part 1 british anti modernism londons south bank keir alexander diploma dissertation lowres

7/31/2019 PART 1 British Anti Modernism Londons South Bank Keir Alexander Diploma Dissertation Lowres

1/66


2/66

Keir Alexander

B R I T I S H A N T I - M O D E R N I S M

& L O N D O N S S O U T H B A N K


3/66

0.1 (previous page): Fountain at the Royal Festival Hall. Photograph by Keir Alexander


4/66

CONTENTS

Page 1 Summary

Page 7 1: The South Bank, London: July 2010.

Page 17 2: Historical and Cultural context o the South Bank.

Page 35 3: Anti-Modernism in Britain.

Page 81 4: British National Identity and the Picturesque.Page 113 5: The Hayward & the South Bank Group

Page 143 Conclusion

17,500 words

Appendix I: Transcript o passage rom Muthesius conclusion On The English Character, in

Das Englische Haus.

Appendix II: Extended transcription o letter rom Patrick Heron to Trevor Dannatt in 1992

Appendix III: Interview with Trevor Dannatt & Katherine Heron (o the South Bank Group) atthe Royal Festival Hall, 2010

Page 173 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Page 188 List o Images


5/66


6/66

This dissertation will investigate the emergence of Anti-Modernist

sentiment in British architectural discourse. It seeks to draw conclusions

on the origins and outcomes of a cultural polemic that continues to rumbleon, in the popular press and in the psyche of the modern British citizen.

Reection on the subject of Anti-Modernism takes place against the

backdrop of Londons South Bank. This is a site that has encompassed

modern architectural aspirations since World War II and the re-construction

of Waterloo Bridge in 1945; from the widely-celebrated Royal Festival Hall

to the much-derided South Bank Centre (SBC).

Anti-Modernism is not a strictly dened idea, nor has it been formalised

into a single writing, book or edice. Rather, it is a widely-held reactionary

belief; a device of discontentment that exists in architectural writings and

in the media. In 1934, Reginald Blomeld, published Modernismus one

of the earliest British texts devoted to the critique of what would come to

be termed The International Style. Since then a series of sensationalist

publications, including The Rape of Britain and Architecture & Morality

have emerged. The notion of national identity ows beneath the surface of

the anti-modernist polemic. The inevitable question emerges, is it possible

for an architecture to be British, or indeed un-British?

The writing of this essay is by no means impartial. It is founded on the

presentiment that the South Bank represents a persuasive example of the

enduring potential and successes of modernism. A collection of buildings,

devoted to the creative arts, that showcases modernism at the heart of the

capital. The South Bank buildings provide a refreshing criterion against

which to judge success or failure; away from the short-handed eyesore

dogma that can be so easily attributed to the great swathes of high-density

post-war housing. The essay focuses on the critical reception of modern

architecture in Britain, rather than the architecture itself. It is concerned

SUMMARY

1


7/66


8/66

with opinion and theory and on the inuence these have had and continue tohave on our environment.

Research for this text was carried out in a number of ways: Through

extensive reading of published theories and writing, through the appraisal

of journalism in the national press at key moments and through the

examination of archived correspondence. The essay is also based on my

personal experience of the South Bank. It is a story of successes and

failures, that traces Britains tumultuous relationship with the modern

movement. One can view the South Bank as a microcosm for ideas and

opinions for and against; a synecdoche of the polemic.

0.2 (previous page): Fountain at the Royal Festival Hall. Photograph by Keir Alexander0.3: Riverside walk, view rom QEH deck. Photograph by Keir Alexander

3


9/66


10/66

C H A P T E R O N E


11/66

Lighten up a dull place, sweeten a sour spot, and or the frst timebring the south o London a dignifed and beautiul rontage on theRiver Thames 1

Houses have no obligation to be demonstrative; public buildingshave to satisy dierent requirements. Among these, the culturalbuildings o the South Bank are the most prominent post-warcontribution to South London 2

1.0: South Bank Centre, The Mayors Thames Festival 2010. Photograph by Keir Alexander

1 Labour politician, John Burns (1905). Survey of London Monograph 17. County Hall. Hermione Hobhouse,Editor (1991)., The Athlone Press: London p 1102 Cherry, Bridget (1983)., The Buildings of England. London 2: South. London: Penguin Books

6


12/66

Of the view southward, Lionel Brett wrote in 1951 On a ne May morning,

the South Bank must be the gayest spot on Earth3. He was reecting on

the launch of the Festival of Britain in the same year, in full view of theSkylon Tower, Dome of Discovery and the Royal Festival Hall (RFH). A

similar approach from the Victoria Embankment 60 years later offers a

new prospect. The proud posture of the newly refurbished RFH remains,

alongside a more recent family.

To the South West, beyond the Hungerford footbridge, the void of Jubilee

Gardens resides as a vacant reminder of the 1951 Festival and to the North-

East a small, but by no means modest collection of rmly modernist cultural

venues. From the distant Victoria embankment, the impression is of a

rolling mass whose edges are undened. The RFH, though boldly upright,

seems to merge into the disordered Hayward Gallery (HG) and Queen

Elizabeth Hall (QEH) complex. Then the mass is split by the crisp edges of

Waterloo Bridge, which umbilically feeds the sharp strata of the National

Theatre (NT). It is a composition of unrivalled swagger and individuality,

yet each a part of the whole.

Then you notice the people. As you cross the white footbridge from

Embankment Station, it bustles with camera wielding foreigners. The

Londoners carry cameras too. The millennial improvements and additions

of the Hungerford footbridge and the giant observation wheel at County

Hall, may give visitors and residents the impression that they are at the

very centre of London. People come here for programmed events, but mostly

they come here to stroll, sit, reect, watch. The South Bank is a destination

in itself. It is the place from which you view the capitals two Cities of

Westminster and London. This is a deliberate phenomenon; since the war, a

long string of urban planners have intended it so.

THE SOUTH BANK, LONDON: JULY 2010

7


13/66


14/66

In all, the South Bank buildings provide a great number of facilities. TheHayward Gallery, a unique and imposing series of gallery spaces. In

the RFH, QEH, Purcell Room (PR) and NT, at least 6 formal performing

arts venues, each with a different programme. Beyond that there are any

number of incidental or impromptu performance and gallery spaces. On

a clear day the white-blond, sandy-brown and silver-grey of each mass is

clearly distinguishable. A clear evening will bring long shadows to deep

reveals and the sculptural ensemble becomes a warm gold. These days

are rare. On a typical London day, the three are entirely composed of

innumerable greys that mimic the sky overhead.

The recent renovation of the RFH provided a glossy makeover that in

addition to new commercial units (mostly eateries), sprinkled a feeling

of 00s regeneration over the area as a whole. It should be pointed out

that while the innumerable shops give the area a distinctly corporate feel,

they are, in this age, an inevitability and sit respectfully alongside the

complex as a whole. A lively caf terrace awaits visitors directly delivered

from the Hungerford footbridge. From here you are also able to access the

lower levels next to the Thames, at your own pace. There are no cars. It

is invigorating to be in London and to be liberated from trafc. Many of

the shops will sell you designer goods, all adorned with pop-art prints of

the South Banks architecture. The RFH on a plate, the HG on a greeting

card, the NT on an apron. It seems that in 2010, it is okay to like the South

Bank.

