Tag Archives: Modernism

John Hurst: When Modernism and Fascism Collide – Tracing the Lives of Five Art Historians in Germany and Austria in the 1930s

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There are many different strands to the Digitisation Programme and I’ve been lucky to have researched and written a number of photographer’s biographies. Recently I came across a very interesting thread amongst a group of German/Austrian art historians and photographers linked by politics, persecution and war.

In the late 1920s and 30s the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) brought about changes within German society that led to the persecution of many ethnic minorities and ultimately World War II.

Under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler the term Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) was used to describe Modern Art – both German and international as it was viewed as being an insult to nationalistic German feelings. Anyone perceived as being responsible for the creation of such art and those who purchased and displayed it in museums and galleries across the nation were sanctioned and in many cases dismissed from their posts. These actions led to many so called ‘degenerate’ works of art being taken off display or placed in storage – some never to be seen again.

In September 1933 the Reichskulturkammer (Reichs Culture Chamber) was established under the control of Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s Reichs Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He decreed that only artists who were “racially pure”or supportive of the Party would be allowed to be involved in the cultural life of the ‘new” Germany. By 1935 the Reichs Culture Chamber had over 100,000 members.

Modern art styles were prohibited, with the Nazis promoting paintings and sculptures that were traditional in tone and which exhibited values of racial purity, militarism and obedience. These same restrictions were applied to films, plays and music – especially jazz which was seen to stem from black influences.

In 1937 Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” (The Degenerate Art Exhibition) was organised by Hitler’s favourite artist  Adolf Ziegler a member of the Nazi Party since the 1920’s.

Besichtigung des Hauses der Deutschen Kunst durch Adolf Hitler. Daneben Frau Prof. Troost, Präsident der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Ziegler und Dr. Goebbels am 5.5.37. Hitler visits the House of German Art alongside Professor Troost, President of the Academy of Fine Arts. Ziegler is seen pictured wearing a bow tie and standing next to Goebbels. 5th May 1937. [Bundesarchiv, Bild, 183-1992-0410-546/CC-BY-Sa 3.0]
He became the foremost official painter of the Third Reich and had recently been appointed the President of the Prussian Academy of Arts.

Under the direction of Goebbels, Ziegler headed a five man commission that toured state collections in various German cities and seized over 5,200 art works deemed to be “degenerate”. The works were taken to Munich – the fervently pro-Nazi Bavarian capital to be installed at the Institute of Archaeology in the Hofgarten. This venue had been chosen especially for its rooms which were dark and narrow and provided the desired depressing atmosphere.

The Führer was the arbiter of what was considered “Modern” and on the eve of the exhibition opening, he had made a speech declaring “a merciless war” on cultural disintegration, describing the people who produced such art as “incompetents, madmen and cheats”

To further emphasise their distaste and disgust the organisers decided that many of the paintings were to be displayed without frames, hung at angles and partially covered or accompanied by derogatory slogans such as:

“An insult to German womanhood”

“Nature seen by sick minds”

“German farmers – a Yiddish view”

and as a reference to the museum and gallery directors loathed by the regime:

“Even museum bigwigs called this “the art of the German people”

The exhibition contained paintings, sculptures and prints by 112 primarily German artists and also works of art by Picasso, Chagall and Mondrian which had been confiscated by Ziegler and his cronies.

Some of the paintings had labels next to them detailing the amount of money a museum or gallery had spent to buy them. Prices were greatly exaggerated using costs based on the post WWI Weimar hyperinflation period where money had been devalued.  All of this was designed to promote the idea that “Modernism” was a conspiracy by people who hated German decency (without a hint of irony !) and that money would have been better spent providing citizens with food or essential services.

Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” was timed to coincide with the “Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung” (Great German Art Exhibition) – a showcase of art by German artists approved by the Nazis. Over 2 million people had visited by the time it closed on 4th November 1937. By comparison “Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung” was viewed by half that number.

After Munich, it toured other cities such as Berlin, Leipzig, Düsseldorf,  Vienna and Salzburg where another 1 million people visited.

Children were denied entry to these exhibitions due to the perceived harmful and corruptive nature of the works of art.

After the exhibition had completed its tour of Germany and Austria, many of the paintings which had been seized were sold to foreign art dealers who were assured by the regime that the proceeds would be used to upgrade and replenish collections in Germany’s museums. This was not true and most of the money raised went to fund the massive increase of Germany’s armed forces and armaments. In 1939, the authorities burnt over 5,000 works of art that it could not sell.

Photographs contained in the Conway Library, and part of the Digitisation Programme are attributed to Drs Georg Swarenski, Alfred Scharf, Ernst Nathan, and Susanne Lang. They were all of Jewish faith or origin so at risk of dismissal from their jobs or worse.

Georg Swarzenski

Swarzenski had been appointed Director General of all the museums in the city of Frankfurt-am-Main in 1928 and was responsbile for purchasing works of art from many genres, some of which were seen as ‘degenerate’ when the Nazis came to power. In 1933 he was dismissed from his posts in public office but allowed to remain as a director of a private gallery. Five years later he was arrested by the Gestapo on the grounds that he had written an anti-authority article in a local newspaper.

He was set free without charge a short while later, but being Jewish, Swarzenski realised that he had become increasingly in danger and within a few weeks he and his family had emigrated to the U.S.A.  At the time of his death in 1957 he had been working as a Curator in the Medieval Arts department of Boston’s Fine Arts Museum.

Two black and white photographs mounted on card, depicting two angles of “The Martelli David”. Burlington Magazine, April 1959. Pope Hennessy “The Martelli David” (ex Casa Martelli Florence). Washington N.G. (Widener Coll) David, ascribed to Antonio Rossellino. CON_B05578_F002_005, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

Alfred Scharf

Scharf was the son of the founder of the Goldring audio equipment company and studied art history and classical archaeology in Berlin before becoming a research assistant at the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) part of the Berlin State Museum. As a freelance writer of art history in the early 1930’s he had planned to write a dissertation on the Italian Renaissance painter Filipo Lippi at the University of Frankfurt, but his Jewish descent and the growing anti-Semitic attitudes in the country prevented him doing so. In May 1933, he emigrated to Britain where he worked as a freelance art expert.

He also lectured on 15th century Italian and 17th century Dutch/Flemish painting at the Courtauld and was a consultant at the Warburg Institute.

Due to his considerable reputation as an art historian, in 1940 the German authorities placed Scharf on Hitler’s Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. (Special Search List. Great Britain). In the event of a successful German occupation of Britain after the retreat of British forces from Dunkirk, he would be arrested and used as an advisor on which works of art and sculptures were worthy of looting and taking back to Germany to be added to the ever growing “collections” of Hermann Göring and other prominent Nazis. Scharf’s name was one of over 2,800 on the list.

He became a British citizen in 1946 and aspects of his life and work were featured in an episode of the BBC series “Fake or Fortune”.

Ernst Nathan

A black and white photograph of Ernest Nathan/Nash. Bildarchiv, “Ernest Nash”, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main

Nathan was born in Potsdam Germany in 1898 to a Jewish family. He studied law and Roman history in Berlin and served in the German army during WWI, where he took up photography to relieve the boredom of being stationed on the Italian Front.

After the war he resumed his studies and by 1926 had set up his own legal practice in Berlin. In the mid 1930s, the rise of the Nazis started to make life difficult for Jews like Nathan and his membership of the Communist Party added to his problems. In 1936 he and his wife and children moved to Italy but by 1938 the rise of national socialism under Mussolini meant that they were unsafe in their adopted country so they moved again – this time to New York where he set up a photographic studio.

He decided to change his name to the less Germanic Ernest Nash and over the following years established a reputation as a portrait photographer taking pictures of amongst many others – jazz musician Benny Goodman and composer Benjamin Britten who had moved to the U.S.A. as a pacifist during WWII.

After the war, Ernest resumed his studies of Roman history and architecture, moved back to Italy and devoted his life to photographing and chronicling ancient Roman and Christian sites in Italy, North Africa and the Middle East. He died in Rome in 1974.

A black and white photograph mounted on card, depicting Michelangelo’s La Pietà. La Pietà. Michelangelo, Rome, St. Peters, 15th Century Italian Sculpture, CON_B05530_F001_015. The Courtauld Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-CC.

