Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Townscape: scope, scale and extent

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602365.2012.724847

1466-4410

Mathew Aitchison,

Urbanization and City Planning

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes This incident and many others from the period are relayed in J.M. Richards, Memoirs of an Unjust Fella (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), p. 144. The Editor, ‘The Architectural Review and the War’, AR, 89 (June, 1941), p. 117. J. M. Richards, op. cit., p. 141. The first was Pioneers of the Modern Movement: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (London, Faber & Faber, 1936); the second, An Outline of European Architecture (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1942). For more on Pevsner's early years in Britain, see Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life (London, Chatto and Windus, 2011) and Stephen Games, Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and Art (London, Continuum, 2010). J. M. Richards, op. cit., pp. 141–42. Using pseudonyms, Pevsner wrote several humorous accounts of his work in this period: see, Ramaduri, ‘Meine Kollegen, Die Schuttschipper’, Die Zeitung, 1 (September, 1941). These articles are too numerous to mention here: see the bibliography contained in: Nikolaus Pevsner, Mathew Aitchison (ed.), Visual Planning and the Picturesque (Santa Monica, CA., Getty Publications, 2010), pp. 211–13. J. M. Richards, op. cit., p. 241. Nikolaus Pevsner, ed., The Picturesque Garden and Its Influence Outside the British Isles (Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, 1974), pp. 119–20. Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Elusive JMR’, RIBA Journal, 78 (May, 1971), p. 181. Paul Nash, ‘Swanage or Seaside Surrealism’, AR, 79 (January-June, 1936), pp. 150–54. John Piper, ‘London to Bath. A Topographical and Critical Survey of the Bath Road’, AR, 85 (January-June, 1939), pp. 229–46. For an analysis and comparison of Piper's and Pevsner's roles at the AR, see: John Macarthur and Mathew Aitchison, ‘Oxford Versus the Bath Road: Empiricism and Romanticism in the Architectural Review's Picturesque Revival’, The Journal of Architecture, 17, no. 1 (February, 2012), pp. 51–68. This series began with Thomas Sharp, ‘The English Tradition and the Town. I. The Street and the Town’, AR, 78 (July-December, 1935), pp. 179–87. John Betjeman, ‘The Passing of the Village’, AR, 72 (September, 1932), pp. 89–93; and, ‘The Seeing Eye or How to Like Everything’ [Illustrations by John Piper], AR, 86 (July-December, 1939), pp. 201–4. The Editor [Hastings], ‘Exterior Furnishing or Sharawaggi: The Art of Making Urban Landscape’, AR, 95, no. 565 (January, 1944), pp. 3–8. Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Price on Picturesque Planning’, AR, 95, no. 566 (February, 1944), pp. 47–50. For the most comprehensive discussion of this material see my doctoral dissertation: Mathew Aitchison, ‘Visual Planning and Exterior Furnishing: A Critical History of the Early Townscape Movement, 1930 to 1949’, (PhD Dissertation, University of Queensland, 2009). Ibid.: see pp. 247–51, for a discussion of the interrelationships between Townscape and its neo-traditionalist successors. For a broader discussion of Townscape's influence on twentieth-century discourse and practice the reader is referred to the contributions in the fourth part of this collection, in particular: the articles by Nick Beech, Steve Parnell, Jasper Cepl and Erik Ghenoiu. See Gillian Darely and Erik Ghenoiu's articles in this collection. See also, Mathew Aitchison, ‘Who's Afraid of Ivor De Wolfe’, AA Files, 62 (2011), pp. 34–39. Gordon Cullen, Townscape (London, The Architectural Press, 1961) and The Concise Townscape (London, The Architectural Press, 1971). Appendix One of my dissertation lists the 200 authors involved in the Townscape campaign at the AR. Appendix Two lists all the relevant publications from the AR, related books published by the AP, along with other Townscape-related materials. See, M. Aitchison, ‘Visual Planning’, op. cit., pp. 305–91. See Thomas Sharp, Oxford Replanned (London, The Architectural Press, 1948), p. 36. See also Ivor de Wolfe [Hastings], ‘Townscape. A Plea for an English Visual Philosophy Founded on the True Rock of Sir Uvedale Price’, AR, 106, no. 636 (December, 1949), p. 362. Such concerns were not new: Thomas Sharp's work in the 1930s shows that these were already major issues in planning; Clough Williams-Ellis's books, England and the Octopus (London, Geoffrey Bles, 1928) and the edited volume, Britain and the Beast (London, John Dent, 1937) are notable examples of such interests before Townscape. For references to this ‘humanized’ townscape see: The Editor, ‘The First Half Century’, AR, 101, no. 601 (January, 1947), p. 36 and The Editor and Gordon Cullen, ‘Hazards, or the Art of Introducing