A weekly farmers market occupies the newly landscaped Southbank

Centre Square at the rear of the RFH. On the elevated walkways of

the Hayward, you might interrupt a fashion shoot or stumble upon a

resident artist occupying a temporary portacabin. Underneath, the

skateboarders and grafti artists that had been so unwelcome previously,

have their own designated area; dened by a line painted on the ground

and obeyed implicitly. The generous stepping back of the mass of the NT

on the Waterloo Bridge corner invites people in and contains them like a

mini piazza. Denys Lasduns rectilinear terraces had been intended for

performance to ow out, and they do just that. Here, teenagers perform

street acrobatics on John Maines arena sculpture to a guaranteed

audience.

9


15/66

1.1 (previous page): Terrace access at the RFH (design by Allies + Morrison. Photograph by Keir Alexander1.2: Royal Festival Hall terrace. Photograph by Keir Alexander

10


16/66

It is rare for people to be given such inclusive civic space in the modern city,where commercial impetus will always drive down its existence of it. Rarer

still, for it to be embraced and enjoyed so vividly.

The phrase South Bank has come to signify a number of things. An

(almost) uninterrupted walk from Westminster to the City and Southwark

via Lambeth Marsh. It is also a phrase that has become particularly

synonymous with a style of modern architecture, in a complimentary or a

detrimental manner, for better or worse.

It is possible to observe the area as a series of constructions that trace thecourse of the modern movements relationship with Britain. Each with a

decisive contribution to architectural discourse for each decade between

1940 and 1980, they are:

Waterloo Bridge. Giles Gilbert-Scott. 1945

Royal Festival Hall. LCC led by Leslie Martin. 1951.

HG/QEH/PR. GLC led by Norman Engleback & Hubert Bennett. 1968

National Theatre. Denys Lasdun & Partners. 1976

The South Bank buildings are an example of modernism, that is not

associated with the widespread high-rise housing blocks that have been so

consistently criticised. Society has always placed a great emphasis on public

buildings to encapsulate the ambitions and aspirations of the nation. This

is certainly so in the case of Britain. The construction of Whitehall offers a

pertinent example. Sir Charles Trevelyan (then Secretary of the Treasury)

said in 1856:

this city is the mother of arts and eloquence; she is the mother

of nations; we are peopling two continents it is not right that

when the inhabitants of those countries come to the metropolis,they should see nothing worthy of its ancient renown.4

The demolition and rebuilding of the West side of Whitehall in 1865

provided the government with an opportunity to make exactly that gesture.

The grand vision of Whitehall, is a showcase for foreign visitors; an outward

expression of how we see ourselves and how we would like to be seen.

And so it is with the South Bank, a cultural centre for the arts, which is

a typology that holds the highest status in modern society. Though they

11


17/66

1.3: Street acrobatics on John Maines Arena sculpture

12


18/66

represent the smallest percentage of our building stock, it is through publicbuildings that we make our grandest gestures.

This is not a system-built housing estate or curtain-walled ofce block, of

the type that make up the usual targets of criticism. It is extraordinary

that such architecture has been adopted on this site. Since its formation

it has come under erce scrutiny. Criticism and praise for the South Bank

buildings have been dealt in generous measure. This is an architecture that

belongs to what has been described as the criminal dynasty of Modernism.

Given pride of place in the heart of the capital and enjoyed and celebrated

by Londoners.

N O T E S

1 Labour politician, John Burns (1905). Survey of London Monograph 17. County Hall. HermioneHobhouse, Editor (1991)., The Athlone Press: London p 110

2 Cherry, Bridget (1983)., The Buildings of England. London 2: South. London: Penguin Books

3 Brett, Lionel (1951)., The South Bank Style. The Observer, May 1951

4 Bold, John & Tanis Hinchcliffe (2009)., Discovering Londons buildings : with twelve walks. London :Frances Lincoln. p118

13


19/66


20/66

C H A P T E R T W O


21/66

London had at last woken up to the act that the low-lying land contained

by the great bend o the South bank o the Thames was cartographically inot socially the centre o the capital. 5

Earth has not anything to show more air:Dull would he be o soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth like a garment wearThe beauty o the morning: silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the felds, and to the sky,All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautiully steepIn his frst splendour valley, rock, or hill;Neer saw I, never elt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at his own sweet will:Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still! 6

2.0: Under Hungerord ootbridge. Photograph by Keir Alexander, 2007

5 Stamp, Gavin (2001)., The South Bank Site. in Festival of Britain. Journal of Twentieth Century Society (TwentiethCentury Architecture: Volume 5). Twentieth Century Society: London pp13-246 Wordsworth, William (1802)., Upon Westminster Bridge

16


22/66


23/66

2.1: Balloon view o London. Wyllie and Brewer

18


24/66

the South Bank were renowned for their cloudy complexion, potent smell

and their strength. Breweries proved to be an enduring symbol of the

area. In the 17th century, dramatist Thomas Dekker described Bankside

as one continuous alehouse 9. Indeed breweries continued to dene the

architecture of the area up to the modern day. The miller said, in Chaucers

Canterbury Tales:

and if the words get muddled in my tale,

just put it down to too much Southwark ale.10

The Southern riverfront of the developing London, can therefore be seen as

a convenient colony to house the unsightly, but no less essential elements of

society and indeed the city. Here they could be kept at a safe distance, so as

not to offend. Wyllie and Brewers aerial balloon view of London 11 in 1884,

depicts the view East from Westminster. The heroic Palace of Westminster

and St Pauls are bathed in glorious, almost celestial sunlight. Lambeth

Marsh however, is overwhelmed by looming darkness and smoke. These

artistic mechanisms were presumably employed to obscure the deprivation

and squalor that lay beneath.

The separation of the South Bank from the main entity of London, gives

rise to a state of autonomy. Perhaps this is why the south side of the river

remains so indisputably different from North. The low-lying riverside

of Lambeth Marsh had remained for a long time in its natural swamp-

like state; a place where trees grew more densely than buildings until

the late 18th century 12 when the sprawl of London began to take hold of

it. Waterloo Station was later opened in 1848, following the haphazard

acquisition of land for the train lines that would slice the area incoherently

apart. Gavin Stamp cites the historical novelist Michael Sadliers imagined

impact of Waterloo Station on the residents of the area:

The ruin of Waterloo Road is now complete. No nice family

could have a home in the immediate neighbourhood of a bigrailway station. Think of the noise and crowds and smuts and

general vexatiousness!13

The discernible trend for the typical London terraced house that had existed

in the area of Lambeth Marsh had given way to a new one. The prevailing

mood was now unmistakably industrial: The warehouse chimneys and Lion

Brewery shot tower soon loomed overhead.