A black and white photograph mounted on card, depicting La Pietà, more specifically a detail of Jesus’ face. La Pietà Michelangelo Rome, St. Peters, 15th Century Italian Sculpture, CON_B05530_F001_035. The Courtauld Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-CC.

Susanne Lang

Lang was born in Vienna in 1907 and studied art history and ethnology at the Kunsthistorisches Institut. She graduated in 1931 and published her dissertation titled: “ Voraussetzungen und Entwicklung des Mittelalterlichen Städtebaus in Deutschland” (Determinants and Development of Medieval Urban Planning in Germany).

A black and white photograph mounted on card, depicting a stone sphinx. A. Neuturi. Sphinx signed and dated Fra. Pasquale 1286 (from S.M. del Grado) Museo Civico CON_B05180_004_004. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Lang was Jewish by birth and after the 1938 Anschluss when Nazi Germany annexed Austria she suffered persecution and exclusion because of her religion. She emigrated to England and formed a professional relationship with German art historian Nikolaus Pevsner. Although he had also been born Jewish, he had converted to Lutheranism at a young age, but had been forced to flee Germany due to the Nazi race laws.

They worked together on many books and during her time in London Susanne Lang worked closely with art historians and fellow academics at the Courtauld and Warburg Institutes. She retired to live in Israel and died in 1995.

So, four people whose photographs ended up in the Conway Library and whose lives were affected and changed forever by political upheaval beyond their control. There is however a twist in this story relating to another Dr whose photographs are also in the Conway Library.

Dr. Moritz Julius Binder

Binder was born in Stuttgart in 1877. He studied music at the Vienna Conservatory and then art history in Berlin.

In 1912 he became an employee of the Berlin Arsenal a Baroque style building erected in the early 18th century and which served as an armoury for the Brandenburg-Prussian Army and later as a museum.

A black and white photograph mounted on card, depicting a wooden sculpture of the Madonna and Child. Tafel II MITTLERHEINISCHER-MEISTER. ENDE DES XIV JAHRHUNDERTS. MADONNA MIT KIND Lindenholz, hoch 99cm. Besitzer: Dr M.J. Binder – Berlin. from the Church near Ostein in the Taunus. MJ Binder coll, Berlin CON_B05284_F002_001 The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

He was appointed as the Director in 1913 – a post he held for twenty years until he was dismissed under the new Nazi law aimed at ‘restoring professional civil service’ It was essentially a means of getting rid of people of Jewish or other ethic origins or those whose political views and actions were at odds with those of the National Socialists. There is no evidence that Binder was Jewish but his museum policies were criticised by far right circles, most likely due his buying and displaying what was viewed as ‘Degenerate Art”.

Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring was one of the most powerful members of Hitler’s regime and the man who instigated the policy of eliminating Jews from German economic and social life. He was also an avid ‘amateur’ art collector who became a professional looter of art from countries invaded and conquered by the Nazis before and during WWII.

During his time as a museum director, Binder had become a close friend of influential German publisher Dr Helmut Küpper and his wife, the Russian artist Paraskewe “Baika” Bereskine. “Baika” had painted the portraits of Hermann Göring’s first wife Carin who died in 1934 and his second wife Emmy and had become a favourite of the Reichsmarschall whose patronage was very useful to her.

By coincidence, Binder advised a Berlin art dealer who sold paintings to Göring. It was through this dealer Johannes Hinrichen and “Baika” Bereskine that Binder was introduced to Göring around 1935 and he is thought to have acted as a Consultant on which pieces of art were worth buying or stealing from the properties of people who had fled Germany or suffered worse fates at the hands of the regime.

In 1938 he was dismissed by Göring following disagreements about the authenticity of certain works of art and replaced by Walter Andrea Hofer. who became Director of Göring’s art collections. Hofer did not have the breadth of knowledge that his predecessor had so he often asked him for advice on what to buy or “steal”. During the war Mauritz Binder left Berlin to avoid Allied bombing raids and moved to live in the countryside. He died in January 1947.

Swarenski, Scharf, Nathan and Lang may or may not have known each other but they are all linked by their religious and cultural beliefs which brought persecution and danger to their lives. Binder on the other hand, either through choice or as an act of self preservation actively assisted the main perpetrators of their persecution by identifying works of art, some of which would have been in the private collections of Jews or Communist sympathisers which were then ‘stolen’. Most of these artworks were either not recovered or returned to their owners or families so Binder and others bore a great deal of responsibility.

Five individuals connected by chance and coincidence and thanks to the Digitisation Programme we are able to preserve some (at least) of their work and legacy where it was once at risk of being erased.

John Hurst

Digitisation Volunteer,  July 2023

Billy Warren: Overlapping Forms – Shared Motifs in the Art of Barbara Hepworth and Denis Mitchell

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Love it or hate it, abstract sculpture has become a fixture of the art scene in the UK and around the world. Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) was one of the figures who helped make abstract art what it is today. One of Britain’s foremost abstract sculptors, Hepworth shaped the art form in the post-war years and, along with Henry Moore, helped popularise modernist art. She was one of the most famous members of the St Ives School, a group of artists based in a coastal town in Cornwall, and many of her works were inspired by the Cornish coastline.1

Denis Mitchell (1912-1993) was another artist and became Hepworth’s assistant in 1949 after being recommended to her by Bernard Leach, a renowned potter who also lived in St Ives. Mitchell would work for Hepworth, helping to carve her sculptures, until a decade later in 1959.2 Hepworth was the one who encouraged Mitchell to turn to sculpture rather than painting,3 and there are strong similarities between their works. He became an art teacher and an abstract sculptor in his own right, but never reached the same level of success as Hepworth.

It is interesting to see where Hepworth and Mitchell’s art holds the same inspiration and where it diverges. The two artists had many forms which they used, likely thanks to Hepworth’s intervention (explicitly or otherwise) in the development of Mitchell’s sculpture. Here I take a cursory glance at these overlapping forms, looking at three in particular. These are the pierced form (where a hole is made through a sculpture), the theme of the divided circle, and the ‘upward prongs’ motif (where horn- or spike-like forms protrude from the sculpture). Both Hepworth and Mitchell brought their own interpretation to each form, making it interesting to compare their different styles.

 

Pierced Forms

The pierced form was undoubtedly a hallmark of Hepworth’s work and one of her greatest innovations. Her first pierced sculpture was Pierced Form, a since-destroyed 1932 piece.According to the Tate, the pierced form became an “essential element” of her artistic life.4 Hepworth herself said that they had given her “sufficient field for exploration to last a lifetime”.5

Hepworth is credited as the sculptor to first introduce the idea,6 cementing her influence over modern sculpture. She saw the introduction of negative space both as a story in itself and also vital in creating both ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ forms.

With Hepworth using such a novel form, it is unsurprising that Mitchell adopted it. He also pierced his sculptures, but in a different way to Hepworth. Hepworth’s simple circular inner forms such as those in Square with Two Circles evolve into the thermometer-like negative shapes which frequent Mitchell’s work and are seen in Polzeath and Talmore (see pictures below). The vertical lines created in the negative space lend themselves particularly well to Mitchell’s tall, thin sculptures. The different way that Hepworth and Mitchell incorporate negative space within their art contributes to their distinct styles.

 

Five bronze abstract sculptures by Denis Mitchell stand against a red background. The two taller, thinner sculptures are arranged behind the three shorter sculptures. They are lit from the right and cast soft shadows towards the bottom left of the picture. [Denis Mitchell bronzes. Left to right: Endellion (1971), Carnelloe (1975), Polzeath (1974), Talmore (1974) and Pelyn (1975). Attribution: P. Davies. CON_B07398_F02_013. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

 

A black and white photograph of a bronze abstract sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. The sculpture is made of a rectangle with a hole through its left side on top of a square with a hole through its right side which stands upon a smaller rectangle joined to a plinth. The top rectangle has a lighter finish than the rest of the piece. ‘Square with Two Circles’ (1963) by Barbara Hepworth. Attribution: Tate Gallery. CON_B07282_F01_045. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

 

Divided Circle

The divided circle was an important motif for both Hepworth and Mitchell and it became a recurring feature of their art. The complexity of this idea meant that there was opportunity for experimentation – the shape could be seen as both one circle or two separate parts.

