Palladian Design at the RIBA

RIBA's show reveals how Palladio influenced England and the world

About 85% of the 350 or so drawings by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508-80) which survive are held by RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects. A selection of them is on display in RIBA’s Architectural Gallery as part of Palladian Design: The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected. Appropriately, it was 300 years ago that a translation of Palladio’s I Quattro Libri dell’Architectura (The Four Books of Architecture) and Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Brittanicus were first published. The exhibition follows Palladio’s influence from his own works in the Veneto through English Palladianism to the US, India and elsewhere. Recent buildings appearing in drawings, photographs or as models range from Henbury Hall, which in the 1980s recreated Palladio’s Villa Rotunda of 1552, the Prince of Wales’s controversial Pendbury and a fine town hall at Borgoricco near Padua in Italy.

Having visited Chateau Margaux in the Gironde (SW France) in the summer (below lower), I was intrigued by the design for the building by Louis Combes (1754-1818) which was completed in 1816 (below upper):

I wonder when the chimneys were added. The exhibition catalogue makes the interesting point that:

Building a house in France in the English Palladian style was an unlikely project during the Napoleonic wars but the work of Louis Combes in and around Bordeaux demonstrates his interest in Palladianism. Combes owned a copy of Vitruvius Britannicus and, perhaps as an academic exercise, he copied a number of its plates exactly, even transcribing the English room names. Bertrand Douat, Marquis de la Colonilla, decided to replace the old chateau at Margaux in 1810. Combes's final design for the chateau was based on John Webb's Amesbury Abbey, as engraved for volume III of Vitruvius Britannicus (no 33), though with a different interior plan that does not require the staircase tower behind.

Palladian Design: The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected (a free exhibition) ends on 9 January. However, RIBA is closed from 24 December to 3 January.

Le Corbusier in Bordeaux

2015 is the 50th anniversary of the death of the architect Le Corbusier. This post is about the houses he designed in the 1920s which are located at Pessac, a suburb of Bordeaux in South West France.

Le Corbusier was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in 1887 in Switzerland where he trained to be an architect. In his twenties he travelled in Europe visiting Vienna and working in Paris for Auguste Perret, the pioneer of reinforced concrete, and for the industrial designer Peter Behrens in Berlin. He returned to Switzerland for most of the 1914-18 period to teach and develop theories about modern architecture for domestic dwellings. After moving to Paris in 1917 his first commission in France was the design of a water tower (below top left) at Podensac, about 30km south west of Bordeaux. Jeanneret-Gris started to use the pseudonym Le Corbusier in 1920, going into architectural practice with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, in 1922. In 1923 Le Corbusier’s influential book, Vers une architecture (below top right), was published and he designed the Villa La Roche at Auteuil (below lower), probably the first building to demonstrate his thinking about the nature of modern housing.

Impressed by the book and by Le Corbusier’s vision of low-cost housing as a means of heading off social revolution, Henri Frugès, a cultured and innovative Gironde industrialist, commissioned his practice to design a small workers’ community around a sawmill at Lège-Cap-Ferret and then a much larger garden suburb of 135 houses at Pessac. This was never completed but Les Quartiers Modernes Frugès, consisting of 51 units of seven types were constructed between 1924 and 1926 and can still be seen (less one, also the only one of its type, destroyed in 1942) in what is now called Le Cité Frugès Le Corbusier.

After a period of decline, the town of Pessac turned one of the houses into a museum (Maison Municipale, open most days) (above) in 1987 and many of the houses have been handsomely restored (below) in the original polychrome (burnt sienna, pale English green and clear oversea blue) used by Le Corbusier on exteriors only at Les Quartiers Modernes Frugès.

However, there are still some remarkable opportunities for restoration (below left and centre), and not all the inhabitants seem to have fully absorbed the modernist spirit (below right):

The “Five Points of a New Architecture” which would feature in Le Corbusier’s later work, particularly the Villa Savoye, arguably remain emergent in Pessac. The ribbon window is certainly there (below upper) but there seems to be limited use of supporting columns (below lower):

There are roof gardens:

but it seems difficult to identify much free use of the interior in the absence of supporting walls, or free design of the façades – but these are fairly small buildings as some interior views of the Maison Municipale below reveal. The extent of the wasted volume over the staircase between the first and second floors (below right) is surprising.

Even in 1924, Le Corbusier anticipated mass ownership of cars and the need for garage space on the ground floor with living spaces upstairs. The garage area of the Maison Municipale is now used to exhibit a model of the planned garden suburb:

The model plaque indicates just how advanced the scheme was in its time with central heating and showers. Unfortunately its cost probably contributed to Frugès’ bankruptcy a few years later.

