One of the Fallen: Valentine Harding 1905-40

Six Pillars, Dulwich. Image from Conway Collection.

Many of the younger generation of British architects of the 1930s found themselves swapping the drawing board for the battlefield after war broke out in 1939. Some used their expertise to build structures that would enable the Allies to free Europe, Denys Lasdun for instance served in the Royal Engineers overseeing the construction of airfields. Others were directly involved in combat, James Stirling served in both the Black Watch and the Paratroop Regiment, twice being wounded. Of course some never made it back home. The Royal Institute of British Architects building in Portland Place has a memorial inscribed with the names of those who lost their lives in World War II, and among them is Valentine Harding, designer of a series of innovative modernist houses in the 1930s, but who was killed in 1940 on the retreat to Dunkirk.

Harding was born in Kensington on June 22nd 1905. After attending the public schools of Rugby and Oxford, he studied at the Architectural Association, graduating in 1931. A year later he was recruited by Berthold Lubetkin for his Tecton practice, alongside other young architects like Godfrey Samuel, Anthony Chitty and Francis Skinner. With Lubetkin’s oversight and the young architect's energy, Tecton designed some of the the first and most famous modernist buildings in Britain, including the Gorilla House and Penguin Pool at London Zoo and the Highpoint flats in Highgate, both projects Harding worked on. 

Egypt End, Farnham Common. Image from RIBApix.

Harding also designed two houses while a member of Tecton, Six Pillars in Dulwich and Egypt End in Farnham Common (both 1935). Harding designed the latter house in Buckinghamshire for himself and his family, set among trees and constructed of reinforced concrete with an almost blank front facade. The house was L-shaped in plan and arranged to receive maximum sunlight throughout the day, with sun terraces on the first and ground floors, connected by a metal spiral staircase. Black and white photos of the house from the 1930s show a stark white box, but in fact the exterior was finished in a combination of white, cream, blue and brown paint. Harding would later design a timber-clad brick lodge for his father that sat next door. Both buildings have since been altered. 

Cross section of Six Pillars, Dulwich.

The house at Dulwich was built for the headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School, Rev John H. Leakey, from whom Harding had got the commission. The ultra-modernist design was initially resisted by the landowners, the Dulwich Estate, before being grudgingly approved on Crescent Wood Road, on the edge of the estate. The house is named after the six cylindrical piers which support the overhanging first floor, one of many Corbusian elements included by Harding in the design. Seen from the road, the house almost appears as two structures, with the white rendered concrete form wrapping around a brick subsection which rises to form a cylindrical stair tower, glimpsed through a gap in the upper terrace. The interior was planned with two seperate bedrooms for Leaky and his wife, and the finish was kept minimal with a two storey window letting in light from the south-facing garden.

By-the-Links, Sundridge Park, Bromley. Image from RIBApix.

The members of Tecton came and went, with architects joining, like Denys Lasdun and Carl Ludwig Franck, and others leaving, as Harding and Godfrey Samuel did in 1935, setting up as a partnership. They duo designed a handful of houses and other projects before their work was interrupted by the outbreak of war. As with many two person partnerships, one focused on design work, in this case Harding, whilst the other sought commissions and dealt with clients, as Samuel did here. Their first design was for a house at Sundridge Park near Bromley for Mr R.M. Thomas, on Lodge Road, a private, unpaved street next to a large golf course. Like Six Pillars, By-the-Links (1935) was heavily influenced by Le Corbusier’s house designs and features a long strip window at the front and floor to ceiling glazing at the rear, along with a slightly recessed ground floor with the first floor supported by columns, this time thin metal piloti. ​

The rear elevation of New House, Hampstead. Image from RIBApix.

The partnership also designed New House in Arkwright Road, Hampstead (1938) for Cecil Walton, another headmaster, this time of University College School. Unlike their previous designs, both with Tecton and in Bromley, New House is not built in reinforced concrete but brick, albeit around a concrete frame. The house does feature a recessed section at the front, with a wall of glass bricks and a pill-shaped cut out at one end. The rear is three storeys, and has an array of different glazing, with sliding glass doors opening onto the garden, a recessed first floor terrace with floor to ceiling windows and horizontal strip windows on the top floor. The first floor living area behind the glass wall, featured a fireplace in flint and space for a piano.

Sketch of Overshot, Oxford. Image from RIBApix.

Despite the hard edged modernity of much of their work, the partnership also designed some houses that looked past the right angle to something more traditional. Overshot on Hinksey Hill on the outskirts of Oxford was built in 1937 for Sir Ellis Waterhouse, art historian and one of the Monuments Men, intelligence officers in World War II, tasked with saving priceless artworks for the Nazis (alongside architect J.E Dixon-Spain, who you can read about here)

The house is modern in form, but uses traditional materials and features a pitched roof, allowing it to blend into its rural location. It is laid out in an L-shape plan, with an attached double garage. The house is constructed of light red brick with cedar weatherboarding along the garden elevation, and has an overhanging copper roof. The entrance, placed on the long facade, has a large window made of square panes of glass, illuminating the long entrance hallway. The interior is fitted out with oak flooring, cupboards and shelving. 

The Sheiling, Jordans, Bucks. Image from Conway Collection.

Samuel and Harding also collaborated with housing consultant Elizabeth Denby on building  The Sheiling in Jordans, Buckinghamshire (1939). The house is the only built example of Denby’s All Europe House, a design she developed to be built in mixed height developments and arranged in staggered terraces in urban locations. Although this type of design was built widely in the postwar years, it was not taken up in the 1930s and the only built had a pitched roof and timber cladding. Samuel also assisted Elizabeth Benjamin in designing the modernist East Wall house in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, very much in the white-walled idiom of their Tecton houses. 

Vega vegetarian restaurant, Panton Street. Image from RIBApix.

Aside from the houses mentioned, Samuel and Harding designed a carpet factory in Rotherham (1940), the Vega vegetarian restaurant in Panton Street (1937) and two projects for Dulwich Preparatory; a nursery building (1937) and an evacuation camp in Kent (1938). Harding was killed around 27th May 1940, (some accounts differ), at the age of 34 as the British Expeditionary Force retreated to Dunkirk. In its obituary for Harding, the Architects Journal called him “one of the most important of younger British architects” and that his death was “a great loss to modern architecture in this country”

If you like this, you may want to Buy me A Coffee!