It's that time of year where we send our Christmas lists off to Santa, so we thought we would do a quick gift guide for the modernist at heart. Most of the books featured were published this year, but we have also included a few from 2019 that we missed at the time. First up is Luke Agbaimoni’s The Tube Mapper Project, a wonderful photographic journey around the tube network, capturing the hidden beauty of the underground world we all travel through but seldom notice. The project takes in Underground, Overground and DLR stations, and features poetry inspired by the tube and the city it serves. Luke also has Tube Mapper 2021 calendars available, both book and calendars can be purchased HERE Mark Amies is a writer and broadcaster who is a regular feature on Robert Elms BBC London Radio show. Out of his appearances grew London’s Industrial Past, an exploration of the factories that were once the backbone of the capitals manufacturing industry. In the first half of the 20th century every neighbourhood had a factory, producing everything from biscuits to aircraft. Featuring archive images and illustrations, it's the perfect gift for the local history enthusiast. The book is available HERE Moving northwards, Brutal North: Post War Architecture in the North of England is the new book from Simon Phipps, the man behind the Brutal London and Concrete Poetry books. The book focuses on the post war concrete buildings of the north, with buildings such as the Park Hill Estate in Sheffield and Preston Bus Station shown in all their glory through Simon’s powerful monochrome imagery. The book can be bought HERE Lukas Novotny published the excellent Modern London book last year, illustrating the capital architecture from the 1920s right through to the present day. Lukas also has a range of gifts available, from christmas cards to bookmarks to illustrations, perfect for the design buff in your life (even if that's you). All of them can be found HERE If you want to explore some Modernist neighbourhoods (more of which later..). Stefi Orazi has been producing a set of walking guides over the last 6 months, covering the best places to wander and see some of the best modernist architecture. So far, the guides cover Highgate, Hampstead, Archway & Belsize Park, Brussels, Blackheath and Bloomsbury to Barbican via Barnsbury. The guides are available individually or as a set which can be gift wrapped). Get them, and much more from Stefi’s site HERE If you like maps and want something further afield, Blue Crow Media have you covered. Their architecture and design maps take in everywhere from Chicgao to Tbilisi, via our own capital. You can see the full selection HERE. For the post war architectural devotee, two books published this year may be of interest. Richard Seifert: British Brutalist Architect by Dominic Bardbury chronicles the career of Seifert and explores 12 of his most famous buildings from Centre Point to the Natwest Tower. The other book is The Architectural Association in the Post War Years by Patrick Zamarian, an exploration on the role of the Architectural Association in the forming of post war architecture in Britain. Architects such as Neave Brown, Richard Rogers, Ted Cullinan, Nicholas Grimshaw, and nany, many more attanted or taught there, making it a crucible of design and ideas. If you want to get the architecturally minded in your circle something truly important, then what could be better than membership to the 20th Century Society? The C20 have been dedicated to saving, publicizing and exploring the buildings and design of 20th Century Britain and beyond. Becoming a member means you will relieve the C20 Magazine a few times a year plus their annualish C20 Journal, discounts on a range of talks and tours, and most importantly the knowledge that your money is helping preserve the architecture you love. You can also purchase their book 100 20th-Century Gardens and Landscapes, featuring a contribution from yours truly! Of course we can’t end with mentioning our own Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land. If you haven't got it already, we think it is the essential guidebook to discovering the modernist treasures of London’s suburbs. Featuring chapters on 9 London Boroughs and 2 counties plus maps, descriptions of each building and colour photographs. You can get your copy HERE. Whatever you get and give, we hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas!
All these books, plus a few others, can be seen on our Bookshop.org page HERE
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J.G. Ballard was born on 15th November 1930 in the Shanghai International Settlement, where his father was managing director of a subsidiary of Calico Printers Association, a Manchester textile company. Following the outbreak of war and his internment, the basis of his book Empire of the Sun, Ballard and his mother and sister returned to Britain, where he studied medicine. After a spell in the RAF, Ballard took up his writing career, starting off selling short science fiction stories to magazines like New Worlds and Science Fantasy, before publishing his first novel in 1961. Ballards output of short stories and novels, which ranged from 1961 until his death in 2009, continuously tackles the problems of architecture and the built environment, with his protagonist often cast as architects and frequent mentions of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright in his early short stories. His most famous work that tackles architecture is the 1975 novel High Rise, whose main character is the titular building, where civilization crumbles as the architect sits in his penthouse flat. The building in High Rise was said to be influenced by the Barbican Estate by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, and the architect character, Antony Royal, supposedly based on Erno Goldfinger. “I came to live in Shepperton in 1960. I thought: the future isn't in the metropolitan areas of London. I want to go out to the new suburbs, near the film studios. This was the England I wanted to write about, because this was the new world that was emerging.” We won’t analyze High Rise or any of Ballards work here, but we will explore some of the buildings that were part of his life or that he admired. Ballard famously lived in suburban Shepperton, where he worked and looked after his three children after his wife Mary died in 1964. The house he lived in, 36 Old Charlton Road, is a typical 1930s sun trap suburban house. The sun trap styled house was developed by the practice of Welch, Cachemaille-Day & Lander, who produced houses designs for building companies like Haymills and Roger Malcolm, and it rapidly became the default suburban house design from the start of the 1930s. The design of the house itself combined streamlined metal framed windows (the sun trap), patterned tiling, stained glass windows and sunken doorways. Some of the houses had flat roofs, but most, like Ballard's, were pitched. The fact that Ballard lived in such a normal suburban house was a point of fascination with critics, as if a master of such dystopian writing could only live in an abandoned electric substation or indeed a high rise block. The Westway is an elevated dual carriageway which takes the A40 trunk road from west to central London. Construction began in September 1966 and it was opened in July 1970. It was designed by the Greater London Council Architects Department with engineering by G. Maunsell & Partners. The roadway is 2.5miles long and was conceived as part of the London Ringsway network, a ring road project that was never completed. The Westway features in two Ballard novels, Crash (1973) and Concrete Island (1974). The latter novel finds Robert Maitland, an architect, trapped in the intersecting roadway where again civilization breaks down amid concrete. Ballard would later call the Westway “like Angkor Wat... a stone dream that will never awake”. “Take a structure like a multi-storey car park, one of the most mysterious buildings ever built. Is it a model for some strange psychological state, some kind of vision glimpsed within its bizarre geometry? What effect does using these buildings have on us? Are the real myths of this century being written in terms of these huge unnoticed structures?” Ballard was frequently asked about his favourite building throughout his career, and his answers are fascinating and often in keeping with his obsessions. One of those was the car parks of Watford. Reports differ about which was his main inspiration between Church Road and Sutton car parks, but Ballard called Watford “the mecca of car parks” and made a short film, CRASH!, which would inspire his later novel. Three car parks were built in Watford between 1965 and 1970 as part of a transformation of the town centre. Car parks in Rosslyn Road, Church Road and Sutton Road were designed by B.L. Williams and F.C. Sage of the Borough Engineers Dept. with helix spiral ramps and rugged concrete construction. Car parks are a theme of his short story collection The Atrocity Exhibition, and he says in the short film CRASH! that he sees “multi story car parks and their canted floors as a depository for cars seemed to let one into a new dimension.” “I've decided to recast myself as Utopian. I like this landscape of the M25 and Heathrow. I like airfreight offices and rent-a-car bureaus. I like dual carriageways. When I see a CCTV camera, I know I'm safe”