19


25/66

2.2: The County Hall, London. From the SBG Correspondance Archive

20


26/66

By the early twentieth century, the area of Lambeth Marsh was entirely

made up of a combination of factories, warehouses and ramshackle housing.

A labyrinth of roads and train lines intersected chaotically through the area

delivering people to London; it had become a place you travel through to get

to somewhere.

The construction of County Hall on a South bank on the site immediately

adjacent to Westminster Bridge and facing the Palace of Westminster,

provided a symbolic shift in the centrality of the capital; a seat of power

on the South Bank. The building, designed by Ralph Knott would act

as headquarters for the London County Council (LCC) and later the

Greater London Council (GLC) for the next 60 years or so. The GLC was

abolished by Margaret Thatchers government, no doubt due to its political

opposition rather than the actual opposition of its premises to the Palace of

Westminster.

Upon completion of County Hall in 1933, a new view South emerged.

The collection of obsolescent warehouses and shot towers 14 that lined

the Southern riverside was making way for a new civic architecture.

County Hall aimed to enhance the lives of Londoners, both by inspiring a

Renaissance of the South bank riverside and by providing a public buildingwhose interior and exterior would be of the best, superbly executed in choice

materials.15 This tactic of notionally moving London South was upheld by

the LCC when it commissioned plans to be drawn up for a new London, as it

emerged from the trauma of World War II.

The County of London plan in 1943, set aside the bomb ravaged riverfront

region of Lambeth Marsh, as an area of particular opportunity:

we consider that the South bank is the logical position

for a great and modern expansion of the capital; there is

a latent demand for important frontages on the river with

sites providing for buildings of a national and governmental

character16

This plan reects the psychology of a country emerging from war. It was

ambitiously futuristic and aimed to rehabilitate London, which would then

lead the way for the rest of the country. The reversal of the destruction

of the Luftwaffe would present an opportunity to re-shape London for the

better. A year later, the updated and extended Greater London Plan 17

21


27/66

2.3: Social & Functional Analysis, Greater London Plan 1944

22


28/66

was published by Patrick Abercrombie. The masterplan for the South Bank

had by now swelled into a chapter of its own which designated the region for

commercial ofces and large cultural venues.

Following the war, (on the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851) a

Festival of Britain was planned to kick start development and provide a

tonic for the nation. These were times of signicant nancial hardship,

yet it was deemed essential to keep morale high and aspirations progressive.

Houses were cleared, huge holes were dug and futurist icons constructed.

The Festival was an optimistic gesture and provided a public platform for

many talented young architects to test their modern ideas on a massive

scale. In the following year, the artist Frank Auerbach began to follow

and document the progress of Londons building sites. Fascinated by the

drama and rawness of the reconstruction, the speed of morphology that was

taking place in his city, Auerbachs depictions of Londons construction sites18 are physically rich, with paint applied so thickly, they might be works of

sculpture.

The location of the Festival on the South Bank was an important gesture

for the future of London. It could certainly be seen as a similar gesture

to the southern siting of County Hall, as an attempt to bring the focus of

London across the river. The extent to which the project would ultimatelyre-centre the capital is up for debate. When the Festival site was eventually

cleared of the temporary exhibitions, only the Festival Hall was left behind.

This clearing of the surrounding areas prompted the series of plans for

future developments, that some years later would include the South Bank

Centre and the National Theatre.

These new constructions were intended to provide signicant new

frontages, creating a band of rmly orientated developments to address

the water front. This aspiration to create a handsome spectacle from the

North may be seen to come at the expense of that from the South. At therear of the South Bank buildings run a series of what are fundamentally

service roads. At this point, the rest of South London awaits, though the

pedestrians natural inclination to venture forth is very limited. The South

Bank is essentially a viewing gallery to the North, a reafrmation of the

still unresolved North / South divide. This brings into question where the

boundary between North and South actually lies? Perhaps, it could be said

to exist somewhere over the middle of the Thames; in reality it is more

23


29/66

2.4: Summer Building Site, Frank Auerbach 1952

24


30/66

likely to lie somewhere along Belvedere Road (one street back from the

river).

This may be in part due to the planning of the Festival of Britain at its very

inception. Gavin Stamps essay the South Bank site raises this signicant

point. The artfully irregular, picturesque plan 19 of the exhibition sat aloof

from Lambeths urban grain beyond. In the positioning of the Festival on

the South side of the river, a grand gesture was being made, but this move

is almost immediately undermined by the avoidance of acknowledgement

of the context beyond. Stamp goes on to describe the large screen of tubular

steel and canvas, which effectively acted as the rear site hoarding. Its

purpose was not necessarily to obscure the view inward, but to cover up the

shabby buildings of Waterloo Station 20. Out of the necessity of promoting

the message of a new start, the festival site from its creation, has existed

within a self-conscious and internalised bubble. The rules that apply to the

planning of the rest of the city, do not apply in the same way here. This

is pertinent when considering the projects that arrived on the South Bank

later.

The Royal Festival Hall is generally considered to mark the arrival of

modernism to the British mainstream, but Waterloo Bridge immediately

adjacent may hold an alternate claim to that title. The rst WaterlooBridge, designed by Sir John Rennie to mark the second anniversary of the

battle of Waterloo, had been widely admired, visited and painted. On a trip

to England in 1815 Antonio Canova, the Venetian sculptor is said to have

described it as the noblest bridge in the world 21. When the settlements

at pier 5 of the bridge failed in 1923, the bridge was closed and plans for

a replacement drawn up. Built in 1939-45, Giles Gilbert-Scotts aim had

been to build a gothic bridge that was stripped of gothic detail. This

combined with the team of engineers desire for one enormous span, created

a dramatic tribute to modern engineering and design at the heart of the

capital. This is a construction of modernist sentiment. In 1967 Ian Nairnwrote:

in its bridge-ness it must outdo even Rennie. The rhythm of

the ve arches is like a coiled spring, catapulting you from

one bank to the other. Physically, it is supported by piers;

spiritually the bridge hardly seems to notice them To see it

next to the Festival Hall and the Shell building is a revelation

of the difference that justied self condence can make.22

25


31/66

2.5: Foyer at the Queen Elizabeth Hall 19682.6 (overlea): National Theatre, ater the freworks 2010. Photograph by Keir Alexander

26


32/66

When viewed against the RFH, HG and NT, Waterloo Bridge can almost

be seen as the conduit through which aspiration was delivered to the South

Bank. The trio of accomplishments that now stand on the South Bank took

25 years to compile. The RFH, a radical piece of architecture when it was

built now looks rather regal against its neighbours, with its nautical quips.

The 1960s saw the arrival of the Hayward complex next door, a rolling mass

of concrete; unrestrained by symmetry or propriety. In 1976 Denys Lasdun

made the nal contribution to the ensemble with the National Theatre,

surely the seminal work of his career. The project was well received in the

architectural press. Such was the perceived signicance of the project at the

time, that the Architectural Review devoted its entire January issue to the

NT23. Mark Girouard reported that the previous (and only other) project to

claim that accolade, had been the RFH 25 years earlier24. This enthusiastic

reception was not necessarily shared elsewhere, the popular press bestowing

only muted praise when the theatre was nally unveiled.

