Banham’s 1966 book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?, brought together influences on Brutalism such as Le Corbusier and Owen Williams, and examples from around the world. The British examples included buildings by the Smithsons, Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardall, Denys Lasdun, Owen Luder, Lyons, Israel & Ellis, John Voelcker and many others.

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. 

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.

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. ​

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.
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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.

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.  ​

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

White Walls, White Heat, our photobook featuring 24 art deco and modernist factories from across London is available now, get yours HERE

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.

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

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.

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. 
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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!