Hepworth’s circles were often divided through physical separation such as with Two Forms (Divided Circle). Each half of the circle has its own details – both are pierced, but with holes of different sizes and differently-shaped indents. This creates a sculpture which embodies the concept of the divided circle. The two halves can be seen independently, as forms in their own right, or together, making a unified circle.

Mitchell, however, shows the different ways the circle can be divided while still remaining one object in his Variations on a Theme No.1 through to No.5. In Variation on a Theme No.2, the circle is divided at the front of the sculpture but attached at the back, making a figurative but not literal division. In Luxulyan, another work by Mitchell, he makes the division by polishing one half of the circle and creating a patina on the other. The progression of the idea through from literal separation, to partly divided, to only a visual division shows an interesting evolution between the work of Hepworth and that of Mitchell.

An abstract bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth photographed in a garden. The sculpture is two separate halves of a circle, each with a circular hole in them, offset from one another slightly and attaching to a plinth at the ground. ‘Two Forms (Divided Circle)’ by Barbara Hepworth. Attribution: “Clare College, Cambridge, July 2010 (03)” by Ardfern on Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0]

 

An abstract bronze sculpture by Denis Mitchell on a black plinth sitting on a teal surface that fades to a black background. The sculpture is a circle roughly divided in half and separated except for a connection at the back of the sculpture. The faces of the halves are polished while the connection has a patina. Variations on a Theme No. 2 by Denis Mitchell. Attribution: Christie’s. CON_B07398_F02_011. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

 

‘Upward Prongs’

One of the forms that was especially key to Mitchell’s style was ‘upward prongs’. These prongs become an aspiring form, giving his sculptures a noticeable dynamism. In Gemini (pictured below), one of Mitchell’s marble sculptures, the prongs give a lighter feel to the material by reaching away from the main body of the work. The prong motif can also be seen in the thinner, needle-like spires such as in Porthcressa and Thrust. In some sculptures, like Widdon, one of the prongs is removed altogether, resulting in an elegant droplet shape. These prongs and spikes are characteristic of Mitchell’s work, but they also make appearances in Hepworth’s sculpture.

Cantate Domino (1958, pictured below) and Stringed Figure (Curlew) (1957) seem the most Mitchell-esque of Hepworth’s pieces. These types of ascending, open-ended sculptures that she made in the last half of the 1950s form a particular period in her career and are among her most dynamic works. As they were produced in the last years of Mitchell being Hepworth’s assistant, it is reasonable to expect that he chose this particular form to explore further.

 

A black and white photograph of a white plaster model for a sculpture sitting on a plinth. The picture has been taken in a garden and a church tower can be seen in the background. The sculpture is two diamond shapes on top of one another made from flat strips of material. The upper diamond is not closed at the top, and the front and back of the sculpture are left open so it is possible to see through parts of it. Plaster model for ‘Cantate Domino’ (1958) by Barbara Hepworth. CON_B07279_F02_025. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

 

A black and white photograph of a marble sculpture taken outside. The sculpture is two upright forms angled such that only the one on the right is facing the camera. The sculptures have oval-shaped holes in them and ‘prongs’ rising out of the top. ‘Gemini’ (1973) by Denis Mitchell. Attribution: P. Davies. CON_B07279_F02_025. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

 

Even in the motifs and forms which they both used there are noticeable differences between the art of Hepworth and Mitchell, showing the breadth of their combined creative exploration. It is precisely where their styles diverge that both Mitchell and Hepworth find their niche; much more could be said about this, though it falls outside the scope of this blog post. In a more general sense, Mitchell and Hepworth’s work with similar forms shows how the same abstract techniques and motifs can be used in different ways by different artists. It is exactly this that gives abstract art its potential and is the reason that it continues to develop to this day.

 

Bibliography

Tim Adams (7 June 2015), “Barbara Hepworth: A life told in six works”<https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/07/barbara-hepworth-life-in-six-works-tate-retrospective-exhibition-sculpture-for-a-modern-world>, The Guardian, accessed June 2023

John Halkes (25 March 1993), “Obituary: Denis Mitchell”<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-denis-mitchell-1499773.html>, The Independent, accessed June 2023

Sothebys.com <https://www.sothebys.com/bsp-api/lot/details?itemId=a7649144-1d77-401e-b4da-b68625595342>, accessed June 2023
“Pierced Form”<https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hepworth-pierced-form-t00704>, Tate, accessed June 2023

Ruthie Collins (3 January 2020), “Divided Circle”<https://cambsedition.co.uk/arts-culture/divided-circle/>, Cambridge Edition, accessed June 2023

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen (25 November 2022), “Of stone and wood: sculptor Barbara Hepworth steps out of Henry Moore’s shadow”<https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/nov/26/of-stone-and-wood-sculptor-barbara-hepworth-steps-out-of-henry-moores-shadow>, The Guardian, accessed June 2023

 

Billy Warren
Courtauld Connects Digitisation
Oxford University
Micro-Internship Participant

Kasturi Pindar: Anonymous Figures

Architecture Internship Micro-Internship Photographic Library Digitisation Project Photographic Prints Placement The Conway Library No Comments


Finding Humanity in Architectural Images of Amdavad

This blog post is designed as a virtual exhibition and is best viewed here. An accessible version is available below.


In the 1950s, the Franco-Swiss architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, designed and oversaw the construction of four buildings in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Architectural photographs of his work are the only trace of twentieth century Ahmedabad in the Conway Library. Such photographs are cold and impersonal: detached, reverent images capture the triumph of the architect. Le Corbusier had a vision for modern Indian architecture and the photographers honour and exalt his work.

In the Conway Library, photographs are skewed towards Europe. Photographs of the ‘East’ suffer from the colonial gaze of the white photographer, and those taken in Ahmedabad are taken in celebration of a European architect. The attribution on the photographs is always to the architect, Le Corbusier, though some of them name the photographer too. English words are used to locate the image: ‘Ahmedabad’ rather than the Gujarati, ‘Amdavad’. ‘Museum’ rather than its name, Sanskar Kendra. ‘Le Corbusier and assistants,’ even though one ‘assistant’ is the famous Indian architect Balkrishna V Doshi.

Sometimes, anonymous figures find their way into architectural photographs. A man hidden at the back of the frame, a woman at work. We don’t know who they are, or the stories they would tell.

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How do you tell the story of someone that you do not know?

Saidiya Hartman narrates the stories of the nameless and voiceless, those whose lives are impossible to trace due to their absence from historical archives. She uses a method of ‘critical fabulation’ and speculation which draws inferences from documents and photographs to craft a written portrait of her historical subject.

In what follows, four photographs guide the text. Each photo is accompanied by three captions in which I attempt to disrupt the colonial gaze and bring to life the strangers caught in these images. In the first caption, I use my imagination to speculate on the people pictured and the events that were unfolding as these photos were taken, in a method similar to Hartman’s. A second caption is crafted from my interpretation of the photograph and research into the social context the building. The final caption follows the format of the architectural photograph: an impersonal account of the building.

Woman with jhadu

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Early morning. The sun had just begun to cast a bright light onto the Sanskar Kendra, but under the shade of the building it was still cool and quiet. A few voices drifted across the open air from across the museum, broken only by the whoosh of the jhadu against the concrete slabs. The woman had noticed the European photographer out of the corner of her eye, standing on the ramp and looking down over where she was working. She didn’t pay him much notice, continuing her sweeping without a second thought.

Sanskar Kendra City Museum, viewed from ramp

Lennart Olson, the Swedish photographer, took this picture from the entrance ramp to the City Museum of Ahmedabad. The woman in the image shows the scale of the building: the pilotis hold the building above the ground, forming a shaded, open courtyard. Light and shadow play in this photograph.

Overexposure due to bright sunlight burns the columns at the back and the woman’s figure is cast as a sharp silhouette. On the floor above, sunlight flows through the back window, illuminating the tiled floor and exposed brick walls of the interior.

Ahmedabad City Museum, Le Corbusier, 1954.

The Sanskar Kendra Museum in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, was designed by the great twentieth- century architect, Le Corbusier. Its foundation stone was laid in 1954. The museum is elevated 3.4 metres above ground level, supported by pilotis. Le Corbusier designed the building to protect from the heat, with 45 large basins built into the roof as a cooling mechanism. Today, the museum is closed and parts of it have begun to fall down.