Visitors to the Maison Municipale are given a booklet (in French) describing Le Cite Frugès Le Corbusier and its history (also available for download as a pdf). One example of each of the six surviving types of house has been classed as an historic monument. The types are:

Maison Gratte-ciel (“sky-scraper”) – see Maison Municipale image above

Maison Isolée (“detached” below left) and Maison Arcade (below right):

Maison Zig-Zag (below top) and Maison Quinconçe (below lower)

Maison Jumelle (“twinned”) no image available. (If there are any errors in attribution of images here, please comment!)

Should you wish to stay in a Le Corbusier house for a few days, apparently the only one available anywhere in the world is the HARG house, a Maison Gratte-ciel, in Pessac.

Strawberry Hill House

The adjective ‘iconic’ is over-used, so much so that it probably ought to be avoided. Nonetheless, sometimes the subject is one which actually meets the definition of being “regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration”. For anyone interested in architecture, Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, South West London, certainly is iconic, being the mid-eighteenth century birthplace of the style later known as Strawberry Hill Gothic. It is generally regarded as the starting point for the revival of Gothic architecture for new buildings in the following century.

The history of Strawberry Hill House’s ownership is complex. After Horace Walpole, its creator, died in 1797 it passed into the hands of his family, an arrangement which unfortunately led to the sale in 1842 of the contents, several thousand items of art and antiquities which he had chosen. After being used for educational purposes for most of the twentieth century, the building is now on a long lease to the Strawberry Hill Trust which has undertaken extensive restoration. Since March 2015 it has been possible to visit rooms which had never previously been open to the public. Anyone intending to visit should be aware that the rooms are to a large extent empty of contents, but are handsomely redecorated in the style Walpole chose. He coined the term ‘gloomth’ to describe the parts of the house which were intentionally poorly lit (even more so than the Hall, below) and redolent of The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel, which he wrote at Strawberry Hill.

The handsome Library perhaps conveys more of the original character than most rooms:

The Gallery, although empty, is very striking:

and the House is full of photogenic features:

Where possible the Strawberry Hill Trust hopes to restore the contents of the House prior to 1842 and already has in place some loan and reproduction items. The Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University has a database of Walpole’s collection. The second floor Dressing Room currently has a display about the printing press set up by Walpole in 1757, one of the earliest private presses in England, on which The Castle of Otranto was printed. Curiously, in Richmond upon Thames, only a few kilometres away, Virginia and Leonard Woolf would set up the Hogarth Press in 1917.

Well worth visiting, the House's website should be consulted for opening times. National Art Pass holders and National Trust members are offered a 50% discount on the normal ticket price.

Grayson Perry’s A House for Essex

“Living Architecture [LLP] was set up five years ago to revolutionise both architecture and UK holiday rentals. We offer a chance to rent houses for a holiday designed by some of the most talented architects at work today, set in some of the most stunning locations in Britain.” 

A documentary on Channel 4 on 18 May, Grayson Perry’s Dream House, revealed Living Architecture’s latest acquisition, A House for Essex, designed by Perry and FAT Architecture. The Living Architecture webpage is full of useful links and images (below) so there is little need for more here. I thought an article in Dezeen magazine particularly informative for the majority of us who, after all, are unlikely to visit the place. 

The House, although secular, was commissioned in the tradition of wayside and pilgrimage chapels and the exterior was influenced, according to the Independent, by arts and crafts houses, English Baroque architecture and Stave churches – medieval churches made of wood. It is dedicated to a saint:

Perry’s saint is a “secular Essex everywoman,” a fictional character called Julie Cope, for whom he has created a rich back story. “I wanted her biography to reflect Essex and women since the war,” he said. Inside the property is a statue of Julie and four tapestries. They tell the story from her birth in 1953 during the great flood of Canvey Island to her death in 2014, when she was killed by a curry house delivery driver on a scooter.

As to where Perry the artist is taking us, I’m not much wiser. Julie’s sad and violent end is reminiscent of that of Tim Rakewell in the sixth of Perry’s The Vanity of Small Differences tapestries, Lamentation, back in 2012. There was a glimpse at the start of the documentary of some of his preliminary sketches for the House. I would certainly like to see more of his drawings; not all contemporary artists have such a talent - or risk showing it.