Ballard would later say his favourite building was the Heathrow Hilton hotel. The Hilton, one of a cluster of hotels around Heathrow Airport, was designed by the firm of Michael Manser & Associates and opened in 1990 and later won awards from the RIBA and Civic Trust. Ballard said that it was a masterpiece and “keeps alive the spirit of the 20th century’s greatest architect, Le Corbusier. Beautifully proportioned, it resembles a cross between a brain surgery hospital and a space station”. Indeed Ballard seemed to have seen Heathrow as the real city centre, saying that Shepperton was a suburb of Heathrow rather than London. Though brutalist estates like Trellick Tower and the Barbican loom large in his work, we can see from the buildings that Ballard talked about in interviews, his obsession remained the car and all the structures associated with it; flyovers, underpasses, car parks and the roadside hotel. Hornsey Town Hall was officially opened on 4th November 1935 by the Duke and Duchess of Kent, just under a year on from when Mayor William Grimshaw had laid the foundation stone on 29th November 1934. The town hall, which replaced the council's previous offices in Southwood Lane, was designed by architect Reginald Uren, winner of the competition to design the new building. Uren was born in Petone, New Zealand in 1906, moving to Britain in 1930. After arriving in Britain, Uren studied at the Bartlett School and worked for Charles Holden. He entered the competition for the new town hall in 1933, vying against over 200 other entries, with his design picked by the assessor C. Cowles Voysey (designer of town halls at Watford and Bromley) Uren’s design was heavily influenced by the Dutch architect Willem Dudok. Dudok was the Municipal Architect of the town of Hilversum in North Holland. The style he developed for the town grew out of the Amsterdam School of architecture, influenced by the brick expressionism as seen in Germany at the start of the 20th Century, and the Prairie school of Frank Lloyd Wright. Dudock’s most famous building in Hilversum was the town hall, completed in 1931. The new building at Hornsey featured a two storey building in pink brick with a rectangular tower at the junction of the L-shaped front that looks onto the small green. The exterior has long first floor windows with bronze balconies, above a triple door entrance. The tower also features Portland stone decoration by Albert J. Ayers. Inside, the building contained the council chamber, committee rooms and offices. The interior was finished with wood panelling, etched glass screens and metalwork balustrades. The other buildings flanking the green were Broadway House and the Electricity showrooms. Broadway House was designed by Drew and Carter as Gas Showrooms, and completed in 1937. It features reliefs above the ground floor depicting the uses of gas. The electricity showrooms on the opposite side of the green to Broadway House, was designed by Uren’s partnership, Slater, Moberly & Uren and completed in 1938. It also features artwork, with a carved brick facade representing light, above the entrance. The design won Uren the RIBA bronze medal and all three of the buildings were listed in January 1981. By then the Municipal Borough of Hornsey had been abolished and the area transferred to the new borough of Haringey, who used the 1958 Wood Green Civic Centre as their administrative base. The old town hall hosted concerts and events, until it fell into dereliction in the 1980s. The hall was leased out as an art centre and in 2019 renovation work was carried on the buildings, which are often used for filming period dramas. The site is currently undergoing redevelopment into a cultural centre and hotel with new housing being built around the town hall buildings.
Serge Chermayeff was born in the city of Grozny, in what is now known as Chechnya, on October 8th 1900. His family moved to Britain and Chermyaeff attended Harrow School, before completing his further education in various European countries. After working as a journalist and a designer, he trained as an architect and went into partnership with German architect Erich Mendelsohn, who had left Germany for Britain to escape the Nazis. Like Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry, Chermayeff and Mendelsohn had a brief but interesting working relationship. Together they designed the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea (1935), the Cohen House, Chelsea (1936) and Shrubs Wood, Chalfont St Giles (1934). The De La Warr Pavilion was one of the first prominent modernist public buildings in Britain. Chermayeff and Mendelsohn had won a competition to design it, promoted by Herbrand Scakville, the 9th Earl of De La Warr, looking to regenerate the town of Bexhill-on-Sea. The finished building uses reinforced concrete around a steel frame, designed by engineer Felix Samuley. The long horizontal shape is punctuated by a glass stair tower at one end, containing a steel spiral staircase. The building is now Grade I listed, having been refurbished by John McAslan in the early 2000s. The Cohen house at 64 Old Church Street, Chelsea, also has a long low appearance like the De La Warr pavilion. It was designed for the publisher Dennis Cohen, and despite its appearance is not built of concrete but rendered brick. It was designed to be in harmony with its neighbour No,66, designed by Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry for Cohen’s cousin, playwright and MP, Benn Levy. The Cohen house now features a conservatory by Norman Foster, added in the 1970s. Their partnership was dissolved in 1938 with Chermayeff moving to the United States in 1940 (Mendelsohn would move a year later). Apart from his works with Mendelsohn. Chermayeff left behind a number of other buildings in Britain; a house in Rugby (1934), the Gilbey Office and Factory in Camden (1937) and his own house in Halland, Sussex (1938), all now listed. The offices for the Gilbey Wine and Gine company are situated at the junction of Jamestown Road and Oval Road in Camden, and Chermayeff and Samuley designed the foundations with cork insulation to protect the wine from road and rail vibrations. His own house, Bentley Wood in Halland, was designed with a timber frame of jarrah wood, with the grounds landscaped by Christopher Tunnard.