In the decades that followed, the HG and the NT would become the

focus of escalating dislike. In his book Mediating Modernism25, Andrew

Higgott wrote that the completion of the NT coincided with distinct dip in

popularity. A change in architectural trends was also occurring, High-Tech

was beginning to cause a stir. The Centre Pompidou had been completed in

the same year and it does indeed seem odd that these two contrasting, but

no less outstanding projects could belong to the same era:

Lasdun thus produced a building which participated in

several discourses in British architecture, but the timing was

inauspicious. The year of its completion was close to the lowest

ebb of appreciation of the architectural qualities it had. If

(hypothetically) the Barbican and National Theatre had been

completed a decade earlier, not only their immediate, but also

their lasting reputation would surely have been higher.26

Intriguingly, in his essay Past and PrejudiceforARs special issue, William

Curtis appears to pre-empt this turn in popularity by saying:

It will probably be years before a clear historical view of the

NT becomes possible. 27

Certainly a bad start does not mean that a project will never be a success

or be admired, but it must surely inhibit this process. Perhaps almost 35

years on, with a clearer historical view, we can begin to fully acknowledge

the quality of the building. The National Theatre encouraged a sense civic

27


33/66


34/66

space of the South Bank, but brought with it a new caf culture. It further

encouraged people to use the South Bank as a public amenity, rather than

just a place to attend specic events. This inclusive architecture, where it

becomes enough to just be, observe and enjoy was a novelty for London:

The huge foyer, which with its tables and its Folies Bergeres

Manet bars, with its people of all ages and classes walking up

and down, listening to music, talking, creates an ambience of

social enjoyment that the French nd it easy enough to evoke

with their cafe tables spreading over the Paris pavements, but

which has hitherto been unknown in London.28

Individually, each of the three buildings have exhibited a diverse range of

design philosophies through their realisation. As a group, their consistent

use of in-situ concrete in varying application and nish has unsurprisingly

led to a widely held notion that they conform, or in fact have dened

their own style, the South Bank Style. This is not an unfair label, but it

does overlook the fact that they have all been conceived and executed in

extremely different ways. If you remove the notion of material, these are

very different buildings.

Labels help to understand and categorise, but they are also reductionist and

all too easily divisive when used to criticise. Labelling the National Theatre

a concrete gulag 29 is a gesture loaded with moral overtones which are

sensationalist in the extreme. As Alan Powers wrote in the introduction to

his comprehensive study, Britain Modern Architectures in History:

The lack of widespread acceptance of Modernism in Britain

since its inception cannot simply be ignored or dismissed as the

stupidity of the unenlightened30

Instead it should be dissected and analysed until understood. The

movement of Modernism is now viewed as an historical matter: a brief

moment in the past. Charles Jencks famously claimed in his book The

Language of the Post Modern Architecture, that Modernism had been

pronounced dead in 1972 31. That may well be that case, but the enormous

effect it had on our environment is incalculable and the ideas it passed on,

innumerable. Signicantly, a chasm now exists between contemporary

architectural endeavours and popular taste and approval, which seems still

to be unresolved. The current status quo on style is one of plurality which

is healthy, but there is also a prevailing trend of polite mediocrity, which is

not.

29


35/66

N O T E S

5 Stamp, Gavin (2001)., The South Bank Site. in Festival of Britain. Journal of Twentieth Century

Society (Twentieth Century Architecture: Volume 5). Twentieth Century Society: London pp13-24

6 Wordsworth, William (1802)., Upon Westminster Bridge

7 Hobhouse, Hermione Editorial (1991)., Survey of London Monograph 17. County Hall. The AthlonePress: London pp17-18

8 Reilly, Leonard & Geo Marshall (2001)., The Story of Bankside. From the River Thames to StGeorges Circus. London Borough o Southwark, 2001. Neighbourhood History No. 7

9 ibid

10 Chaucer, Georey (1380-1392)., Canterbury Tales and other poems. The Millers Tale. Edited byD. Laing Purves

11 W. L. Wylie and H. W. Brewer (1884). View of London looking east from the Palace of Westminster(LMA Guildhall main print collection q897343x)

12 Reilly, Leonard & Geo Marshall (2001)., The Story of Bankside. From the River Thames to StGeorges Circus. London Borough o Southwark, 2001. Neighbourhood History No. 7

13 Stamp, Gavin (2001) quoting Michael Sadlier (1947) Forlorn Sunset. From The South Bank Site.in Festival of Britain. Journal of Twentieth Century Society(Twentieth Century Architecture: Volume 5).Twentieth Century Society: London pp13-24

14 Hobhouse, Hermione Editorial (1991)., Survey of London Monograph 17. County Hall. TheAthlone Press: London pp17-18

15 ibid

16 Forshaw & Abercrombie (1943)., County of London Plan, prepared or the London County Council.Macmillian and co. limited, London. p.67

17 Abercrombie, Partrick (1944)., Greater London Plan. His Majestys Stationery Ofce, London

18 Wright, Barnaby (2010)., Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952-1962. London: PaulHolberton Publishing. P.74

19 Stamp, Gavin (2001)., The South Bank Site. In Festival of Britain. Journal of Twentieth CenturySociety(Twentieth Century Architecture: Volume 5). Twentieth Century Society: London p14

20 Ibid

21 Hibbert, Christopher, Ben Weinreb, Julian Keay & John Keay (2008)., The London Encyclopaedia,

30


36/66

Third Edition. London: Macmillan. p.991

22 Nairn, Ian (1964)., Modern Buildings in London. London Transport, London pp17-22

23 Architectural Review. National Theatre special edition. No959, January 1977

24 Girouard, Mark (1977)., Cosmic Connections. Architectural Review. No959, January 1977. p5

25 Higgott, Andrew (2006)., Mediating Modernism. Architectural cultures in Britain. London: Routledge.p15

26 ibid

27 Curtis, William (1977)., Past and Prejudice. Architectural Review. National Theatre specialedition. No959, January 1977. p8

28 Curtis, William J.R. (1994)., Denys Lasdun. Architecture, City, Landscape. Phaidon Press Limited:London. p154

29 Charles, The Prince o Wales (1989)., A Vision of Britain. A Personal View on Architecture.Doubleday: London

30 Powers, Alan (2007)., Britain. Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books. P7

31 Jencks, Charles (1977)., The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. Rizzoli: New York

31


37/66


38/66

C H A P T E R T H R E E


39/66

Ere slabs are too tall and we cockneys too ew,Let us keep what is let o the London we knew 32

This royal throne o kings, this scepterd isle,This earth o majesty, this seat o Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This ortress built by Nature or herselAgainst inection and the hand o war,

This happy breed o men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the ofce o a wall,Or as a moat deensive to a house,Against the envy o less happier lands;This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England 33

The past has to be the greatest inspiration to any artist. But it is there to

teach you the essence o tradition not to be copied. 34

32 John Betjeman (1974)., rom Meditation on a Constable Picture. A Nip in the Air. John Murray33 Shakespeare, William (1595)., Richard II, Act 2, Scene 134 Denys Lasdun (1993)., in Big, bold and unrepentant. Sunday Telegraph. 23.05.1985

3.0: Book stalls, Waterloo Bridge. Photograph by Keir Alexander

34


40/66

Having a grasp on the fraught relationship between popular opinion andarchitectural design is as important as it has ever been. Yet in 2010 the

profession and wider industry is still unable to reconcile the two.