At the end of the show Perry, in a new ‘Julie’ transvestite alter ego (poster at top), took a group of real Essex women actually called Julie to see the house. One of them at least seemed quite moved by it, all good telly anyway. Channel 4 is the home of Grand Designs, the first in a genre of TV programmes about building projects, mostly beset by problems with builders, weather and cost over-runs. None such in Grayson Perry’s Dream House, whose builders and architect all seemed to know what they were doing, though there was little about the constructional details – how were all those Julie tiles secured? As far as cost problems are concerned, perhaps Simon Kuper, writing about Art and the billionaire heirs, in the FT Weekend Magazine on May 16/17, shed some light:

When I joined the FT as a graduate trainee in 1994 I was told that someone called Alain de Botton had been offered the same job the year before. But de Botton - whose millionaire father had left him a trust fund reportedly worth £200m – had decided to write books instead. He insists he never touched his dad’s money. Still presumably it made artistic life feel secure.

De Botton, the author of, among other things, The Architecture of Happiness, is the creative director and chairman of Living Architecture.

So far I haven’t seen any comparisons between A House for Essex and the Watts Mortuary Chapel at Compton in Surrey – well worth a visit, as is its custodian, the Watts Gallery.

Kilpeck Church, Herefordshire

I have wanted to visit Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire for some time to see its fine Norman carvings. I finally managed it on a cold but sunny December morning.

Although not part of South West England by normal definition, as Simon Jenkins comments in his England's Thousand Best Churches:

[Kilpeck’s] motifs are drawn from Scandinavia, Germany, Spain and Italy, and display the Severn Vale as a cultural crossroads of Romanesque richness.

The carvings date from the middle of the 12th century and are to be found around the south doorway:

The west side:

The chancel arch:

And remarkably in the corbels, mostly undamaged, which appear all round the exterior:

Simon Jenkins again:

The Kilpeck carvings demonstrate the vigour of the Saxon-Norman sculptural tradition. Themes and styles are drawn from the pilgrim routes across northern Europe, from Vikings, Saxons, Celts, Franks and Spaniards, the entire 'Northmen' diaspora.

Only some have much Christian significance. The interpretation of the carvings, the identification of similar works by the “Herefordshire School” of stone carvers and of analogues in other parts of Europe is a subject for serious scholarship, not a blog. Though I could imagine one devoted to nothing else. For the merely interested, Jenkins’ book is a start and Pevsner's Herefordshire (latest edition 2012) should be the next call. Visitors can find some useful information in the church.

The nearby and neatly extended Kilpeck Inn is of a much higher standard that might be expected in a fairly remote spot and its menu is a “cultural crossroads of Romanesque richness” too – focaccia, ciabatta, porcini, brioche, mozzarella, olives … and local suppliers, of course.

The Royal William Yard, Plymouth

Plymouth, in Devon SW England, is an historic coastal city which was badly damaged by bombing in the Second World War. Many of its significant buildings were originally constructed  for the Royal Navy. Plymouth would now like to be seen as an “Ocean City” rather than naval town. 

Last September I posted about the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich in London. Originally the Royal Hospital for Seamen, the magnificent buildings by Wren and Hawksmoor next to the Thames date back to 1700. The interior of the baroque Painted Hall by Thornhill portrays the supremacy of British seapower, something which would endure for two centuries. King William IV, who reigned from 1830 to 1937, had joined the Royal Navy in 1778 at the age of 13 and was known as the “Sailor King”, so it was fitting that when a new victualling yard was built in Stonehouse (map left) next to Devonport dockyard between 1825 and 1833, it would be named after him.

The Royal William Yard was designed by Sir John Rennie, engineer to the Admiralty, who is probably best known for his version of London Bridge, now in Arizona. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England Devon (2nd edition) describe the Yard as “by far the most impressive single architectural group in Plymouth” and “the most grandiloquent of the monumental compositions created by the Victualling Board of the Navy after the Napoleonic wars [and] among the most remarkable examples of an early C19 planned layout of industrial buildings anywhere in England”.

The Yard closed in 1992 and after restoration, conservation and modernisation was converted by Urban Splash to provide a basin for visiting boats and restaurants, cafés, and shops as well as flats. Visitors enter through an impressive gateway with King William’s statue.

The Gateway and the substantial buildings inside the Yard: Bakery, Slaughterhouse, Cooperage, Brewery etc, are made of local stone in an imposing late Georgian classical style.

All the buildings are Grade 1 listed and, being next to the harbour and Tamar river, provide photogenic subjects.

These plaques reminding visitors of the contributions made to the restoration by the EC and the now defunct local RDA could do with some restoration themselves: