innerâlondon schools 1918â44 a thematic study - English Heritage

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Fig 34: Dance School, Dartington Hall School, Devon.(R I BA Library Photographs Collection: R I BA25098).came two models for post-war schools in the form of Gropius and Fry’s Impington VillageCollege, Cambridgeshire (grade I; see page 15) and Denis Clarke Hall’s Richmond Girls’High School, Yorkshire (grade II). The load-bearing stone walls of Richmond hinted at thedevelopment of British modernism from a purist machine aesthetic towards vernacularmaterials and a sensitivity to context.In London, the modernist school par excellence was Maxwell Fry’s semi-circular nurseryschool at Kensal House, L B Kensington and Chelsea (grade II*; see page 54). A few smallancillary buildings to independent schools, long-since demolished, were unduly influentialat the time, being well published in the architectural journals and educational publications.These includes a single-storey junior school at the rear of the King Alfred School,Hampstead, L B Barnet (E.C. Kaufmann, 1934-36; dem.) and a nursery school at DulwichCollege Preparatory School, L B Southwark (Samuel and Harding, 1936; dem.). Thesebuildings remain amongst the most architectural significant of the period, and prefigurethe widespread adoption of the modernist idiom by the welfare state after 1944.Education through architectureThose who resisted the calls for cheaper and temporary buildings, and the resultantlowering of architectural expectations, could argue that a well-designed school wouldinculcate an appreciation of good design and aesthetics into its pupils. The designeducation movement, chiefly represented by Frank Pick’s Council for Art and Industry(C AI), advocated of the role of design and the aesthetics of the school environment in thewider education of children.Pick’s report of 1935, Education for the Consumer evidently had some influence, for by1937, the Architects’ Journal could write ‘much more attention should be paid to form,design and colour in school surroundings in order that elementary good taste will not© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0941
emain a “book-learnt” conception’. The Spens Report of the consultative committee(1938) also drew special attention to ‘taste in design in schools’, suggesting that architects‘should not overlook the powerful influence in the aesthetic training of the pupils that isexerted by the design and decoration of the premises in which they work day by day’. 60In 1935, Pick convinced the leader of the LCC, Herbert Morrison, to put these ideas intopractice by commissioning the C AI to design a ‘junior mixed school’ for around 900 pupilson a site in Lyndhurst Grove, L B Southwark. The LCC financed the project as a one-off,despite the protestations of the Board of Education, on the condition that the schoolcost no more than an in-house design. Pick chose Oliver Hill, who was, like his favouredarchitect Charles Holden, the exponent of a very English strain of modernism groundedin Lethaby and the Arts and Crafts tradition. Paraphrasing Le Corbusier, Hill promised ‘anessentially practical machine for teaching in’ and that its beauty should emerge from itsfitness for purpose. 61Hill’s two-storey design, dated September 1936, would have occupied the full length ofa constrained site abutting a railway cutting. On the ground floor he placed assemblyhalls for the infants’, girls’ and boys’ departments, the latter two paired and separatedwith a sliding partition, and equipped with a cinema projection room. The classroomswere placed on the upper floors to shelter them from the noise of the playground andthe railway. Open ramps replaced stairs on ground of safety, their presence whimsicallyFig 35: At Lyndhurst Grove, L B Southwark, Oliver Hill attempted to mitigate an unsatisfactory site through afunctionalist approach, underscored by the isometric projection of this 1936 drawing.(Reproduced from the Builder, 5 February 1937, p308).© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0942
Page 2 and 3: Research Department Report Series 4
Page 11 and 12: The final part of the report proper
Page 13 and 14: would best be considered within the
Page 15 and 16: © ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 09
Page 17 and 18: IntroductionThe provision of school
Page 19 and 20: The augmentation of state nursery p
Page 21 and 22: central schools, either newly built
Page 23 and 24: Fig 8: Model of Impington, possibly
Page 25 and 26: single-storey brick buildings, redu
Page 27 and 28: 33 Board of Education 1931a, 58.34
Page 29 and 30: IntroductionFrom 1870 until 1990, t
Page 31 and 32: Fig. 12: SBL datestone from the Wes
Page 33 and 34: Fig. 14: The classroom pavilions at
Page 35 and 36: Fig. 18: Granton Road School, L B L
Page 37 and 38: considered no less important. Londo
Page 39 and 40: Fig. 22: Infants' Department of Ath
Page 41 and 42: module. 41 Stillman’s schools wer
Page 43 and 44: a spacious playground with retained
Page 45 and 46: collegiate air of a preparatory sch
Page 47: Fig 32: Junior school classrooms at
Page 51 and 52: Fig 36: Herbert Francis Thomas Coop
Page 53 and 54: contemporaries, with their widely s
Page 55 and 56: Endnotes1 On the abolition of the L
Page 57 and 58: 60 Board of Education 1938.61 Saler
Page 59 and 60: The nursery schoolCase studies:•
Page 61 and 62: designs, the second of 1937 with Ma
Page 63 and 64: Fig. 52: Webb Street School elevati
Page 65 and 66: Fig. 55: North Hammersmith Central
Page 67 and 68: The secondary schoolCase studies:
Page 69 and 70: Fig 59: Maze Hill elevation to the
Page 71 and 72: admired ‘more than any other arch
Page 73 and 74: grants in the form of building subs
Page 75 and 76: accommodated 440 junior children in
Page 77 and 78: The open-air schoolCase studies:•
Page 79 and 80: three open-air schools opened by th
Page 81 and 82: Fig 71: The buildings of the Geere
Page 83 and 84: As Frederick Rose predicted in 1908
Page 85 and 86: L B Wandsworth, by providing ‘roo
Page 87 and 88: LAN ANCE SURVEY PLANwithout mainten
Page 89 and 90: Endnotes1 LCC minutes 17.7.1928, p.
Page 91 and 92: 44 Catholic Hall, Appleton Road, El
Page 93 and 94: © ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 098
Page 95 and 96: Board of Education 1923 The differe
Page 97 and 98: English Heritage 1993 General princ
Page 99 and 100:
Morrison, K. 1999 The workhouse: a
Page 101 and 102:
Whitbread N. 1972 The evolution of
Page 103 and 104:
Appendix 1: Gazetteer of extant pur
Page 105 and 106:
Original name Present Name & Addres
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
The S towag e pl anPeckham Park, 18
Page 113 and 114:
The en d hall pl anUpper North Stre
Page 115 and 116:
The b u t ter fly pl anAthelney Str
Page 117 and 118:
• Separate-block planning refers
Page 119 and 120:
Appendix 5: Glossary of school type
Page 121 and 122:
increasing popular after the 1926 a
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innerâlondon schools 1918â44 a thematic study - English Heritage