Modern British Architecture

In 1987, At the Corporation of London Planning and Communication Committee’s annual dinner, the Prince of Wales delivered a blistering speech attacking modern architecture in general and tower blocks in particular. “Countless people are appalled by what has happened to their capital city, but feel totally powerless to do anything about it�(Wales, 3) he began, criticizing the “scientifically conceived slabs�(Wales, 4) of flats and offices that rear up into the London skyline. He is not the only one complaining. From the 1930s on, avant-garde architecture has been ideologically charged, pursued by architects with unwavering enthusiasm and well supported by government authorities, yet it has never been a popular success. Indeed, more often than not, the modernist tower blocks of the 50s, 60s and 70s have been reviled, criticized, and even passionately hated by the general public. Council estates, those bleak redevelopments that march across the British landscape, may be the most despised of all: hotbeds of poverty, crime and vandalism, universally dystopian and hostile, it seems inconceivable that they could ever have formed the vanguard of a utopian vision. Yet the planners and architects rebuilding Britain after the Blitz had a utopia in mind; these were men who believed that socialism, rationalism and planned architecture could solve all Britain’s social ills. No man believed in the future more than Russian émigré architect, Berthold Lubetkin, “the undoubted star of 1930s modern architecture in Britain�(Powers, 39). He and his collaborative partnership, Tecton, were called upon by London’s Finsbury Council to help rebuild the district after the blitz annihilated entire neighborhoods, to erect council estates where Georgian row houses had once stood. However, the bureaucracy and austerity of Lubetkin’s long-hoped for welfare state took its toll on construction efforts, and even Bevin Court, with its magnificent staircase, seems today- for all Lubetkin’s grand hopes and painstaking care- like just another formulaic tower block.

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When the young William Morris commissioned his friend and colleague, architect Philip Webb, to design him a home, it was inevitable that it would reflect their shared architectural philosophy. Completed in 1859, the Red House is regarded as the first building of the then un-named Arts and Crafts Movement, from its carefully asymmetrical façade to its hand-painted ceilings. Dedicated to honesty in design and good craftsmanship, and eager to allude to a romantic ideal, Webb and Morris created a home that, in its deficiencies as well as its strengths, clearly displays their youthful energy and commitment to their vision.

Morris and Webb met while working under Gothic revivalist architect George Edmund Street, for whom Morris was an apprentice and Webb, a senior clerk. While studying at Oxford, Morris had fallen in with a group of painters called the Pre-Raphaelites and Webb fit right into this artistic circle. In 1858, two years after they first met, the newly married William and Jane Morris approached Webb with the idea of designing a family home. It was Webb’s first solo project.

Webb actively resisted being attached to a specific style, preferring to develop a personal philosophy that was to become the foundation of the Arts and Crafts movement. He was strongly influenced by John Ruskin, an art and social critic, who once wrote that “art is the expression of pleasure in labor.� To Webb, an architect was no mere designer: an ideal architect would understand all the elements of construction, a ‘master builder’ who led a community of tradesmen rather than a domineering, distant presence. However, he rejected Ruskin’s idea that “a building without ornament is not architecture,� believing instead that good materials, arranged in a straightforward fashion, would be beautiful enough in and of themselves. While most Victorian architects tended to design according to some existing architectural style, without considering the context and integrity of the site, Webb wanted to reestablish a sense of place and consistency with regional traditions and craft.

Morris deplored the transformation that rapid industrialization had brought upon traditional English life, so it is not surprising that he chose the picturesque town of Upton-at-Bexleyheath - removed from the smokestacks of London - for his country home. The location had the added attraction of proximity to the pilgrim route Chaucer immortalized in The Canterbury Tales. At one acre, the plot was large enough for both a sizeable house and garden. Part of Webb’s philosophy was to think in terms of the whole site, and so the garden was part of the original design as well. The sloping roof of the building reaches down to the meet the climbing flowering plants, linking house with garden. Red House, as it came to be called, was built in the shape of an L, and took its name from its distinctive red-brick walls. Webb envisioned a house that, far from being just another box with windows, would consist of a collection of parts that color and distinctive roofing would bring together into a unified whole. Ruskin believed that the roof was the “soul� of a house, an idea Webb took to heart, constructing one that makes full use of varying pitches, gables, dormer windows and hips. Windows of all different shapes, sizes and arrangements break up the simple walls. The liberal design of the windows may seem haphazard, but in fact they correspond to the size of room behind them.

