Manufacturing in the City.
Brighton. Despite its proximity, I hadn’t visited since 1999—no particular reason for staying away, though my memories of The Lanes were underwhelming. Back then, the narrow streets seemed overhyped, and the highlight was stumbling across a Starbucks, a novelty in the late 90s.
After a recent visit, I see Brighton through a different lens. I didn’t see a Starbucks, but the sheer number of independent coffee shops is astonishing—it makes you wonder how much coffee and cake one city can consume. I appreciated The Lanes’ charm this time, wandering through the maze of narrow paths and alleys. However, the retail offerings weren’t that compelling. The Pavilion was more interesting.
What caught my attention wasn’t in the shops or The Lanes but in the history. I discovered a sign about the Isetta bubble car out the back of the station.
In March 1957, Brighton Station’s recently vacated Locomotive Works was transformed into a manufacturing hub for the Isetta. This quirky little bubble car, with its three or four wheels, became a fascinating example of urban manufacturing. Although, at the time, it was probably entirely normal to make things in the city.
From 1957 to 1964, approximately 30,000 Isettas were built here. Components arrived by rail: body panels, engines, and transmissions from Germany, as well as electrical components, brakes, and tyres from the UK. Finished cars left the factory by the same route and were distributed across the country via rail. This system seems efficient: a manufacturing site integrated into the city’s infrastructure.
The story of Brighton’s Isetta bubble cars is a reminder of a time when cities didn’t just consume; they created. The thought of a manufacturing hub like this thriving in a UK city seems almost impossible today. Urban areas have become synonymous with consumption, retail, and services, not production. However, a recent trip to Marrakech proves it’s still possible, and something is compelling about the idea.
Yet, when people say, “We don’t make anything here anymore,” it’s simply not true. As mentioned last week, manufacturing accounts for 8.8% of the UK’s GDP—not insignificant. Not enough, perhaps, but certainly not nothing. It provides over 2.5 million jobs, nearly half of UK exports, and two-thirds of all R&D business expenditures. The UK is still a top 10 global manufacturing nation. But we don’t see it because it exists in decentralised supply chains, hidden away in industrial estates, business parks, or offshore locations. Out of sight, out of mind.
The problem is not just how little we manufacture but how we talk about it. A University of Cambridge article points out that the role of manufacturing is often dismissed, leading policymakers to downgrade its importance. The danger of this perception is that manufacturing drifts further down the agenda, fails to attract skilled talent, and ultimately weakens the economy. The reductionist thinking behind economists and procurement is short-sighted, unimaginative, and ultimately damaging.
The Covid-19 pandemic briefly reminded us of its value—when ventilators needed to be built. But what if manufacturing wasn’t just a necessity in times of crisis? What if it was embraced as a vital, everyday part of urban life?
Not the sprawling, Dickensian smokestack-filled factories of old, but cleaner, highly specialised, perhaps digital production. Imagine workshops crafting precision-engineered goods seamlessly integrated into the urban fabric—spaces where making and creating are celebrated, not pushed to the outskirts of industrial estates. A WEF study on industrial urbanism suggests that modern manufacturing, particularly high-tech, small-scale production, could once again find a home in our cities.
For too long, we’ve dealt with problems by pushing them out of sight—outsourcing production, burying waste, and even proposing CO₂ sequestration in the ocean rather than addressing emissions at the source. Real progress means bringing solutions into the open, making them part of how we live. Instead of cities designed purely for passive consumption, we could create places of production, repair, and reuse—where making is part of urban life, not banished to distant factories.
The Isetta was built in Brighton’s railway works because it made sense—materials arrived, products left, and industry was woven into the city’s fabric. What if we embraced that logic again? Not nostalgia, but resilience. Not waste, but renewal. Not passive consumption that dulls minds, but work that develops skill, craft, and purpose—placing production at the heart of where we live.
Next week, I’ll get back to home design: Why Light Matters.
Have a good weekend. You will always find me at carl@carlarchitect.co.uk.
All the best
After a few weeks on the sub’s bench, ‘This Week’s Links‘ makes an appearance:
Links to the articles mentioned above:
Industrial Urbanism
I got myself a 3D printer late last year. It was busy manufacturing the previous night while I slept. It’s been great for making architectural models – helping clients visualise their home away from a screen. Last night’s production run is being shipped to Chicago today.
Ocean acidification due to CO2.
A couple of books I’ve read this week:
Your Life Manufactured. By the same author as the Cambridge paper linked above. The complexity of making toilet roll is daft, and 70% of the world population uses other methods:
Zero to One. An excellent book. Theil suggests, and I agree, that we have not advanced enough in the last 50 years beyond computers. For example, the number of new drugs approved per billion dollars spent on R&D has halved every nine years since 1950. However, all his idealised models seem to involve the business of software, which sort of answers his own question. Still worth a read though.
You can’t beat the simplicity of a Georgian house.
Sunday dinner plans sorted.
Main Image credit: Reimagining cities as places of creation, not just consumption
