QUOTATIONS ON ARCHITECTURE/INDUSTRIAL DESIGN FROM THE CAMBRIDGE GUIDE TO THE ARTS IN BRITAIN; EDITED BY BORIS FORD, VOLUME 9: SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR (PUBLISHED 1988)

CHAPTER 9, ARCHITECTURE BY JOSEPH RYKWERT: FESTIVAL AND THE FIFTIES

.."The first major post-war display of the reservoir of talent was a government (Board of Trade) sponsored exhibition, 'Britain Can Make It' at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1946, which was of course intended to show Britain as a leader in designed goods, primarily for export, but also included a series of interiors, some quite luxurious, showing the work of the best of 'modern' architects and designers working for hypothetical, but carefully specified 'clients'. Their real chance for display, however, came five years later in 1951, when the centenary of the Crystal Palace was officially celebrated with a 'Festival of Britain.' This was considered so important that a cabinet minister, Herbert Morrison, was detailed to look after it. Shows were designed in Glasgow and Belfast, a pleasure garden opened in Battersea, as well as a 'live architecture' exhibition (a model settlement in fact) designed by Frederick Gibberd in Dockland; but the main show was a many pavilioned exhibition on the South Bank of the Thames where Abercrombie had originally planned his cultural/amusement centre. that piece of planning turned out to have been invaluable...

In 1951 the Festival Hall was surrounded by the exhibition pavilions. Most of the designers of the exhibition belonged to the pre-war 'modernist' group and were 'conducted' by Hugh Casson (later President of the Royal Academy), who had been involved in the MARS Group exhibition of 1937-8. Its centrepiece was the Dome of Discovery, a vast steel and aluminium shell supported on thin steel frames. Near it, the 'vertical feature' of the exhibition (another design commission won in a competition by Philip Powell and Hiladgo Moya) was a thin cigar-shaped object on three counterpoised steel struts which provided the the perfect phallic symbol for the age of contraception.* In spite of the excitement of the run-up and of the exhibition, none of the buildings were architecturally outstanding**; what created the most striking impression was the generous but sensible use of the exterior spaces and the lively quality of the main features (such as the entrance pavilions and the general offices) as well as the furnishings provided by the Festival office. These furnishings were widely emulated and copied, but they were rather fragile and the fashion which they started was short-lived. Their rarity value made them worth collecting..

The aim, and to a great extent the success, of the exhibition was to celebrate the century's achievement, show the world that Britain could indeed 'make it', and persuade the British that present or future modernity was not as glum as austerity had led them to believe: that it was as authentically British as Paxton's glass-and-iron Palace; and that it provided the proper model for all future development.

Comment

* Not named in the original text, he is referring to the "Skylon" of course! ** Since the buildings were temporary, there would not have been much point in them being 'architecturally outstanding' and in any case, their contents were far more important.

CHAPTER 11, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN BY JOHN HESKETT: ..SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR

..The atmosphere of austerity and making-do was broken in 1951, however, with another exhibition, the Festival of Britain, in which, again the CoID (Council of Industrial Design) played a leading organisational role. Originally conceived as an international exhibition to celebrate the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, it was pared down for economic reasons to a national celebration to recovery from war. The influence of CoID was apparent on many levels, in the appointment of architects and designers for specific tasks, in the selection of exhibits, in the furnishings of model homes for the 'Living Architecture' exhibition on the Lansbury Estate in London's East End. There were also two specific projects relating to design.

In 1949 a conference had been orgainised by the Society of Industrial Artists to explore the visual potential of new scientific methods, at which Dr. Kathleen Lonsdale had shown slides of crystallography structures, suggesting they might be appropriate for pattern designs. The idea was taken up by Mark Hartland Thomas of the CoID, who formed a Festival Pattern Group to exploit the possibilities of creating new forms. Not only crystallography, but microscopic organisms and bacterial forms and atomic, molecular models were also used for textile, wallpaper and ceramic patterns This deliverable attempt to create a self-conscious Festival style had some success but only of limited duration.

The second project by the CoID was the assembly of what was first known as the Stock List, a collection of selected designs in all categories of production which could be referred to by potential overseas buyers visiting the Festival and wanting a survey of what was best in any market sector. It later became a permanent collection under the title of Design Review.

If the Festival can be seen in retrospect as the culmination of the wartime capacity for co-operation and improvisation on projects of national importance, it also looked forward in important respects to a world beyond the drabness of the austerity years. Though hardly pioneering in any original sense, the Festival introduced the British public to a concept of modernity in design, to new forms, materials and practices, above all, to a use of bright, bold colour, that was avidly adopted in all aspects of design. Certain characteristics emerged which were first collectively designated the 'Festival Style', but more generally, simply as 'Contemporary'...