Intermission

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Within a forest of cool concrete, a man reclines in the warmth of the afternoon. He sits, partially shaded from the sun, under a narrow column. Crossing one ankle over the other he stretches his legs out into the sunlight and opens his book. This is well-earned period of respite from working and, hopefully, nobody will disturb him. As he reads, the plants and the trees next to him rustle and dance in the warm breeze.

Ground floor of the Mill Owner’s Association Building

This photograph depicts the ground level of the Mill Owner’s Association Building. The name and address of Snehal Shah are recorded on the back of the image, though it isn’t clear whether Shah is the photographer, the collector, or somebody else. Two paper signs posted on the wall on the right of the image, a bike parked on the left, and a man reclining in a chair at the back of the scene indicate that the building was in use, and that the photo was taken sometime after it was completed in 1954.

Mill Owners Association Building, Le Corbusier, 1954

The Mill Owner’s Association Building was commissioned by the association’s president, Surottam Hutheesing. The building, which represents Le Corbusier’s vision for modern Indian architecture, was the first of four by the architect to be completed in Ahmedabad. Large brises-soleil protect the interior of the building from the sun, whilst allowing for a breeze to enter from the Sabarmati River below, and creating a sharp, geometric pattern in the concrete.

Posture

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The European architect dominated the room. He sat at the table, posing for the camera almost comically with his pen. The other young men gathered around him as if to absorb his knowledge and acknowledge his wisdom. He was certainly a character: he never seemed to remove that hat, and they had overheard his needlessly callous response to Madame Sarabhai when she requested that he place railings on her balconies to prevent anyone falling from a height.

Le Corbusier and ‘assistants’ at Villa Sarabhai

In this posed photograph, Le Corbusier is surrounded by two unnamed men and the Indian architect, Balkrishna V Doshi, who wears a black coat. Power is demonstrated in no uncertain terms. Sitting at the centre, wearing his characteristic thick-framed glasses, Le Corbusier commands the image. Leaning over him, the other men demonstrate who is in charge. Doshi stands next to him, lower in status but easily able to see and participate. The other two men must lean over much further, as if in submission.

Villa Sarabhai, Le Corbusier, 1955

Villa Sarabhai was commissioned by Manorama Sarabhai, the sister of Chinubhai Chimanlal, a millowner and first mayor of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The house was completed in 1955, having been constructed with a combination of brick and concrete. A large exterior staircase and slide extend from the pool at ground level to the first-floor terrace.

Cubic garden in Amdavad

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A woman crosses the garden in front of the house. I am unsure of who she is: could she be a relative of Shyamu Shodhan? His mother perhaps? The house towers above her, enormous. Its straight lines and right angles bluntly carve the clear sky. It is a symbol of wealth and status and she isn’t unaware of this fact. She walks along the length of the house in a narrow strip of sunlight, which glances off her white saree. The sun has long passed its peak and the evening air has begun to cool, yet the grass beneath her bare feet is still warm as she walks.

Front of Villa Shodhan

This photograph is captioned ‘Garden front,’ but is not attributed to any photographer. A woman is pictured walking across the garden at Villa Shodhan. The building is formed of concrete in geometric, rectangular lines. Chairs left out under the shade of the overhangs suggest that the front of the house may be used as a modernist veranda, a place for postcolonial rest.

Villa Shodhan, Le Corbusier, 1956

Completed in 1956, Villa Shodhan was initially commissioned by Surottam Hutheesing of the Mill Owners Association to showcase his social and economic position. However, the plans were eventually sold to Shyamubhai Shodhan, another millowner. The house combines elements of Indian architecture, such as the double-height entry hall, and elements typical of Le Corbusier, including an internal ramp that connects the floors.

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References

Images (in order of appearance)

Ahmedabad, Mill Owners’ Association Building. Attribution: Snehal Shah, CON_B04390_F001_007. The Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Mill Owners Association Building, View from across the Sabarmati River: Illustration in Catalogue of Exhibition – Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century – Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, March – June 1987. Attribution: Lucien Hervé, CON_B04390_F001_005. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Villa Sarabhai, Entrance. Illustration in catalogue of exhibition – Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century – Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, March – June 1987. No attribution, CON_B04390_F001_043. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Museum. Attribution: Lennart Olson, CON_B04390_F001_016. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Mill Owners Association Building. Attribution: Snehal Shah, CON_B04390_F001_035. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Villa Sarabhai. No attribution, CON_B04390_F001_055. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Villa Shodhan, Garden Front Illustration in Catalogue of Exhibitions – Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century – Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, March – June 1987. No attribution. CON_B04390_F001_058. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC

Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Villa Shodhan. Attribution: Lennart Olson, Alinari Brothers Ltd, Edizioni Alinari. CON_B04390_F001_057. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC- BY-NC

Books and Articles

Architexturez. Sanskar Kendra City Museum. https://architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-178850 (Accessed 22 June 2023)

GreyScape. Capturing Modernist India. https://www.greyscape.com/capturing-modernist- india-with-john-gollings/ (Accessed 22 June 2023)

Hartman, Saidiya (2019). Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals. London: Serpents Tail

Hartman, Saidiya (2008). Venus in Two Acts. Small Axe 12/2: 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1215/-12-2-1

Jones, Rennie. AD Classics: Mill Owners’ Association Building / Le Corbusier. Arch Daily.
https://www.archdaily.com/464142/ad-classics-mill-owners-association-building-le-corbusier
(Accessed 22 June 2023)

Something Curated (2022). The Indian Architects Behind Le Corbusier’s Seminal Work In Chandigarh. https://somethingcurated.com/2022/04/19/the-indian-architects-behind-le- corbusiers-seminal-work-in-chandigarh/ (Accessed 20 June 2023)

Zinkin, Taya (2014). From the archive, 11 September 1965: An awkward interview with Le Corbusier. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/11/le-corbusier-india- architecture-1965 (Accessed 22 June 2023)

 

Kasturi Pindar
Courtauld Connects Digitisation
Oxford University Micro-Internship
Participant

Twitter: @kastvri
Instagram: @kasturieats

Ben Britton: Building Independence – the Kenyan Parliament

Architecture Large Format Cameras Photographic Prints The Conway Library The Kersting Archive Volunteer Audio No Comments

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Anthony Kersting’s photographs of the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi illustrate, rather neatly, the contrast between the two stages of its design. The first section, built in 1957, was commissioned by the colonial government, whilst the second was completed, by the same architect, following the country’s independence in 1963. The architect in question was New Zealander Amyas Connell, who, following a career in the UK in the 1930s, relocated to East Africa, and eventually attracted the attention of Kenya’s British governors, who sought a suitable design for Kenya’s post-independence parliament.

However paternalistic a gesture, the building and its history tell a complicated story which reflects a wider trend in the Global South, whereby international cooperation and modern architecture were implemented as part of the decolonisation process, and coincided with the adoption of policies of Non-alignment.

A photograph of the Nairobi parliament building, taken by Anthony Kersting. The photograph is black and white and shows the modernist clock down rising up from the low buildings. The photograph is catalogued as KER_PNT_G06606.
‘Nairobi, National Assembly Building’, by Anthony Kersting, KER_PNT_G06606. Kersting’s ledgers date this photograph to the 12 March 1968. The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

The most prominent aspect in the first image is the clock tower. It was not, however, included in Connell’s first draft, and instead represents his response to the criticisms levelled by the British, who considered the designs not English enough, and lamented that it did not look remotely like Westminster. Indeed, the coolness and near-classicalism of the surrounding buildings represent not just the modernising of Kenya’s political environment but were designed more than anything in response to geography. The Modernist architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, who did a considerable amount of work in Lagos, Nigeria, had recently published an influential and detailed study of Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone[1], which demonstrated the practicalities of the Modern style in equatorial countries. So as to appease the British, however, Connell included the central clock tower (then the highest building in Nairobi), a modern mock-up of St Stephen’s tower. There is something comically absurd, however, in its reduction to pure rectangles, and the omittance of Gothic detailing anywhere other than the clock-face itself.

Drew and Fry’s influences extended beyond the African continent. Most famously, they were invited by Prime Minister Nehru to be part of the design team headed by Le Corbusier for the new city of Chandigarh, a symbol of India’s post-independence development. Architectural Modernism was a prominent feature of many newly-independent nations, and, even in countries in which it was implemented prior to the end of colonial rule, a unifying feature of many Non-aligned countries.

Founded in Belgrade in 1961 and rejecting formal alliances with either of the Cold War superpowers, the Architectural Modernism movement allowed for communicative processes beyond those of ‘Iron Curtain’ politics and bloc-formation. As well as the work of Western architects, architectural historian Łukasz Stanek details the Modernist buildings designed by Eastern Europeans in a variety of Non-aligned nations at the invitation of post-colonial governments, as part of a process he deems “socialist world-making”[2]. Although not a founding member of the Non-aligned Movement, Jomo Kenyatta represented Kenya at the 1964 Cairo conference of these countries, and the parliament buildings represent an important addition to the Modernist practices and ideological implications which developed in the Global South.

A print of a black and white photograph of the parliament building in Nairobi, taken by Anthony Kersting. This photograph is catalogued as KER_PNT_G6608.
‘Nairobi, National Assembly Building’, by Anthony Kersting, KER_PNT_G06608. Kersting’s ledgers date this photograph to the 12 March 1968. The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

These ideals are nowhere more stark than in the second section of the buildings, in which Connell takes a decidedly Corbusian approach, and which incorporates a sculptural frieze depicting the triumphant victors of the independence struggle. It is a shame that Kersting did not take a detailed picture of the frieze (the sculptor of which is unknown) as it is the most direct affront to the pro-British sentiment of the earlier section. His photograph does, however, demonstrate the fluidity and breadth of the National Assembly Building, housing the Kenyan parliament’s lower house. It is, in its architectural form, a testament to the newness of the country, both domestically and in playing a role on the international stage.

As Dennis Sharp writes, the building is an attempt “to develop a new and relevant architecture appropriate to the burgeoning political situation”[3]. The employment of the Modern style, which was implemented across Nairobi consistently in the post-independence period, was by no means constitutive of socialistic revolutionary activity; it was, however, and remains to this day, a demonstration of a solidarity shared across the Global South, to participate in international politics on the basis of positive neutrality, and to maintain relationships, architecturally or otherwise, beyond the division of the world into colonial and military blocs.

Ben Britton
Digitisation Volunteer

References

[1] Drew, J., Fry, M. (1956). ‘Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone’, Tropical Housing & Planning Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 2-7

[2] Stanek, Ł. (2020). Architecture in Global Socialism, Princeton University Press

[3] Sharp, D. (1983). ‘The Modern Movement in East Africa’, Habitat International, Volume 7, Issue 6, p. 323

Florence Heyworth: London’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon – Alexandra Road Estate Then and Now

Architecture Placement The Conway Library No Comments

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Read by Ellie

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Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, London NW8 0SN. Designed by Neave Brown (Camden Council's Architects Department), 1968. CON_B04264_F003_004. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.
Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, London NW8 0SN. Designed by Neave Brown (Camden Council’s Architects Department), 1968. CON_B04264_F003_004. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC-BY-NC.

        ‘Huge picture windows look out over a peaceful oasis of greenery and mature
        trees. Many a time I have sat and been simply uplifted by this lush view of
        nature or been stunned by the beauty of the sun burnishing the windows
        opposite with a copper glow’. [1]

        Su Cross, resident of the Alexandra Road Estate

A photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate at sunset, showing lush greenery on the balcony gardens, by @whereisfenchurch on Instagram.
A photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate at sunset, showing lush greenery on the balcony gardens, by @whereisfenchurch on Instagram.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, social housing developments transformed city skylines across Britain. High-rise tower blocks were idealised as utopian ‘streets in the sky’. By the mid-1960s, however, far from being hailed as innovative feats of architecture, tower blocks were condemned by residents and architects alike as undesirable, inconvenient and structurally unsound. The partial collapse of Ronan Point, a 22-storey tower block, in May 1968, fuelled growing calls for a change in direction.

Neave Brown, a New York-born British architect (1929-2018), envisioned a new style of social housing. He believed that ‘ziggurat style terraces’ could revolutionise publicly-owned estates: the sloping structure would provide residents with access to their own outdoor space, in the form of private balconies and terraces, and provide each home with its own front door opening directly onto the street.[2]    

In 1968, Brown designed what would become the Alexandra Road Estate in Camden, London. One of the most significant issues which the project needed to address was the sound and vibration from trains which passed directly adjacent to the site. Brown designed an 8-story stepped building which would block noise from the trains, built on rubber pads to minimise the vibration.[3] His plan consisted of 520 apartments, to house over 1600 people[4], a school, a community centre, a youth club, a heating complex, a care home, a special needs school and a park. When Brown presented his model for the development to the Camden Council in 1969, the councillors applauded its ‘ambitious and imaginative quality’.[5] 

Exterior view of Alexandra Road flats backing onto a train track.
Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate, NW8, London, England. Camden Architects Department. negative number: B88/811. The Courtauld Institute of Art. Accessioned at CON_B04264_F003_001.
Tweet from @Rob_Feihn on twitter, showing photographs of the Alexandra Road Estate. "Early morning visit... still looking visionary!".
Tweet from @Rob_Feihn on twitter, showing photographs of the Alexandra Road Estate. “Early morning visit… still looking visionary!”.

Construction work on the project began in 1972, and this marked the beginning of a succession of unfortunate events, including unforeseen foundation problems and external issues such as high rates of inflation and shortages of reinforcement steel. The project ultimately cost £19,150,000 (over double the anticipated £7,200,000) and took 6 years to complete (rather than the anticipated 3 and a half).[6] Alexandra Road was deemed a ‘wildly expensive’ ‘disaster’ in the media, and Neave Brown never worked as an architect in Britain again.[7] However, despite its reputation in the press, Camden’s housing department found that the flats at Alexandra Road ‘were probably the easiest ever to let’.[8]

Su Cross, a resident of the estate, describes her first impression of Rowley Way (the main street): ‘the dazzling white concrete structures had such a jolly Mediterranean feel. It was immediately possible to visualize its potential as London’s equivalent of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon’.[9]

An adaptation of CON_B04264_F003_004. Also includes image by Latheev Deepan Kolad. Collage by Bella Watts and Florence Heyworth.
An adaptation of CON_B04264_F003_004. Also includes image by Latheev Deepan Kolad. Collage by Bella Watts and Florence Heyworth.

The striking architecture, easy parking and straightforward access to the estate has made it a popular area for location scouts.[10] Scenes of the estate can be seen in BBC shows such as Spooks, Silent Witness and London Spy; films such as Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering (2006) and Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014); as well as numerous music videos including J Hus’s ‘Calling Me’ (2015) and The 1975’s ‘Somebody Else’ (2016).

Stills from Slewdem Mafia’s Nothing Like Yours; Fatima’s Somebody Else; and The 1975’s ‘Somebody Else’.
Stills from Slewdem Mafia’s Nothing Like Yours; Fatima’s Somebody Else; and The 1975’s ‘Somebody Else’.

In SPID Theatre’s 2019 documentary ‘Estate Endz’, filmed on the Alexandra Road Estate, one young person said: ‘I know it definitely made me proud to say yeah, my estate was filmed in Kingsman, my estate was filmed in different documentaries’.

However, filming in the area is not popular with everybody: other residents interviewed in the documentary were worried that frequent filming diverts attention away from poor conditions and maintenance issues. One resident explained how ‘there isn’t a day that goes by where you’re not seeing some film crew or photographer or model. For the people living on the estate, it’s a double-edged sword’. She felt that ‘their privacy is being invaded or… that it’s just for show’, and expressed concern that ‘how they live is not necessarily being taken care of, so things like the repairs and maintenance is probably the most important thing in the front of their mind and they just want the council to sort it out’. Polena Barbagallo similarly described how ‘we have people filming here every day’, but ‘underneath all that the structure is decaying.’[11]

Residents have also expressed concern over how the estate is being represented in the media. Council estates have often been used in TV and film as a ‘shorthand for crime and deprivation’,[12] perpetuating negative and harmful stereotypes. Residents have noted how set decorators will often ‘dirty up the estate with fake graffiti and rubbish and generally [make] it look threatening’, which ‘totally misrepresents the estate’.[13]

Equally, there is the issue of the ‘fetishization’ of council estates, whereby ‘urban’ and working-class aesthetics are monetised by labels and celebrities for profit,[14] while the challenges facing the residents of such estates are side-lined and neglected. As of 2012, only 18% of the estate’s flats were leasehold, [15] but estates like Alexandra Road are quickly becoming gentrified, with private flats on the estate now costing anything upwards of £500,000 to purchase.[16]

The misrepresentations of the estate in the media have led to several community-led documentary projects, including the 2012 documentary ‘One Below the Queen’ and the 2019 documentary ‘Estate Endz’. For more information about filming on the estate, see http://alexandraandainsworth.org/on-film. 

