inner–london schools 1918–44 a thematic study - English Heritage

As Frederick Rose predicted in 1908, open-air schools exerted a considerable influenceon mainstream school architecture, although it is hard to separate from earlier influences,such as the ‘pavilion planning’ of Staffordshire and Derbyshire and the ‘double veranda’model provided by North Wingfield school in Derbyshire, designed by Widdowsin 1910, and taken up after 1918 at Lincolnshire, London and elsewhere. 67 The 1931Hadow report The Primary School recommended, ‘the more closely the primary schoolapproaches that of the open-air school the better’. 68 Of the private open-air schoolsin London, the Chelsea Open-Air School at Glebe Place, L B Kensington and Chelsea,established in 1929 by Susan Isaacs, employed Grey Wornum to adapt a cottage by ‘theknocking out of walls to make rooms open air’. A covered playground and office spacewas added in 1937 by Ernst Freud. 69Open-air conditions seem spartan now (Aspen House staff received an extra allowancein 1926 in lieu of ‘rooms, fuel, light and water’), but the open-air school was at theforefront of new educational ideas. 70 The stimulating teaching, with its accent on selfawarenessand discovery, stressing the importance of the open air and landscape, wasadvanced for its time. It formed part of a wider movement for fresh air and informalteaching methods which was only widely developed after 1944.The architecture of the open-air schools was deliberately modest. With the exception ofthe 1938 Swinton and Pendlebury open-air school, Lancashire: by Sir Hubert Bennett andthe Newman School, Rotherham, South Yorkshire of 1939 by local authority architectGeoffrey Raven (grade II) there was no convergence between open-air teaching andan emergent Modern Movement—such as at the open-air schools of Suresnes, Paris byEugène Beaudoin and Marcel Lods of 1934-35 and Cliostraat, Amsterdam, Holland by J.Duiker of 1930. The LCC AD schools were nevertheless notable in introducing separateblockplanning to the capital, and were the first London schools to reject permanentconstruction in favour of light, framed buildings. In these senses, they anticipate post-warschools.Fig. 74: A rare English example of a modernmovement open-air school: the Newman School,Rotherham, South Yorkshire (Geoffrey Raven, 1939).(Photograph kindly supplied by the Newman SpecialSchool).Fig. 75: The marriage of continental modernism andopen-air principles: Cliostraat, Amsterdam, Holland by J.Duiker of 1930 (© Elain Harwood).© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0976