He spent the next 35 years teaching at various institutes, including Havard, Yale, MIT and the California School of Fine Arts. He designed and built his own house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and spent time there painting. He had two sons, Peter who also became an architect and Ivan, a prominent graphic designer. Chermayeff died in Cape Cod in 1996. Sunday August 23rd 2020 is the 40th anniversary of the demolition of the Firestone Factory on the Great West Road in Brentford. It is an event which sparked a backlash against the quick demolition of such buildings (although it did not stop them) and galvanised the growing consensus around preserving 20th Century buildings. We shall explore the building itself and its design, and the aftermath of its demolition. The American Firestone Tire & Rubber Company had run a distribution base from Tottenham Court Road from 1915, but the 33.3% import tax was reducing their profit margin. By 1928 they had decided to build a British factory, and a 28 acre site alongside the newly opened Great West Road running out of Brentford was chosen. The plot was bounded by road, railway and canal, with the road frontage measuring 1260 feet, sloping down to the carriageway. Firestone wanted an integrated site, with raw goods being received and making their way through the factory and leaving as the finished product. Their factory in Akron, Ohio, built by Osborn Engineering, was designed to extract maximum efficiency from the journey of the raw material through the industrial process. In awarding the commission to Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, Firestone employed a practice who understood this idea. By the late 1920s, Wallis, Gilbert & Partners had already been practicing for around 12 years, designing factories and industrial buildings all over Britain. Two of those buildings were in nearby Hayes, for the Gramophone Company and Hayes Cocoa, but the Firestone commission was to be their most prestigious project yet. The design, which was submitted in February 1928 and altered over the next 6 months, consisted of a main administration block facing the Great West Road with the single storey factory building behind and a four storey dispatch and storage building further back. The journey of the raw material started in this four storey block, journeying through the production block before exiting as tyres back through the four storey building. Of course it is the art deco office building which people conjure up when they think of the Firestone building. The building was to act not just as an administration centre but also as an advert for the company and for what we would these days call its “brand”, looking to project speed, glamour and aspiration. The building was a mix of Classical allusions. In plan it was a Greek or Roman temple with its row of columns along the frontage, in detail it was Egyptian, with references to the gods Horus, Ra and Amun in its decoration. Egyptian design was still popular 6 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in 1922. By night the building was floodlit, producing a spectacular landmark along the Great West Road. Despite the lamentations at the time of its demise, and indeed now, the Firestone Factory was not always feted by the architectural press. After initial good notices when it was opened, the building and others designed by the firm were described by architect Maxwell Fry as displaying “all the worst sentimentalities of uncultured commercialism”, whilst others worried about the effect of soot and dust on the brilliant white facades. Firestone decided to close the factory in November 1979, moving all operations to their Wrexham plant, with the building being purchased by the conglomerate Trafalgar House. When they became aware that the Department of the Environment under Michael Heseltine was planning to list the building after the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1980, they immediately acted to demolish the art deco facade. This act caused widespread outrage, and boosted the profile of what was then The Thirties Society, now the 20th Century Society. It also caused a reassessment of the listing criteria for 20th Century buildings, allowing many more pre-1939 buildings to be preserved. Now all that survives of the building is the gateway and perimeter fence, although there are three other Wallis, Gilbert & Partners designs nearby; the Coty Factory, the Pyrene Factory and the Sir William Burnett workshop. Of course, the Firestone Factory wasn't the only art deco building demolished along this stretch. A peruse of the area on the Britain from Above website reveals a number of interesting looking buildings of the period, all now sadly gone. However, the Firestone Factory did not die in vain, its demolition led to a renewal of interest in buildings of period and their preservation, enabling us to enjoy some of the great designs of Wallis, Gilbert and Partners from the golden age of factory design.