Exterior view of Rowley Way, the main street on the Alexandra Road Estate. NW8, London, England.
Camden Architects Department. Negative number: B88/810. The Courtauld Institute of Art. Accessioned at CON_B04264_F003_005.
Photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate, showing beautiful green growing on the balconies, posted by @gregorzoyzoyla on instagram, 18 August 2017.
Photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate, showing beautiful green growing on the balconies, posted by @gregorzoyzoyla on Instagram, 18 August 2017.
Photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate, with a wintry, yellow-grey sunrise light, posted by @votre__prenom on instagram, 16 December 2018.
Photograph of the Alexandra Road Estate, with a wintry, yellow-grey sunrise light, posted by @votre__prenom on instagram, 16 December 2018.

In 1994, Peter Brooke, then National Heritage Secretary, hailed the Alexandra Road Estate as ‘one of the most distinguished groups of buildings in England since the Second World War’.[17] In 1995, Andrew Freear (recipient of the Architectural League of New York’s President’s Medal) declared Alexandra Road to be ‘the last great social housing project’.[18]  However, the estate is by no means a relic of the past. In 2012-13, a group of residents put forward a bid to the National Heritage Lottery and received £2 million to put towards developing the park, a project which was completed in 2015. Since 2012, the Tenants Hall has begun to be used as a space for yoga classes, table tennis and a fruit and vegetable food cooperative.[19] The ever-evolving nature of the estate is captured by Elizabeth Knowles, a long-term resident: ‘When I think about Alexandra Road it seems it has taken on a life all of its own — and there seems to be no stopping it.’[20]  

 

Further material:

Alexandra Road Estate Spotify Playlist
I hope you enjoy this ‘Alexandra Road Estate’ playlist I have created – all the music videos for these songs were shot on location at the Alexandra Road Estate!

Blogs to Explore
See Sophie Bailey’s I Suppose It’s Not The Place’s Fault and Ben Britton’s The New Towns Are No Longer New for fascinating insights into the social housing of the 1950s.

Bibliography:
Professor Mark Swenarton. Creating a Piece of City: Neave Brown and the Design of Alexandra Road. Cited on: https://www.themodernhouse.com/past-sales/rowley-way-london-nw8/
Wei W (2008) Housing terraces in the UK (Part II). 7 July. Available on: https://kosmyryk.typepad.com/wu_wei/2008/07/housing-terra-2.html
Andrew M (1993) Perspective: Alexandra Road: What Does It Mean for Public Housing? In: The Architects’ Journal (Archive: 1929-2005) 198, no. 35 (1993): 14-15.
Report: Alexandra Road Estate Investigated by National Building Agency. In: The Architects’ Journal (Archive: 1929-2005) 173, no. 8 (1981): 339.
Swenarton M (2014) Politics versus architecture: the Alexandra Road public enquiry of 1978–1981. In: Planning Perspectives, 29:4, 423-446, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2013.864956. 425
http://alexandraandainsworth.org/on-film
McLennan W (2017) Our estate, the movie set? We just want you to fix our boilers, say residents. Camden New Journal, 7 December. Available on: http://camdennewjournal.com/article/our-estate-the-movie-set-we-just-want-you-to-fix-our-boilers-say-residents

Endnotes:
[1] http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Alexandra_Road_Housing.html
[2] Professor Mark Swenarton. Creating a Piece of City: Neave Brown and the Design of Alexandra Road. Cited on: https://www.themodernhouse.com/past-sales/rowley-way-london-nw8/
[3] https://kosmyryk.typepad.com/wu_wei/2008/07/housing-terra-2.html
[4] Mead, Andrew. “Perspective: Alexandra Road: What Does It Mean for Public Housing?” The Architects’ Journal (Archive: 1929-2005) 198, no. 35 (1993). 14
[5] London Borough of Camden, Housing Committee, 1 April 1969. Cited on: https://www.themodernhouse.com/past-sales/rowley-way-london-nw8/
[6] Report: Alexandra Road Estate Investigated by the National Building Agency.” The Architects’ Journal (Archive: 1929-2005) 173, no. 8 (1981): 339.
[7] Mark Swenarton (2014) Politics versus architecture: the Alexandra Road public enquiry of 1978–1981, Planning Perspectives, 29:4, 423-446, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2013.864956. 425
[8] Mark Swenarton (2014) Politics versus architecture: the Alexandra Road public enquiry of 1978–1981, Planning Perspectives, 29:4, 423-446, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2013.864956. 425
[9] http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Alexandra_Road_Housing.html
[10] http://alexandraandainsworth.org/on-film
[11] http://camdennewjournal.com/article/our-estate-the-movie-set-we-just-want-you-to-fix-our-boilers-say-residents
[12] https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/02/10/stop-portraying-council-estates-as-crime-ridden-and
[13] http://alexandraandainsworth.org/on-film
[14] https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/working-class-streetwear-high-fashion
[15] https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/the-alexandra-road-estate-camden-a-magical-moment-for-english-housing/
[16] https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/brutal-attraction-meet-the-londoners-who-live-in-the-citys-most-controversial-buildings-a3278566.html
[17] Mead, Andrew. “Perspective: Alexandra Road: What Does It Mean for Public Housing?” The Architects’ Journal (Archive : 1929-2005) 198, no. 35 (1993). 14.
[18] Andrew Freear, “Alexandra Road: The last great social housing project,” AA Files, vol. 30, 1995, 35.
[19] News Update (September 2015). http://www.rowleyway.org.uk
[20] http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Alexandra_Road_Housing.html

Florence Heyworth
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

Ben Britton: “The New Towns are no longer new” – Basildon in the Conway Archive

The Conway Library Volunteer Voices No Comments

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Black and white Conway image of the whole Brooke House and Basildon Town Centre mounted on board
Brooke House and Basildon Town Centre. CON_B04252_F001_001. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

In 1956, before Brooke House was built, or any part of Basildon for that matter, there was a sign in its place that read: “This is the site of Basildon Town Centre”. Over the next few years, the first buildings of what was already Basildon were put up, fulfilling the sign’s prophetic message. I was particularly intrigued to find a folder in the Conway Library containing 20th Century municipal and residential architecture, not least of all because it is shelved directly opposite several boxes-worth of photographs of the Hagia Sofia, which is about as iconic as European architecture gets. There is something important to be gained, I think, from recognising the aesthetic and historic value of a medium-sized post-war town in Essex, alongside so much other human achievement.

Black and white Conway image of East Walk, Basildon, featuring mostly low-rise buildings. The image is mounted on board.
A predominantly low-rise town. CON_B04252_F001_009. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

“The New Towns are no longer new”[1] reads a parliamentary select committee’s investigation into the problems now faced by the swathe of purpose-built towns following the end of the Second World War. These towns were, in theory, a continuation of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City vision to house those displaced by slum-clearance in an overcrowded London. There is certainly a shared utopian ideal between the New Towns and the Garden Cities, and not one mutually exclusive of pragmatism. But there the similarities end, as finally the avant-garde of British architects were given permission, and funding, to build the modern sorts of towns that they had always dreamed about.

Among them was Sir Basil Spence, who, having won the contract to redesign Coventry Cathedral (beating competition from Giles Gilbert Scott), rose to prominence and became Britain’s most prolific modernist architect. He, along with A.B. Davis, designed Brooke House and the vast majority of Basildon’s town centre.