Since its arrival in the 1930s and later its high prole outing at the Festival

of Britain, Modernism has faced a moral and political battle for a share

in shaping the environment and commanding the resources necessary to

do so, against a background of reluctance and scepticism35. The Planning

Act of 1947 36 was a permissive piece of legislation directing power

towards planning committees covering wide areas. Accelerated growth

made modernist construction the mainstream preference for planners

and developers in the 60s facing the post-war housing crisis. Planning

committees themselves were required to draw up plans for the land and

were even able to issue compulsory purchase orders to buy land and lease it

to private developers. This pushed the emphasis towards development and

expansion, as ambitions that were in the national interest. The look and

shape of British towns and cities changed dramatically as a result.

The infamous speech made by Prince Charles to the RIBA in 1984 on its

150th anniversary 37, which contained the monstrous carbuncle sound bite,

is often cited as the founding blow of broader anti-modernist feeling. In fact

distaste for the ideas of the White Gods, as Tom Wolfe later described them

in From Bauhaus to Our House 38, can be traced back to before Britains

rst import of modernist architecture.

Many years before, Evelyn Waugh introduced the modern architect to the

nations imagination with his sharply satirised invention of the bespectacled

German architect, Otto Silenius in his 1928 novel Decline and Fall.

ANTI-MODERNISM IN BRITAIN

35


41/66

3.1

36


42/66

Reputedly inspired by Hugo Hring, Silenius is portrayed as the son of

wealthy German parents, who comes to England insisting on being called

Professor Silenius. His disposition is one of an intolerant alien guest, who

believes his intellect to be far superior to all those around him, including

the publically schooled and steadfastly English main character, Paul

Pennyfeather. Having only completed a bubble-gum factory in Munich,

Silenius is commissioned by the fashionable aristocrat Margot Beste-

Chetwyndes to build something clean and square 39, while she departs for

an imminent world tour. In a section of the book, Silenius in interviewed by

the press:

The problem with architecture as I see it, he told a journalist

who had come to report on the progress of his surprisingcreation of ferro-concrete and aluminium, is the problem

of all art the elimination of the human element from the

consideration of form. The only perfect building must be the

factory, because that is built to house machines, not men. I do

not think it is possible for domestic architecture to be beautiful,

but I am doing my best. All ill comes from man. He said

gloomily man is never beautiful, he is never happy except

when he becomes the channel for the distribution of mechanical

forces.40

This example gives a hint of how modern architects began to be portrayed

in some strands of popular culture. It is interesting that in both Wolfes

and Waughs books, the austere humourless character of the architects

personality is every bit as important to their critique as the appraisal of the

architecture itself; indeed in Waughs case the architecture is written off as

wholly unimportant.

In 1934, Reginald Blomeld, a major contributor of Regent Streets

Quadrant, published Modernismus which described the ideas of modernism

as extreme of crude and unabashed brutality. This is the rst formal

publication devoted solely to the critique of the new movement. Apart fromhis obvious disdain for the international style, Blomeld struck upon a

similar fundamental notion to Waugh: that modernism was bringing with

it foreign values. By pointedly entitling his book, Modernismus, Blomeld

was clearly drawing attention to its Germanic origins and inuence.

Blomeld wrote in his nal chapter The Way Home:

English towns and countryside cannot assimilate this new

architecture. It is essentially Continental in its origin and

37


43/66

3.2

38


44/66

inspiration, and it claims as a merit that it is cosmopolitan.

As an Englishman [that is] proud of this country I detest and

despise cosmopolitanism.41

This notion of modernism being un-British is a central theme that

continues to arise in anti-modernist writings. Many architectural

publications have followed Modernismus. They contribute to a consistent

and persuasive current that can now be seen as a linear polemical discourse

that continues today. In 1973, Goodbye London. An illustrated Guide to

Londons Threatened Buildings42 was published by Christopher Booker

(who later became architectural advisor to Prince Charles) and Candida

Lycett-Green (John Betjemans daughter). Booker is a perennial contrarian

with a penchant for controversial views. As well as having expertise inarchitecture, since 1990 his column for the Sunday Telegraph has claimed

climate change to be unproven, evolutionary theory awed and asbestos

to be un-harmful. Goodbye Londons nal chapter names and shames

developers (including their nancial assets) and developers architects,

placed simply under the sub-heading Architects. Booker was also one of

the founding members of the satirical fortnightly magazine,Private Eye.

European Architectural Heritage Year, 1975 saw the foundation of SAVE

(Britains Heritage). In Naturally BiasedKester Rattenbury extensively

analysed the role of the British media. She reported that SAVE had been

founded in the wake of the demolition of Euston Arch and had an extensive

reach of inuence:

The editor of Country Life, the architectural correspondant of

the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times, the anonymous

Piloti in Private Eye (the satirical magazine that was a

major source of gossip for all other journalists) were all

leading members of SAVE, as were other leading architectural

writers.43

1975 also marked the publication of the shockingly titled, Rape of Britain

by Colin Amery and Dan Cruickshank. Presumably the title Goodbye

London had not been sensational enough. Sir John Betjeman in the early

70s was the regular architectural columnist forPrivate Eye, under the title

Nooks and Corners of the New Barbarism. Betjeman, a famously erce

opponent of modernism and long campaigner for the protection of Victorian

architecture provided a foreword to Amery and Cruickshanks book:

39


45/66

3.3

40


46/66

As I look through this book I think that it is not only the

developer that is to blame for the rape of Britain but also theyes-man who wants to be on good terms with his committee,

the architect who is his own public relations ofcer.44

The title of the book is very clever and profoundly affecting. Adopting the

word rape in the same utterance as Britain is a device that appeals to

any scrap of nationalism that may reside within even the most un-patriotic

citizen. The book is itself a photographic survey of 30 or so British towns

and their re-building following the war. Most of the choices are typically

picturesque, including Bath. Chapters consist of pre-war vistas destroyed

by new monolithic constructions.

The nineteenth century changed the form of many towns,

but to our eyes now the work of the Victorians is innitely

more in keeping with the city than anything built in our own

time. The destruction during the nineteenth century pales into

insignicance alongside the licensed vandalism of the years

1950-75...Victorian improvers were amateurs alongside

todays professionally aided merchants of greed. Accountancy

and devotion to prot are the two spurs of redevelopment.45

The impact of the book is very effective and rightly so; many of the hard-

hitting before and after photographs are extremely alarming. Antiquated

scenes are fondly photographed, their unabashed modern destroyers stand

baldly, often amid the chaos of cranes and rubble. The rapid and sweeping

re-shaping of Britains towns at this time is without question, dramatic and

often lamentable. The conclusion of the book holds architects and indeed the

modern movement itself responsible for this change:

The grisly results of their trade are there, in almost all our

towns, lasting memorials to an age of little taste and less

sensitivity. Since the early 1950s architects trained in the

disciplines and dogmas of an alien Modern Movement haveimposed an architecture that simply does not t. The public

has realised for a long time that there is something wrong

with modern architecture. It is more difcult for a trained

professional to re-think his old doctrines and admit that he

has littered our cities with far too many shoddy and irrational

structures.46

The book states early on that it was produced and published with great

haste and urgency, so that public action could be taken against future

41


47/66

3.4

42


48/66

developments as soon as possible. Warranted as the theme of the book may

have been; Cruikshank, Amery and Betjeman were also seeking someone

to blame. The nger is pointed squarely at the architect, moreover the

modernist architect.

At this juncture, the perceived distinction between destruction and

development becomes ambiguous. While difcult to generate quantitative

evidence, if would not be an exaggeration to state that in the present day,

much of the British public now hold the architectural profession itself,

responsible for the state of the modern British city. This is not unjustied,

architects are in part to blame, but their existence depends on the ow of

money from developers. The legacy ofRape of Britain, while widening

awareness of over-development, must also have been to irrevocably tarnish

the name of the architect. It was modernism not mediocre design being

blamed, yet it was bad design and not modernism itself that was to blame.

It is an association that the architect is still unable to shake off. This is an

indictment of the wider architectural professions disinclination to stand up

for themselves. Why is the profession as a whole so willing to accept this

criticism based on the malpractice of a small number?

The outrage often expressed by Betjeman at the destruction of what he

deemed to be heritage building stock has a somewhat ironic resonance todaywhen so many of the modernist eyesores that he so loathed, are now irting

with demolition or heritage. In the 1960s much of the Victorian architecture

was often deemed to be of a very poor standard and was widely endangered.

Only through extensive campaigning was much of it saved, an achievement

which many people must now be very grateful for. Victorian, may have

been a term of derision in the mid-20th century, it is surely now seen as an

asset.

Betjeman had a well-documented rivalry with Nikolaus Pevsner, whom he

is said to have referred to only as The Herr Professor-Doktor47. This maywell have been out of contempt for his prolic and successful Buildings

of Englandbook series, his academic credentials and for his musings on

Englishness. Cambridge historian and former student of Pevsner, David

Watkin has published a number of books on architecture. Though the

principal subject of these books is classicism, a common theme of anti-

modernism runs through his texts. In 1977, his most notorious book,

Morality and Architecturedeclared open war on the modernist movement 48

43


49/66

3.5: Introduction pages rom Rape o Britain

44


50/66

and can now be seen as perhaps the most decisive and controversial of anti-

modernist texts.

Deliberate bias can be useful to all commentators, but Watkins diatribe

makes no attempt to recognise any of the successes of modernism. The

picture it paints is enormously reductive of the movement as a whole. Le

Corbusier, Gropius and Wagner are his main targets, but a large section

of the book is dedicated to the discrediting of Pevsners historical methods.

Watkins will to present modernism as the enemy is absolute and his

critique totally rigid. He attacks modernism for being a monolithic culture

of indoctrination, without acknowledging that the modern practice of 1977

had evolved its thinking far beyond the almost puritanical musings of Adolf

Loos in 1908, almost 70 years earlier.

It could be said that the modernist experiment being attacked here

had been for some time extinct. Loos, Gropius and Le Corbusier may

have been the departure point for a set of ideas, but what has happened

since then represents a rapidly evolving animal. For example, to attack

deconstructivism in 2010 shows a lack of hindsight; it was already dead

ten years ago. Anti-modernist discourse urges you in with complete reason;

they want buildings that respond to human scale and interaction yes,

buildings responding to their context yes, buildings that celebrate localcraft and industry yes please. But you would be hard pressed to nd

modern architects that dont share these feelings; who wouldnt agree?

Both parties reduce the values of the other as a point of habit, wishing each

other so much to become the very caricatures that they had constructed

in their writings. Around 20 years later, Watkin published Morality and

Architecture Revisited, Watkin reassesses the inuence of his earlier book,

keen to divulge the support he received from wide-ranging and un-expected

sources, as though the weight of his argument is resoundingly proven. One

example is the rather surprising endorsement of the earlier book fromDenys Lasdun:

At the same time I received support from some modern

architects, including Sir Denys Lasdun, who wrote in the

course if his letter: I much enjoyed Morality and Architecture

and subscribe to its central theme 49

One imagines there to have been some sort of caveat to this remark, that

is not included. Watkins own taste in architecture is conned to the

45


51/66

3.6: Louis Hellman, The Bandwagon Rolls... 1985

46


52/66

historical, but furthermore the English. In his study on the history of

English Architecture 50, the modern movement is granted only a few pages

in the nal chapter, as if only at the publishers request. He is quick to

point out in this nal chapter, the nationality of modernism. His former

teacher Nikolaus Pevsners name is seldom included without the prex

German migr; or modernism itself, without qualifying it as a continental

fashion imported from Germany and France51. To imagine that modernism

is an unworthy endeavour because it is foreign in origin is xenophobic.

Where does he suppose the Baroque or Palladianism came from?

The title of Watkins book pays homage to a fundamental problem with

the dispute. As Loos had also done through Ornament and Crime, to

inextricably link the polemic with morality. This is a move that escalated

the discussion to such irrationally emotive 52 levels, that it is virtually

impossible to compose a calm reection upon it. This is a common problem

in our understanding and description of architecture. In the absence of a

suitable language with which to describe our understanding, we instead

attribute anthropomorphic or moral qualities to it. We refer to Norman

Fosters Swiss Re tower as the Gherkin because it is has universal

appeal to both the architecturally literate and illiterate. Anti-modernist

commentators regularly deploy words like eyesore, slab, bunker and ugly

because they also appeal to the everyday imagination.

In the 1980s a small, but distinct and inuential clique began to emerge.

Prince Charless personal opinions and thoughts on architecture, while not

founded on any professional or academic basis began to give air to a general

feeling of so-called disenchantment among the general public towards

modern architecture. Architects Quinlan Terry, Robert Adam and Leon

Krier, are among the closest collaborators of the Prince. Charless interest

in architecture, which had been hobbyist, was gaining in momentum and

would become his principal concern. By the time of his controversial 1984

speech, the industry felt that it had to take notice.