'Contemporary' style was the first indication of that new prosperity. In furniture and other structures it came to mean planes and surfaces, often of an organic curving shape, supported by slender means such as metal rods. Chairs of all kinds displayed legs that tapered and were angled outwards. Patterns in textiles and coverings were generally of abstract rather than naturalistic forms, again combining organic shapes with spikey, linear forms. Many of the materials developed in the war years such as laminates and pressed boards, plastics and aluminium were applied with new paints and dyes and synthetic fabrics and surfacing to produce what at the time was regarded as a striking image of novelty and even of dating.

If colour was the most immediate stimulus provided by 'Contemporary', with its bright primary hues and stark contrasts, there was also a change of long- term consequences in the concept of structure. The use of manufactured timber sheet and light-metal content meant that strong, lightweight furniture could be mass-produced and challenge older concepts of solidity and massiveness as an indicator of strength and durability. This change was epitomised for many visitors to the Festival of Britain by the chairs designed for it by Ernest Race, which were key objects of 'Contemporary'. The "Springbok" was constructed of mild steel rod, stove-enamelled to prevent corrosion, with PVC-covered springs stretched across the frame to provide seat and back. They could be used indoors or outside, were stackable and light. The balls at the end of the thin legs were a sensible solution to the problem of a thin rod pressing on vunerable surfaces or jamming in interstices; but they were also reminiscent of atomic models with their circle and line patterns. More than anything this motif later typified 'Contemporary', with the balls often in bright primary colours.

A second chair designed by Race for the Festival was the "Antelope", again of welded and white stove-enamelled rod, but this time with a plywood seat sprayed in primary colours. The techniques used by Race in both chairs had been evolved and refined since 1946, but the Festival provided a spectacular platform for his ideas which had a tremendous impact and became very popular. SEE BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ERNEST RACE.

However, if the Festival stimulated a concept of design that sought to embody the values of new technology and modernity, it also marked the inception of a counter-current. Some aspects of it were characterised by a self-indulgent nostalgia, expressed in a turn towards a romanticised view of the past, as in the Agriculture and Country Pavilion on the South Bank. The Battersea Pleasure Gardens were an important locus of this tendency, deliberately intended as a contrast to the more serious attractions of the Festival as a whole, at which one of the greatest attractions was Rowland Emett's "Far Tottering and Oystercreek Railway", based on cartoons in 'Punch'.* It was wildly eccentric, freely using a range of old decorative forms such as brass mouldings and fretted barge-boards, and was an enormous popular success. The post-Festival period was therefore characterised both by a range of new developments, and a return of ornamented historical forms, with the latter being the greatest in quantity.

Comment:

* in the original text, this was described as 'Rowland Emmett's "Far Twittering and Oyster Creek Railway"; 'Emmett' should read 'Emett', 'Twittering' should read 'Tottering' and 'Oyster Creek' should read 'Oystercreek'. The railway was originally going to be called "The Far Twittering and Oystercreek Branch Railway", but 'Twittering' was changed to 'Tottering' so as the brass name plates were the 'F.T. & O.', they remained unchanged! In my opinion, the Guinness Festival Clock was the bigger attraction for the working-class visitors to the Festival Pleasure Gardens and subsequently all over the country. M.P.

ERNEST RACE

The 1951 "Antelope" Chair was just one of the products from the firm of Ernest Race Ltd. The founder of the firm was born in Newcastle in 1913 and after leaving school he attended the Bartlett School of Architecture where he undertook a three year course in interior design. On completion of this course he joined the model making firm of 'Troughton and Young' as a draughtsman. Following this he spent four months in India before returning to London in 1937 to open a shop selling fabrics based on traditional Indian weaving patterns. The designs were immediately taken to heart by the Modern Movement architects of the period and Race's business flourished. As well as fabrics Race sold simple furniture from his shop in Motcombe Street and he became very impressed by the new designs originating from Sweden. In 1938 Race started training with the Auxilary Fire Service and the following year he closed his shop and joined the AFS as a full time recruit - a position he was to hold throughout the war. Following the war Race joined forces with Noel Jordon to form 'Ernest Race Ltd.' with Race as designer and director with Noel Jordan as M.D. Following the considerable success the company had exhibiting at the "Britain Can Make It" exhibition, their designs went from strength to strength. For the 1951 Festival of Britain the firm went on to produce several items of furniture WHICH TODAY SEEM TO EMBODY THE SPIRIT OF 51. The first was the "Springbok" chair with its spring seating hidden in heavy gauge PVC tubing, and the second was the "Antelope" range. The most famous item in the latter range was the standard single chair with its steel rod construction and shaped plywood seat, but this was also joined by the two seater version and the "Antelope" style table.

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