Black and white Conway image of Brooke House taken from below. The image is mounted on board
A view of Brooke House divorced from its surroundings. CON_B04252_F001_002. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

It is tempting, as with so much Brutalist architecture, to make claims of the building’s dominance over the low-rise landscape, and certainly it is possible to indicate this with a Rodchenko-esque photograph (see above). But the general impression given by the pictures in the Conway Archive is not one of overbearing concrete. Both up close and from a distance, we are able to see how the entirely residential building inhabits a humbler space at the centre of town, acting as a sheltered forecourt for the surrounding shops. Even the undoubtedly massive pylons even have a slight slimness to them, to the point of looking vaguely insectoid and flimsy under the immense weight they support.

A black and white image of Brooke House's forecourt, mounted on card.
A view of the forecourt. CON_B04252_F001_004. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

What this goes to show is the humanist bent of the design of the New Towns. Certainly they are monumental (the problems they were attempting to remedy necessitated their scale) but equally they were a radical approach to the problems of working-class living conditions at the time. The Liberal MP Lord Beveridge, whose work laid the foundations for Britain’s welfare state, described the ideal New Town as one of “beauty and happiness and community spirit”.[2] It is the effort towards these ideals that I think is captured in these photographs, before the subsequent economic downturn and regeneration programs undergone by Basildon.

Black and white Conway image of Blenheim House, mounted on board.
John Gordon’s mosaic on the façade of Blenheim House (formerly home to the Locarno Ballroom), the largest of its kind in Britain at the time. CON_B04252_F001_009. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

It is not the case, as the Parliamentary select committee’s report seems to suggest, that New Towns such as Basildon were always devoid of community cultural centres. Instead that these facilities (a cinema, an arts centre, a library etc.) required a consistent investment which the New Towns, unfortunately, did not receive. Equally, accusations of the towns’ lack of heritage in the 2008 report contradict the assertion that they “are no longer new”.

Indeed, in Basildon’s case, just before the release of the 2008 report, National Lottery funding had been used to establish a heritage trail through the town focussing on its post-war architecture. And the aesthetic effect of this architecture has its own heritage in England’s radical humanist tradition, of the likes of Milton’s poetics, or More’s Utopia. So to find photographs of Basildon amongst so much readily-accepted great architecture is a reassurance; its place in an archive of this significance is a foothold for its place in the grand scheme of British architectural history. And, in its own way, it is an investment, of sorts.

Ben Britton
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Volunteer
Ben Britton is a writer based in London with an interest in modernist aesthetics and cultural heritage.

References:

[1] House of Commons, Communities and Local Government Committee. ‘New Towns: Follow Up’. Ninth Report of Session 2007-08. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmcomloc/889/889.pdf

[2] Boughton J (2018) Municipal Dreams. London: Verso Books, p. 79.

Useful links:

John Boughton’s Municipal Dreams blog: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/

Corrina Summers: Contested Spaces – Capturing Modernist Architecture in Postcolonial India

Micro-Internship Photographic Library Digitisation Project The Conway Library No Comments

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Read by Christopher Williams

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A sense of “doubleness” pervades the photographs contained within the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute, the bulk of the collection comprising of photographs of other works of art. While the majority of its million photographs feature architecture as their central focus, some of the most striking images in the collection feature human subjects, thrusting ideas about the relationship between the aesthetics of architecture and its social function into the foreground. This hybridity is especially evident in the photographs of Chandigarh in northern India, taken by both members of the architectural design team and professional photographers in its construction and early existence in the 1950s and 1960s.

Black and white photo of Chandigarh's Royal Assembly building by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F002_010

With construction beginning in 1952, Chandigarh is a city born out of independence and partition. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, ordered the creation of the city as a new capital for the new Haryana and East Punjab states of India that had been formed in the aftermath of independence; the former capital of the old state of Punjab, Lahore, had been lost to the new nation of Pakistan after partition. On a visit to the site of the new city in 1952, Nehru proclaimed “Let this be a new town, symbolic of the freedom of India, unfettered by the traditions of the past, an expression of the nation’s faith in the future”. [1] Early postcolonial India also faced the issue of finding housing for the hundreds of thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees fleeing the newly formed state of Pakistan; 80% of the original Chandigarh housing was considered “low-cost”. Thus, aesthetics and social issues in Chandigarh were inextricably linked from its inception.

Colour images of Chandigarh's Royal Assembly building by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F002_019

Colour image of Chandigarh's Royal Assembly building by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F001_014

Interestingly, the architect enlisted appointed to construct Nehru’s architectural symbol of an independent India was a westerner; prolific French modernist, Le Corbusier. With his own plan to reconstruct the central business district of Paris as a landscape of cruciform towers, octagonal street grids, and green spaces having been rejected in the 1920s, he saw the Chandigarh project as a means through which to realise his vision of the modern city. Prior to his death, Le Corbusier was the principal city planner and the architect behind the three main government buildings that occupied the city centre; the Palace of the National Assembly, the High Court of Justice, and the Palace of the Secretariat of Ministers. Indeed, these structures host many of the features outlined in his 1927 publication, Les cinq points de l’archictecture. These include the idea of the “pilotis”, the reinforced concrete pylons that act as the main components of the government buildings and are beautifully captured in Lennart Olson, Pierre Joly and Vera Cardot’s photographs, taken just after their completion.

Black and white interior shot of the Chandigarh's Royal Assembly, by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04392_F002_021

Black and white image of Chandigarh's High Court building, by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F001_010

Colour images of Chandigarh's High Court building, by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F001_005

Colour images of Chandigarh's High Court building, by Le Corbusier.
CON_B04391_F001_004

Another Corbusierian motif that forms a central feature of Chandigarh is La Main Ouverte, “the open hand“, which Corbusier considered a symbol of “peace and reconciliation. It is open to give and open to receive”. [2] The sculpture in Chandigarh is one of many built by Corbusier, and arguably encompasses the unification of socio-political ideals with architecture, symbolising an India open to new opportunities. In terms of this adoption of a relatively revolutionary style of architecture and urban planning, the construction of Chandigarh can certainly be seen as a symbol of a dehistoricised, decontextualized space through which society could be transformed.

Black and white image of Chandigarh's High Court building and Open Hand monument, by Le Corbusier.
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Corrina Summers
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

 

References

  1. Malhotra, A., Chandigarh Exhibited in New York (2013) <https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/08/17/chandigarh-exhibited-in-new-york/> [accessed 11 December 2019].
  2. Shipman, Gertrude (5 October 2014). Ultimate Handbook Guide to Chandigarh : (India) Travel Guide. MicJames. pp. 7–. GGKEY:32JTRTZ290J.

Aya Bolt: Finbsury, Lubetkin’s Socialist Utopia

Micro-Internship Photographic Library Digitisation Project The Conway Library No Comments

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Read by Christopher Williams

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The Courtauld Institute of Art’s Conway Library houses an impressive photographic collection of architecture from a vast array of periods and locations. Some of the collection’s earliest photos are dated from the 1850s and these are a mere couple of decades older than the oldest surviving photograph of an image formed in camera. Given the seemingly endless opportunities to do some armchair, or rather office chair, travelling and discover some of the world’s most significant structures (many now destroyed to both war and time), it may perhaps seem strange that one would choose to focus on photographs of twentieth-century British architecture. However, these often under-loved and over-looked buildings have a story of their own to tell. Through this blog post, I hope to offer an exposé of the collaborative work between Finsbury Council and architect Berthold Lubetkin from the inter and post-war period.

Lubetkin’s success in Britain started with the establishment of the architecture firm Tecton. Formed in the 1930s, the firm was an instrumental pioneer in bringing continental modernism to Britain. Whilst some of Tecton’s most iconic builds are London Zoo’s penguin pool and gorilla enclosure, founding architect Lubetkin is, in fact, responsible for some of London’s more recognisable and perhaps infamous landmark social housing. His personal maxim was “nothing is too good for ordinary people!” and he strove to improve the living conditions of the working class. Spa Green Estate was the first of many projects designed to offer luxury features to working class families, including lifts, central heating, electrical and gas appliances, running water, a waste-disposal system, balconies and a laundry-drying roof terrace. The amenities offered far exceeded those enjoyed by the majority of the population at the time.   