Presumably bolstered by his burgeoning popularity, the prince began

to throw his weight into disrupting a series of high-prole construction

projects. Peter Ahrends National Gallery extension and Arups Paternoster

Square were among the high-prole casualties. At this time architectural

journals joked that there wasnt an architect in the land that hadnt

acted as advisor to the Prince. A well-known Hellman cartoon, depicts an

overcrowded bandwagon, begin driven by the Prince. Among these was

47


53/66

3.7

48


54/66

the post-modernist Terry Farrell, an architect approaching his commercial

peak at that time and who would go on to work extensively on new designs

for the drastic remodelling of the South Bank. In 1989 Prince Charles

presented a television series entitled Vision of Britainwith Christopher

Booker (author ofGoodbye London) which featured among other things,

the two men reviewing the waterfront architecture of the Thames from a

boat. This television show was later turned into a book under the same

title, a publication that might be better described as a picture book. This

is perhaps the birth of Charless famously slanderous similes on modern

architecture. Critical gobbets are cast from the boat: Do humans actually

work there? directed at the now demolished Mondial House and it looks

like a concrete gulag of the National Theatre53. Anti-Modernists such as

Charles, Watkin and Betjeman are particularly adept at composing these

verbal assaults. Charles has defended this preoccupation:

I have never been rude about any architect. I try to produce

similes which conjure up images and make more of a point

than descending into personal abuse.54

He may defend these musings for not being personally derogatory, but

many architects would no-doubt have preferred a personal jibe instead.

A reputation began to precede the Prince from then on. A little later, the

Prince was invited to speak at the AIA annual Gala. John Taylor, for New

York Magazine wrote:

would the Prince unload one of his now-legendary broadsides?

Which American architects would he now attack? An utter

stillness settled over the immense hall.55

The same article reports that 87% of the British public agree with his beliefs

though it doesnt expand on where this statistic had been obtained. This

is a typical tactic, using pseudo sociological ndings to substantiate the

validity of an argument. The verbal blows to the American architecturalestablishment that had been expected, never came. It is possible that in

the wake of such controversy, the Prince had decided to focus his energies

in other ways. He soon went about putting the ideas ofVision of Britain

into practice, through the endorsement of neo-classical architects such as

Quinlan Terry and John Simpson. These architects are kept close at hand

to deliver alternate visions, often commissioned by the Prince for sites of

particular signicance.

49


55/66

3.7: John Simpson scheme or Paternoster Square 1989

50


56/66

In 1987, a Richard Rogers design had been considered the front-runner

in an invited bid for the development of the Paternoster Square site,

immediately adjacent to the nationally symbolic St. Pauls Cathedral.

Despite subsequent collaboration with Arup, the design had come under

mounting pressure in the press and Arup proceeded alone. When a new

Arup/Hopkins/MJP scheme was exhibited to the public in 1988, it did so

alongside an alternative vision. A neo-classical proposal from architect

John Simpson, funded by the Evening Standard provided the nal nail

in the cofn for the contemporary aspiration. Prince Charles put his full

weight behind the Simpsons design and eventually a team led by Terry

Farrell as masterplanner and perennial favourites; Quinlan Terry and

Robert Adam were awarded the job. Their nal design was later granted

planning approval in 1993 56, but the site came under new ownership and

was subsequently developed according to a post-modern William Whiteld

design. Rogers later said of the design:

What was needed was a scheme with real integrity not a

dogmatic piece of modernism or an eclectic pastiche.57

In 2009, a similar plot was played out when Prince Charles complained to

the Qatari royal family over Rogers plans with developer Qatari Diar for

the high-prole Chelsea Barracks site. The prince had written in a letter

the previous year:

I can only urge you to reconsider the plans for the

Chelsea site before it is too late. Many would be eternally

[underlined] grateful to Your Excellency if Qatari Diar Real

Estate Investment could bequeath a unique and enduring

[underlined] legacy to London.58

Again Charles was ready with an alternative proposal, which was put

forward in the form of a Quinlan Terry napkin sketch in 2009. After a

great deal of bad press, Qatari Diar dropped the Rogers scheme (at that

stage some months into its planning application) and went back to the

drawing board.

Leon Krier is perhaps Prince Charles most notable collaborator. A former

employee of Jim Stirling, Krier remains a long serving advisor to the Prince.

Together they masterplanned and built Poundbury near Dorchester, the

most well-known example of the historicist trend encouraged by the Prince

in the 1980s. Poundbury is signicant for its collaged adoption of historical

51


57/66

3.8: Poundbury, Dorchester

52


58/66

motifs, but also for being the only major New Town to have been embarked

upon since those of the 1960s, which included Milton Keynes. Poundbury

was intended to present an alternative British vision for modern settlement

and construction. Modern perhaps only in age, Owen Hatherley reports

that ruin value59 is endorsed during construction of buildings which are

articially aged as if they were elements in a stage set or a pair of stone-

wash jeans.

Krier has a well-established public persona. He has taught at a range of

architectural schools, including the AA in London. His prodigious drawing

talent has created a great number of well-known and often referenced

satirical cartoons on architecture. His position as key anti-modernist

commentator is keenly legitimised by his training and practical experience

in the modern style. Though Poundbury is one of his only built projects, he

is also an apologist writer on Albert Speer; an architect for whom he has

a great deal of admiration. Speer served as principal architect of national

monuments under Hitler; he also became a minister of the Third Reich.

This royal clique exist symbiotically, each pays regular tribute to the others

talent, each will plug one anothers books, each will offer recommendation.

Upon browsing their various texts and publications, a partisanship is

immediately apparent. This comes in the form of regular dedications,forewords and contribution to each others works. v and Watkin vehemently

criticised the modern movement for its self-perpetuating cliques, yet their

contemporaries operate in very much the same manner. It could be argued

that they themselves have become as much a cult in their actions. It is

surprising where dedications and endorsements appear. Watkin was author

of Quinlan Terrys retrospective Radical Classicism60. Krier and Terry are

regularly paid tribute to in speeches61, Prince Charles unexpectedly appears

in the introduction to a book about the relationship between architecture

and mathematics, by Nikos Salingaros62. Salingaros, a professor of

Mathematics at the University of Texas is credited with the upkeep ofLeon Kriers ofcial website. After further reading it transpires that the

lesser-known Salingaros is another long time detractor of modernism. His

numerous writings include a ranting essay on Louis Kahn that verges on

hysterical 63. He refutes the acclaim given to Louis. I. Kahn and argues

that his notoriety in architectural history is undeserved next to the work of

namesakes Albert Kahn & Ely Jacques Kahn.

This is a tight knit group, not enormous in number, but carrying great clout

53


59/66

3.9: La Culture Modern(ist)e Leon Krier 1999

54


60/66

in terms of inuence. The great inuence granted to Prince Charles can be

unfathomable. The member of a royal family with highly circumscribed

institutional power, the built environment has been the Princes enduring

hobby for many years and the British public has entertained him. Again

and again, he has exerted his inuence over the architectural day to day of

the country unchecked. The question that arises is, as a country, why do

the British allow him such inuence? Indeed why does the RIBA? In 2009,

25 years after the monstrous carbuncle speech, Charles was invited back to

make another speech to the profession in a sequel to his 1984 polemic.

Following the extensive public sector cuts of the Conservative Lib Dem

government of 2010, the advisory body CABE had its funding pulled. In

the same week The Princes Foundation was quick to offer its services.

Economic conditions will dictate architectural direction; is it possible that

Charles sees new opportunities to exert his substantial inuence once

again in the wake of a nancial crisis deeper than that of the early 1980s?