The 20th Century Society still plays an important role in preserving the best buildings of the last 100 years. Help it prevent more demolitions like the Firestone Factory by becoming a member HERE References Form and Fancy by Joan Skinner London: North West by Nikolas Pevsner and Bridget Cherry This website is very fond of celebrating the work of Charles Holden for London Underground in the 1920s and 30s. His designs brought modernism to the suburbs, especially the extensions for the Northern and Piccadilly Lines. Holden designed about 44 underground stations, the majority of which are now listed. However, there are a number of station designs which didn't get built, and it is those we will investigate here. The majority of the unbuilt Holden designs for London Underground centre around the New Works Programme of 1935-40, and the cancelled Northern Heights project This was meant to extend the Northern Line further north than its terminals at High Barnet and Edgware. But there are a few unbuilt projects from earlier in Holden’s relationship with the underground. Holden’s first underground stations came as part of the Northern Line extension to Modern, designing 8 stations that were completed between 1925-26. Not long after in 1928, Holden and his practice, Adams, Holden & Pearson, were asked to design a station for the Central Line that would have been called Notting Hill Gate. It would have stood on the corner of Notting Hill Gate and Pembridge Gardens, and the design is similar to Holden’s for Bond St station the same year, a simple facade in brick and stone. Further west, Holden was asked to design a new station at Hounslow East, having also designed Hounslow West in 1931. Holden’s design here was a “Sudbury Box” style station with a tower that abutted the above ground railway viaduct, just as at Alperton. The station design was approved by London Underground CEO Frank Pick in June 1931, but construction never started. The station retained its 1909 station building until 2003 when it was replaced by a new station by Acanthus Lawrence and Wrightson Architects. On the other branch of the westen Piccadilly line to Uxbridge, Holden had developed a modular station design that could be used at different locations along the extension. This was never used, like Holden’s various designs for a station building on the awkward site at Hillingdon, where again the old station building survived until 1993, when it was replaced by the new station by Cassidy Taggart. One more Piccadilly station worth mentioning is Cockfosters. Opened in 1933, the station as built has modest street level buildings with one of Holden’s best interiors at platform level; all exposed concrete, looking forward to post war brutalism. The original plan for the station would have seen two brick towers either side of the Cockfosters Road, where the current buildings are, a grand terminus building for the new settlements around Trent Park that were stopped by the Green Belt Act. As mentioned earlier, the Northern Heights plan was to extend the Northern Line into Hertfordshire, pushing on from Barnet and Edgware, as well as integrating former London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines to the underground service. This was to be achieved under the New Works Programme of 1935-40, which looked to expand various tube lines and replace existing stations with modern designs. Highgate station would have been a connecting hub between the Northern Line and the LNER service. The site where the current and proposed station is situated is very awkward, on a sloping site on Highgate Hill. Stanley Heaps, chief architect for London Underground, produced a design with a hexagonal station building before Holden produced his designs. Holden’s designs would have encompassed a street level ticket hall with a circular tower, and then a long escalator ride down to the new platforms which were topped by a 12 ft high statue of Dick Whittington. Revisions were made to this design, and construction commenced in January 1939, with the station starting service a year later. However war time privations struck hard and building was stopped in March 1942. Post war, the design was strpped back to the basics and officially opened in August 1957. The island platforms are still intact and can be visited through the London Transport Museum Hidden London tours. A few stops north, Finchley Station station was to be redesigned, with a new station replacing the Victorian era