In the post-war period between the 1950s and the 1970s, a regenerative building boom transformed Croydon’s urban landscape from being a town made up of traditional brick buildings to an architecturally modern urban space, rivalling the design, skyline and environment of major cities, earning it the nickname ‘Little Manhattan’.

This development was led by Alderman James Marshall, often called ‘The architect of Croydon’, who had been apprenticed to the Croydon architect, Sir Henry Berney before the First World War. Marshall was elected as a conservative councillor in 1928, going on to join several influential committees such as Electricity and Lighting, Finance and the Food Control Committee during World War Two before becoming an Alderman in 1937.

Plans to develop the town centre had started in the 1930s when Southern Railway sold their Fairfield Site to the Council and a competition to design a new Civic Centre was launched.  Architects were appointed in 1937 but plans were postponed when war came soon after.  In 1943, a reconstruction committee was appointed with the main focus to provide housing to replace bombed-out properties and by 1955, additional housing had been completed for 20,000 people.

During the interwar years, council departments outgrew the Town Hall accommodation and many took over large Victorian properties along Park Lane and Wellesley Road.  Pitlake Technical College burnt down during the war and with plans to rebuild on the site of the Public Halls where the School of Art was also housed, part of the Fairfield Site was earmarked for this new development.  

Architects Robert Atkinson and Partners had been appointed to the scheme by the Council in 1937, and when the first plans of Croydon College were made public in 1951, they were condemned in the Croydon Advertiser as being too traditional, ‘adorned with sham columns and colonnades and other frills borrowed from the time of the horse and cart’.  Robert Atkinson died in 1952 and his partner Anderson took over.  

The final plans were for a smaller building, although it was still the largest Technical College in the south of England when it opened.  Despite the change of plans, much of Atkinson’s design was retained, using Portland Stone, brick and copper roofs.  Building started in 1953 with the first students admitted in 1955 and a formal opening by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.  The negative reaction to the college’s traditional architectural style probably led to experimentation with modern designs and alternative materials such as concrete and glass.