In recent decades, economic hardship seems to have followed cycles of

historical sentimentality and conservative governance.

The writings of Betjeman, Blomeld, Wolfe & Watkin allude to the notion

of Modernism representing an unwelcome intruder; an illegal and foreign

immigrant requiring deportation. Watkin compares Modernism to theimpact Palladianism had on English Baroque:

As a doctrinaire programme for a new architecture that

would not tolerate the existence of any other kind of building,

the modern movement curiously resembles the imposition by

Lord Burlington of strict Palladianism on the fertile English

Baroque64

The obvious conclusion being, if its imported, we dont want it. The

aesthetics of Palladianism were themselves imported from the villas of

Veneto, where Inigo Jones had travelled in the early 17th century. AlthoughEnglish Palladianism and English Baroque were English in provenance,

neither were ideas that originated in England. Both were hybrids of an

imported aesthetic; that took on new signicance when placed in an English

context or more precisely in an English landscape. Perhaps what the quote

alludes to more simply is a supercilious preference for an aesthetic style. In

other words, that Watkin doesnt like the look of English Palladianism as

much as he likes the look of English Baroque. This distinction, while not

invalid or irrelevant, does render the appraisal supercial. This is a aw in

55


61/66

3.10: The Clients First Night in the House Tom Wole, 1980

56


62/66

the anti-modernist reasoning, that their objection pertains to a theoretical

opposition to modernism, when in fact it is far more based on an aesthetic

preference. In his contribution to Quinlan Terrys architectural monograph

Radical Classicism, Watkin again writes:

The Modernism, with which Quinlan Terry has had to battle,

is like the Taliban, a puritanical religion, so iconoclastic that

it permits no reference whatever to the forms, materials, or

methods of construction of tradition, classical or vernacular

language, and above all no use of mouldings.65

No use of mouldings indeed? A strange exception to place above all.

Quinlan Terrys Richmond Riverside development, must surely be regarded

as a crowning achievement of the historicist trend that emerged from

growing anti-modernist feeling in the 80s. When it was completed in 1988,

Alan Powers described the project as being greeted by an appreciative

public 66. This was a large-scale development consisting of a large amount

of speculative ofce space and also extensive public landscaping for the

sloping waterside site. On the surface, faades combined styles of Archaic

Greek, Venetian Gothic, Italian Baroque and Regency. Beneath these lay

standard, concrete frame, modern ofce buildings. The pre-occupation with

moulding and surface treatment represents an ethos that places exterior

appearance above interior experience. A damning and often applied critique

of this approach, is to dismiss it altogether as Pastiche. In other words,

that it results in architecture that is wholly derived from the accumulation

of motifs of another time or place; a philosophy that is in fact only skin-deep.

Pastiche is a term that Prince Charles no doubt loathes. He commented in

his 2009 RIBA address:

Indeed, traditional buildings and projects are still looked

down on today by most teachers; too often dismissed out of

hand as pastiche or worse.67

The Richmond Riverside development, though perhaps popular never

prompted a true revival or take-up by main-stream developers. Instead it

stoked an already fulsome trend for post-modernism which was practised by

Robert Venturi, James Stirling and Terry Farrell among many others.

This fetish for aesthetic can be seen to lead to an unexpected allegiance

between historicist anti-modernists and post-modernism. Intended as the

long awaited antidote to the formality and restraint of stern modernism,

57


63/66

3.11: Venturis National Gallery Extension

58


64/66

the baton of post-modernism is picked up by some anti-modernists because

of its adoption of aesthetic motif and historical reference. The long-running

dispute about style had up until that point been a case of one extreme

versus another; black versus white. The separate camps had existed like

political parties, their very position dened by its opposition to something

else. When post-modernism waded into the argument in the 1980s the

issue became somewhat confused. Anti-modernists in support of post-

modernism overlook the irony that resides at the heart of it.

The championing of Terry Farrell by Prince Charles in Vision of Britainis

testament to this. The book carries ringing support for the new post-modern

style. Another notable endorsement came for Robert Venturis extension to

the National Gallery. The project was praised for its inclusion of classical

detailing, without further praise for the planning of the building itself. The

interior planning of an art gallery is the facet of success that should be

deemed most important. The interior planning of Venturis extension, at

least at entry level should be valued for its staging and sequencing. The

mouldings on the exterior of the building must surely be the single least

interesting feature of the building.

As mentioned earlier, it is often said by anti-modernists that they represent

the overwhelming majority of British people:

traditional architecture is generally popular with the wider

public. This makes it a threat to the architectural mainstream

where, all other battles having been won, the only mission left

is the pursuit of public approbation.68

In 1984 the BBC ran a programme called Our London, in which post-war

buildings of London were rated for popularity by a postal voting poll of over

4,500 entries. In his review of the television show forBuilding Design, Ian

Latham wrote:

Few will be surprised to learn that blocks of housing take six

of the bottom eight places - how often have acquaintances, on

discovering your profession, warned you not to build any tower

blocks69

On this occasion, the public voted the Hillingdon Civic Centre in Uxbridge

by RMJM the best, with Alton West Estate Roehampton (LCC) and Robin

Hood Gardens estate rated the worst. Tower blocks were mostly not built

59


65/66

3.12: Britains Largest Cottage. Hillingdon Civic Centre

60


66/66

by architects but by committee. The profession has to be careful about its

association with such things.

Whilst acknowledging that a poll of 4,500 BBC viewers cannot be

representative of an entire nations feelings, the voting of Hillingdon

Civic Centre as most popular is particularly telling. This was essentially

a contemporary concrete framed ofce building with a conventional

programme, crudely draped in an intricate and apparently ornate brickwork

faade. In this respect it is again similar in some ways to the skin-deep

aesthetic of the Richmond Riverside development. In his book, A Broken

Wave Lionel Brett refers to the Hillingdon Civic Centre as Britains largest

cottage 70.

As mentioned earlier, popularity is generally cited as a cornerstone of the

anti-modernist argument. Ballantyne and Law point out in Tudoresque

Vernacular and the Self-Reliant Englishmanthat in the 1920s and 30s,

Tudoresque was the most commonly adopted building style:

for people who did not want to be seen as a pretentious but

who wanted to invest in their own little bit of England71

The xation on exposed Tudoresque beams in many of the countrys

houses may offer proof of a great fascination among the British public for

historicism, even though there is support too for 20th century architecture.

If it is true that the majority of the public dislike this architecture, how is

it that a movement founded upon the best social intentions has come to be

seen in such a derogatory light? In a 1993 interview, Denys Lasdun recalls

the 1960s as being:

a period of when Britain had beliefs and hopes I dont know

why people run it down so.72

Owen Hatherley echoes this sentiment, when describing the historical

context of Shefelds infamous Park Hill estates architecture:

This astonishing structure is a battered remnant of a very

different country, one that briey turned housing for working

people into futuristic monuments rather than shamefaced

61

part 1 british anti modernism londons south bank keir alexander diploma dissertation lowres

Documents