building. Holden designed a number of schemes alongside New Zealand architect Reginald Uren, who would design Rayners Lane station alongside Holden. The various plans situated buildings either side of Ballards Lane, usually with a number of towers, sometimes glazed at street level. For reasons unknown the rebuilding project was never started, and the original station is still there. The extension of the Edgware branch of the Northern Line would have bought new stations at Brockley Hill, Elstree South and Bushey Heath. Brockley Hill station was to be designed between the office of Stanley Heaps and the planning office of All Souls College, owner of some of the land the extension would pass through. It was to be built on a viaduct next to Edgware Way, and would have incorporated a curving forecourt of shops. Work on the viaduct was started in 1939 but abandoned due to the outbreak of war. Remains of the viaduct can still be seen between the Edgware Way roundabout and Edgwarebury Brook. Holden was asked to design the two stations after Brockley Hill, at Elstree South and Bushey Heath. Elstree South would have been located further along the Edgware Way, just north of the area that would become the M1 motorway. As usual a few different designs were produced, the last one featured a station sitting over the tracks with a Chiswick Park style square tower. A statue of a figure in Roman dress was also to have been included in the site, alluding to the nearby Roman settlement of Sulloniacis. Bushey Heath station would have been the end of the extension, and located west of Elstree South next to the A41 roundabout. The building would have been in the centre of a new development, built to incorporate the expected continuation of the 1930s housing. Of course World War II and the Green Belt Act put paid to this sprawl. No firm plans were made, either by Holden or Heaps successor Thomas Bilbow, but various amenities were to have been included in the scheme including a pub, a cinema and a parade of shops. No construction was ever started on the scheme, and the Northern Heights project was officially canceled in 1950. As well as the unbuilt stations, there are a few what-ifs in Holden’s designs for the eastwards Central Line extension. As part of the New Works Programme from 1935-40, Holden was asked to design 3 stations at Wanstead, Redbridge and Gants Hill. Building was started on all three stations prior to World War 2, but put on hold when men and materials became scarce. When construction restarted after the war, Holden’s original designs were revised to cut costs. Wanstead was originally to have glass bricks forming part of the ticket hall and its tower, along with a carving of St George and the Dragon by Joseph Armitage. The final design jettisoned these in favour of austere prefabricated concrete panels finished in grey render, with black tiles around the station entrance. The design for Redbridge was to take the glass theme even further, with an almost totally translucent ticket hall, and an all glass tower incorporating a glass etching from the Paris 1937 Exposition. Obviously this would prove too expensive post war, so the building was finished with brick and tile. Thankfully the next station along, Gants Hill was less affected by shortages, with its Moscow Metro inspired platform area left alone. What it did lose, was a brick clock tower at street level, that would have sat in the roundabout above the underground ticket hall. Of course, Holden’s most famous unbuilt project is his designs for the University of London. Holden had been appointed to design a new complex of buildings for the University, who wanted to move from Kensington. Holden designed a proto-groundscraper, covering the whole area from Montague Place to Torrington Street. Construction was started in 1932, but funds for the whole project ran out, and the only completed part is now the Grade II* listed Senate House and Library. We have plenty of underground stations, and an array of other buildings like substations, signal boxes and depots,all designed by Charles Holden in the golden period between 1925 and 1940, but it's always interesting to think of what might have been…. Next stop Elstree South! References Bright Underground Spaces by David Lawrence Underground History website A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land, our guidebook to help you discover the suburbs best art deco, modernist & brutalist buildings. Go HERE to get your copy.
