes, chunky handles and the night safe — are tell‑tale signs that a bank once occupied the building, even if it has long since closed and been de‑badged, yet still recognisable if you know what to look for. Lisa Brown

32 pages b&w and colour

A5 Staple bound

ISSN 2978-5200

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