Spa Green Estate in Finsbury, EC1, opened in 1949. The Conway Library. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

Born in what is now Georgia, Lubetkin emigrated to the UK in the early 1930s. His formal training was completed in the USSR at VKhUTEMAS, a state funded art and technical school in Moscow where Lubetkin witnessed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, allegedly from his bedroom window. It was undoubtedly this formation, both creative and political, which led to his neo-constructivist style. Particularly taken with the idea of the “artist engineer” who uses industrial techniques to produce socially useful objects, Lubetkin was committed to socially driven architecture. Arguably, no structure embodies his ideals more than the Finsbury Health Centre. Commissioned by Finsbury council, led by devout socialist Alderman Harold Riley, and backed by the chairman of the public health committee, Dr Chuni Lal Katial, the Finsbury Health Centre marked the dawning of a new era of Public Health Service. Planning and construction began in 1935 and the centre was ready for opening in 1938, a full decade before the advent of Britain’s National Healthcare System.

The Finsbury Health Centre Façade, EC1, opened in 1938. The Conway Library. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

However, the opening of the centre was unfortunate timing as World War Two broke out soon after and the building needed to be protected rather than up and running – although it was used as a bandaging centre for civilian causalities throughout the war. In order to limit damage from bombing, the centre was covered in sandbags, cracking many of the glass bricks in the façade and wings which then needed to be repaired. This cost of this repair work combined with post-war austerity meant that the building’s finishes, such as the plumbing, could not be completed according to Lubetkin’s plans and standards.

Plans of the Finsbury Health Centre by Lubetkin and Tecton, featuring a welcoming open-plan layout and a design to let in as much natural light as possible, 1938, Riba Architecture, (DR50/1(1)) and (DR50/1(7))

Plans of the Finsbury Health Centre by Lubetkin and Tecton, featuring a welcoming open-plan layout and a design to let in as much natural light as possible, 1938, Riba Architecture, (DR50/1(1)) and (DR50/1(7))
Plans of the Finsbury Health Centre by Lubetkin and Tecton, featuring a welcoming open-plan layout and a design to let in as much natural light as possible, 1938, Riba Architecture, (DR50/1(1)) and (DR50/1(7))

As the fighting escalated, society was increasingly committed to providing more equality and fairness come peacetime. The ever-growing labour party promised a utopian fantasy of what the future could be, and this was reflected in the modernist architecture of new municipal buildings that councils were erecting. Modernism represented hope and potential, as the poster featuring the Finsbury Health Centre by Abram Games highlights. The contrast between the shiny new centre and the derelict slums behind it underline the sub-par living conditions of the working class prior to and during the war. The 1943 poster was purportedly banned by Churchill as he believed that it exaggerated the state the poor in slums were living in (many of whom had fought in the war) and shed a negative light on the conservative party who had been in power for the majority of the twentieth century.

Poster featuring the Finsbury Health Centre, 1943 by Abram Games, Imperial War Museum (Art.IWM PST 2911)

A better quality of life which included good health was being promised to those for whom lack of information, neglect and inaccessibility to health care had been cutting life short.

The mural in the health centre with slogans such as “chest diseases are preventable and curable” create a sense of hope but also illustrate how illnesses that now seem easily treatable were once fatal to many. Come 1948, the NHS looked to the Finsbury Health centre to found many of its ideals as it was upheld as a model structure for the provision of public healthcare. The centre’s aims were to unite the borough’s divided health care services, create a standardised system and provide free health care for all of the borough’s residents. A true testament to the daring vision of early British socialism and Lubetkin’s constructivist design, the Finsbury Health Centre has been awarded Grade 1 listing and thanks to the efforts of the FHC Preservation Trust and NHS Property Services, is still serving patients to this day.

The Finsbury Health Centre Mural by Gordon Cullen, EC1, opened in 1938. The Conway Library. The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC.

 

Aya Bolt
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

Jane Macintyre: On Northampton Architecture and Mr Bassett-Lowke

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This is the second of two posts about Northampton architecture featured in the Conway library that I came across during a visit to the town, you can read the first post here.

Energetic local businessman W.J. Bassett-Lowke (1877–1953), or “WJ”, was the man behind the development of the UK’s model railway industry. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of modernism and this led him to engage two leading architects of the early 20th century to design his homes: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Peter Behrens.

In 1916, WJ’s father purchased a modest Georgian terrace house as his son’s wedding present. But ahead of the marriage WJ decided to remodel the house and asked Mackintosh to provide the redesign. The work was carried out during the difficult circumstances of WW1.

78 Derngate – back garden with Mrs Bassett-Lowke. CON_B04291_F001_011. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

The new interior was striking, especially the decoration of the hall lounge with black walls and a golden frieze. It has been suggested that the couple found the scheme somewhat overpowering because soon WJ asked Mackintosh to lighten it. This second version is depicted in the photograph in the Conway library.

78 Derngate interior – hall lounge. CON_B04291_F001_012. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

You can still see the original design because it has been reinstated at 78 Derngate which is now a museum.

The Bassett-Lowkes had not been at 78 Derngate long before they decided to move. They wanted a brand new home further away from the River Nene, hoping that this would be more comfortable for Mrs Bassett-Lowke who had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

Mackintosh was in poor health by the time WJ was ready to commission the work. Unable to find a British architect with modern ideas that matched his taste, WJ turned to the pioneering German architect and designer, Peter Behrens. The result was New Ways, probably the first modernist house in the UK and the only one in this country designed by Behrens. It perfectly suited the Bassett-Lowkes whose home it remained for many years.

New Ways exterior – frontage. CON_B04291_F001_014. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

New Ways interior – lounge. CON_B04291_F001_015. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

Modest from the outside, but decidedly modern throughout, this Grade II* listed house was recently on the market and, at the time of writing, could be yours for £875,000.

 

Jane Macintyre
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Volunteer

Lorraine Stoker: Modernity in the Conway

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Read by Anna Thompson

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When I started volunteering on the digitisation programme, I never thought it would reignite my interest in the history of art. Yet here I am in the second year of a part-time M.A. in History of Art and Photography, and loving every moment of the challenge. I am about to start my final essay before commencing the dissertation, and I have chosen as my final option This is Tomorrow – Architecture and Modernity in Britain and its Empire, 1930-60.

CON_B04266_F005_001. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

Professor Mark Crinson (University of London) describes the option module as a study of the entanglements of architecture and ideas of modernity, the home and the city in mid-twentieth century Britain, as well as how these issues related to Britain’s place in the world and its relation to its empire. Modernity, whether through the arrival of modernism or the various forms of state modernisation, has long been the focus of written accounts of modern architecture in Britain.

CON_B04266_F001_022. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

The Conway library has led to this and is already proving a fantastic resource in my initial reading and research. There is an excellent collection of London photographs, which I am slowly helping to label, while also identifying useful images for use in the Architecture and Modernism essay and for discussion in seminars.
While I am looking forward to studying the Conway photographs in relation to mainstream Modernism, the influence of émigré architects and the search for utopia is already evident and enthralling in the photographs I have labelled and catalogued. The amazing Bevin Court (a personal favourite) is one of several post-war modernist housing projects in London designed by the Tecton architecture practice, led by Berthold Lubetkin, a Russian architect and pioneer of modernist design in the 1930s.

CON_B04279_F001_002. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

An organised visit to the penthouse at The Isokon Building (Lawn Green Flats) was impressive. Built in 1934, The Isokon is a rare Grade 1 listed modernist building and an example of a progressive experiment in urban living at the time. The building was home to Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, Marcel Breuer, designer of modernist furniture, and László Maholy-Nagy, headteacher of art at the Bauhaus school. Early advertising stated: “All you have to bring with you is a rug, an armchair and a picture.” Acquired by Camden Borough Council in 1972, it gradually deteriorated until the 1990s, when it was abandoned completely. Avanti Architects, specialists in refurbishing modernist buildings, restored the Isokon in 2004. The Conway photographs and images from the current sales listing of the Isokon penthouse – at nearly a million pounds – provides a fascinating insight into the concept of ‘one-room living’.

CON_B04279_F001_001. The Courtauld Institute of Art. CC BY NC.

Then there is BRUTALISM! I really am spoilt for choice, as photographs of key Brutalist buildings in London are also found in the Conway archives. Watch this space, as I delve further into this incredible resource and identify a research title worthy of the Conway collection of London’s 20th century architecture.

 

Lorraine Stoker
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Volunteer