London Zoo opened in April 1828 as a scientific study centre, with grounds laid out by architect Decimus Burton. It opened to the public in 1847, with the grounds expanding and new animal enclosures and public buildings being added by Peter Chalmers Mitchell and John James Joass, such as the Mappin terraces, designed to provide a mountainous habitat for bears and other animals. In 1932 Berthold Lubetkin and his Tecton partnership were given a commission by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to design a Gorilla House, a project that would lead to a fruitful period of modernist zoological design. The Gorilla House consists of a circular plan, half enclosed and half open.The caged, open half can be insulated by a moving screen, allowing the interior climate to be kept warm enough to mirror conditions in the Congo, original home of the Gorillas. The closed half of the drum is constructed of reinforced concrete, with an asphalt flat roof. Alongside Charles Holden’s underground stations (of which some it mirrors in plan) it was one of the first public modernist buildings in Britain. The enclosure was opened on 28th April 1933. The following year Tecton produced their second building for the zoo, one that would create headlines around the world and come to signify both the positives and negatives of modernist design. The Penguin Pool consists of an elliptical pool containing interlocking spiral ramps, all in brilliant white reinforced concrete. The upper part of the pool has framed viewing areas supported by thin steel columns. The ramps have no such similar support, curving for 14 meters. Their design was made in cooperation with Ove Arup, who would work on many Lubetkin & Tecton projects in the 1930s, with Felix Samuley carrying out the structural analysis. Famously of course the penguins were moved in 2004 and the pool left empty, as the structure was not felt to be a natural environment for them. Tecton also designed a combined entrance gate, office and kiosk for the northern side of the zoo in 1938. Another building Tecton designed for the zoo was the Studio of Animal Art. The building was the first part of what would have been a complex of buildings used to investigate and research animal behaviour. The studio, the only part built, featured a studio to seat 25 students and two separate workrooms. The studio section contained a cage where animals would be placed for the students to observe. A separate cinema and lecture hall were planned but never built, and the studio was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the Nuffield Institute building by Casson and Conder, who also designed the new Elephant and Rhino House in 1965. Tecton had designed an elephant and rhino house for the zoo, but building was stopped at the outbreak of World War II and never completed. At the same time that Tecton were designing the Penguin Pool in London, they were also given the commission to design a number of buildings at Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, also owned by ZSL. Tecton designed an elephant house, a giraffe house, a kiosk and a cafe for Whipsnade. Only two of these four buildings still survive, with the giraffe house and the kiosk demolished. The timber giraffe house was the first completed of the four buildings, built in a rush to accommodate the arrival of the animals who were en route by sea. The local building firm employed to complete the structure did not follow Tectons designs exactly, with the public viewing area being reduced in size. After several modifications through the years, the building was demolished. Another Tecton design that wasn't built was a Gibbon House at Whipsnade, that featured an amphitheatre shaped canopy that would have amplified the Gibbon’s calls over the park. Neither of the two surviving Tecton buildings at Whipsnade are used for their original purpose. The concrete elephant house, made up of a series of circular stalls, was designed for younger elephants, with the older, larger animals kept elsewhere. Like the penguin pool in London, the elephant house was later deemed unsuitable and the elephants were moved and the building left empty. The restaurant is an annexe to the 18th Century farmhouse in the park, that served as the dining area. The new structure featured a wall of glass bricks for the entrance and views out to the park from two of the other three walls. The wall of glass brick was an idea Lubetkin and Tecton reused on their Finsbury Health Centre in 1938. The building now houses small primates. Tectons third zoo commission would prove to be their largest. Dudley Zoo was opened in the grounds of Dudley Castle, owned by the Third Earl of Dudley. Tecton designed thirteen buildings for the zoo, between 1935 and 1937, to house a range of animals, many moved from Oxford Zoo which closed in 1936. Twelve of these structures are now listed by Historic England, with only the penguin pool demolished, due to salt water corrosion, in 1979. The animal enclosures number a birdhouse, a bear ravine, an elephant house, a seal lion pool and a polar bear pit. The buildings for visitors that Tecton designed include the famous curved entrance, the Castle restaurant, two cafes and a number of kiosks. The buildings had all deteriorated by the start of the 21st century, and following funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, refurbishment was undertaken from 2012.