Some find the façade plain, even austere, but Webb believed that the beauty of a building came not from tacked-on ornamentation, but from the honest textures and colors of the craftsman’s work. The interior structural elements shared this devotion to honesty. Exposed brick detailing is found throughout, the ceilings share the general form of the particular roof shape above, and the point or segmentation of the arch is dictated by structural necessity. The simple, practical designs display a fidelity to the craftsman’s hand and gave Morris a space to ornament the interior any way he pleased. True to the Arts and Crafts spirit, Morris insisted that every decorative element and piece of furniture be designed and built specifically for his “Palace of Art.� He enlisted his visiting artist friends to paint, carve, and sew decorations for both the house and its furniture. The hand painted murals and glass window details often incorporated allusions to literature and allegory, while the tapestries that Morris’ wife Jane embroidered were covered with floral patterns of her husband’s own design. The personal touch is everywhere, from the iron-bordered dining table meant to withstand Morris’ drunken slamming of his beer glass to the presence of his motto, “If I can,� written beneath a window.

Although the house was built and decorated with a fastidious attention to detail, many more practical matters were overlooked. The Red House contains no bathrooms, only water closets; there was no back entrance for deliveries, meaning that they had to be carried through the garden; and there was an almost medieval disregard for heating. Victorians worried about the affects of the sun on their pearly white skin and interior furnishings, so the fact that the house was built facing North was not unusual, but this did mean that the house was brutally cold, even in summer. The larder, which should have been the coolest room in the house, was actually the warmest, while the ornate fireplaces were not large enough to adequately heat the rest of the house. In fact, the fireplaces smoked, and a few years after the house was built the chimneys had to be extended to fix the problem. Overall, however, Webb and Morris reached their goal: to create an unpretentious home, built by collaborative effort, that reasserted the status of the craftsman in the midst of the industrial revolution. The more pragmatic Webb later had some regrets about the building, but nevertheless, despite its idiosyncrasies, the Red House was a launch pad for the Arts and Crafts movement and remains a landmark of British Architecture.

Works Cited:

Kirk, Sheila. Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts and Crafts Architecture. Great Britain: Wiley-Academy, 2005.

Marsh, Jan. William Morris & Red House. Great Britain: National Trust Books, 2005.

Hollamby, Edward. Red House: Philip Webb. London: Phaidon, 1993.

Between two windows at Mackintosh’s Church at Queen’s Cross stands a single flying buttress. It is the only such feature on the street-facing side of the building, as the windows on either side of it are the only two windows that are inset deeply into the wall. Like the rest of the exterior, the buttress is made of red sandstone, and like the rest of the exterior it has a peculiar, almost cartoonish quality. Not only does it look vaguely zoomorphic- the pillar at the end of the buttress could be a bird’s face on a totem pole- but it also resembles a children’s slide: the highest part of the pillar juts out, and the smooth stone of the buttress seems carved away from it in one flowing movement.
A flying buttress helps support the walls of a church, especially in places where recessed windows weaken the structure. A gothic cathedral would have had hundreds of such features ranged around the entire building but Mackintosh included just one- suggesting, perhaps, that it is more of a playful addition than an architectural necessity. He built his church along classic lines: there is a tower, the windows look respectably gothic, and the larger windows run above the smaller, as in traditional cathedrals. Yet Mackintosh has fun with the classic formula, making the tower squat, the curves rounded, the detail minimal, and the buttress solitary. Instead of building a grand cathedral, terrifying and austere, Mackintosh creates a church that feels intimate, reassuring, and playful, like a cartoon in a child’s storybook.

This is a picture of the main reading room at my boarding school, Taft. I’m not sure when it was built, but I’m guessing it dates to the late ‘90s. Instead of feeling overwhelming or stuffy, as large library rooms can, this is one of the warmest, most welcoming spaces I know, boasting clean lines, bright pine detailing, and tall windows that let in lots of light. Thanks to its high ceiling and classic light fixtures, the room is recognizably a library reading room- the light fixtures in particular might have been stolen from the grand, gothic reading room in Sterling- but the architect has pared down the fireplace, windows and even the furniture, favoring simplicity over gothic excess. You can’t tell from this picture, but the windows are engraved with quotes from Taft’s founder, William Howard Taft, all championing character, good sportsmanship and school spirit. The architecture makes the ‘cathedral of learning’ idea of a library seem warm and inviting, the words engraved on the windows emphasize values that are not academic, and the student can look up from his or her books to see the sun setting over the sports center, or to see kids playing frisbee on the quad…perhaps I like this library so much because, although it is a place for study, at every turn it sends us calming reminders that studying needn’t be scary, and doesn’t mean everything.