Tecton designed a number of highly influential buildings throughout the short life of the practice in the 1930s. Buildings like the Highpoint apartment in Highgate and the Finsbury Health Centre would set new standards for British modernism and be talked about by architects throughout the world. However the buildings that would embed them in the public's imagination were their buildings for animals. Designs such as the Penguin pool at London Zoo would often be the public's first experience of international style modernism, and although not always successful in terms of the original purpose, i.e. as homes for the animals, they remain part of the country's cultural imagination. Trevor Dannatt was born in London on 15 January 1920. He studied architecture at Regent’s Street Polytechnic, and joined the firm of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew upon leaving. Post war, he joined the architect's department of London County Council under Leslie Martin, and worked on the design of the Royal Festival Hall for the Festival of Britain, alongside Peter Moro.
Later Dannatt formed his own partnership and would go on to design a range of buildings; from houses to schools to churches. His first significant house was for Prof Peter Laslett in Cambridge in 1958, now Grade II listed. His other listed buildings include Blackheath Meeting House (1971), the Assembly Hall at Bootham School, York (1966) and his work at the University of Leicester (1960-62). Dannatt also produced a range of work for local authorities, designing social housing, children's homes and sheltered accommodation. We are pleased to share our updated website. The site has been freshened up, with a new theme and design, as well as some deeper changes. We have used new fonts throughout, with bolder type for the links and titles. We have also added notes and photos to existing pages, as well as adding over 30 new buildings to the site. We will continue to update the existing pages with photos and additional information over the coming months. The deeper change comes in the organisation of the site. Previously buildings were arranged into either Interwar or Postwar categories, depending one when they were built, and then into categories of Building Types. This organization came from the early days of the site, when there were fewer buildings. As the site has grown and spread beyond its original North West London home, the amount of buildings has grown dramatically, leading to a somewhat baggy site. To streamline the site and make easier to use, we have made some organizational changes. The Central London sections were moved to a new site Modernist London a couple of months ago. Now instead of the Interwar/Postwar Building Type organization, the site is organised geographically. All buildings are now listed according to the borough or county they are in, and the boroughs/counties have been grouped into North London, West London, East London, South London and Counties.
Hopefully this reorganization will make it easier for visitors to find buildings in a location they want to explore (the By Borough page was previously the most popular). Of course this geographical emphasis also reflects our forthcoming Guide to Modernism to Metro-Land (published 2020) which will feature modernist buildings from 9 London Boroughs and 2 counties. South London is a new area for the site, and so some of the Southern boroughs have only a few buildings in them, but we will look to expand them soon. Hopefully you will like the new changes and find them useful. If you have any comments or anything else you’d like to bring to our attention you can leave it in the comment section of the blog or email info@modernism-in-metroland.co.uk. Enjoy! Nicholas Grimshaw was born in Hove, East Sussex on October 9th 1939. After studying at Wellington College, he won a scholarship to the Architectural Association in London. There he met Peter Cook of Archigram, John Winter and Cedric Price. After leaving he formed a partnership with Terry Farrell, becoming the Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership. Together, Grimshaw and Farrell designed houses, apartments and factories. There most famous designs were; 125 Park Road, an apartment block overlooking Regents Park with flexibly planned interiors, the Herman Miller building in Bath, a factory scheme clad in fibreglass panels, and also a service tower for student accommodation in Paddington, which added bathroom facilities to a Victorian terrace. The partnership went their separate ways in 1980, with Farrell pursuing a more Post Modernist style. Grimshaw stuck to the Hi Tech, modernist path he had followed since leaving the AA. A number of his projects from the 80s and 90s have recently been listed; the Sainsbury superstore in Camden and its attached housing on the Grand Union Canal , the former Financial Times Print Works in Tower Hamlets and the Western Morning News offices in Plymouth. Like his contemporaries, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, his designs were in demand all over the world. His practice, now named Grimshaw Architects, have produced projects throughout Europe and in Australia and the US. Grimshaw was knighted in 2002 and was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 2019. The same year he stepped down as Chairman of the company but continues to be involved as a partner.
Buildings- Falling Lane, Grand Union Canal, Homebase Brentford, Sainsburys Camden |
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