Obstacles into the Urban Landscape without Inhibiting the Eye’, AR, 103, no. 615 (March, 1948), p. 99. See Nick Beech's contribution to this Issue. Hugh Casson, as the chief coordinator of the Festival of Britain, underscores the view of the Festival being an early outcome of Townscape's campaign: Hugh Casson, ‘The Elusive H De C’, RIBA Journal, 78 (February, 1971), p. 59. The Editor, ‘The Submerged Third’, AR, 104, no. 620 (August, 1948), p. 50. The acronym appeared in a special edition, edited by Ivor de Wofle [Hastings], ‘Sociable Housing’, AR, 154, no. 920 (October, 1973). John Macarthur discusses such techniques in eighteenth-century landscape gardening under the heading ‘appropriation’: John Macarthur, The Picturesque: Architecture, Disgust and Other Irregularities (London, Routledge, 2007), pp. 176–232. Ivor de Wolfe [Hastings], ‘Civilia. The End of Sub Urban Man’, AR, 149, no. 892 (June, 1971), pp. 326–408. Robert Maxwell, ‘An Eye for an I: The Failure of the Townscape Tradition’, Architectural Design, 46, no. 9 (September, 1976), p. 535. For an extensive discussion of Townscape's reception, see M. Aitchison, ‘Visual Planning’, op. cit., pp. 52–71. Reyner Banham once reported that the Architects' Journal, the AR's sister journal where Townscape was also promoted, had received the satirical gift of a cobble stone and drain cover: Reyner Banham, ‘Revenge of the Picturesque: English Architectural Polemics, 1945–1965’, in Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, John Summerson, ed. (London, Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1968), p. 266. For a longer discussion of Townscape's journalistic context and its contributions to architectural writing more widely, see Mathew Aitchison, ‘Dilettantes, Amateurs and Eccentrics: The Architectural Review's Townscape Campaign’, in Semi-Detached: Writing, Representation and Criticism in Architecture, Naomi Stead, ed. (Melbourne, Uro Media, 2012), pp. 105–15. The Editor, ‘The Second Half Century’, AR, 101, no. 601 (January, 1947), p. 22. The AR's editorial makeup is listed on its contents page. For other accounts of the history of the AR, see Peter Davey, ‘The First 100 Years’, AR, 199, no. 1191 (May, 1996), pp. 3–106 and Michael Spens, ed., AR 100. The Recovery of the Modern. Architectural Review 1980–1995: Key Texts and Critique (Oxford, Butterworth Architecture, 1996). Erdem Erten, ‘Shaping “The Second Half Century”: The Architectural Review 1947–1971’, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Doctoral Dissertation, 2004). Appendix Three of my dissertation gives a comprehensive account of the AR's editorial makeup from its inception to the mid-1970s: M. Aitchison, ‘Visual Planning’, pp. 393–98. See Note 23 above. For de Wolfe's identity, see R. Banham, ‘Revenge of the Picturesque’, op. cit., p. 267. For F.R. Donner, see John Barr ‘Select Bibliography of the Publications of Nikolaus Pevsner’, Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, John Summerson, ed. (London, Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1968), p. 278. For James MacQuedy, see J. M. Richards, Memoirs, op. cit., p. 138. For John Coolmore, see John Betjeman, ‘A Preservationist's Progress’, in The Future in the Past: Attitudes to Conservation, 1174–1974, Jane Fawcett, ed. (London, Thames & Hudson, 1976), p. 57. Another name appears to be a conjunction of both Richards's and Hastings's pseudonyms, in ‘Ivor J. Richards’ of the 1960s. There were undoubtedly several more in use in the period, although these have not been positively identified. Outside the AR, Pevsner used two other known pseudonyms, ‘Ramaduri’, and ‘Peter Naumberg’, under these names publishing a total of 22 articles. The scrapbook containing these articles is held within ‘The Nikolaus Pevsner Collection’, GRI, box 137. A series of research notes now held at the RIBA library (referred to here as the ‘AR Papers’) lists a series of articles in the AR from Hermann George Scheffauer [aka Hastings], from December, 1922 to January, 1928. See ‘AR Papers’, cards 41–56. This number includes all articles published anonymously, or ambiguously under the label of ‘The Editor’ or ‘The Editors’. For present purposes, all such articles have been uniformly attributed to ‘The Editor’. J. M. Richards, Memoirs, op. cit., p. 138. Included in this ‘inner-circle’ are authors such as Kenneth Browne, Hugh Casson, Sylvia Crowe, (Thomas) Gordon Cullen, Frederick Gibberd, Eric Samuel de Maré, Ian Douglas Nairn and Raymond Spurrier. Alongside this group, a further 54 authors have been identified who were active before Townscape was launched: these include: John Betjeman, Lionel Brett, N.G. Brett-James, Stefan Buzás, H.F. Clark, Peter Dickinson, W.A. Eden, L.D. Ettlinger, Stephen Gardiner, Ernö Goldfinger, Maurice Gorham, Geoffrey Grigson, W.G. Hiscock, Sir William Holford, R.G. Holloway, Marjorie Honeybourne, Carl Hubacher, Christopher Hussey, Julian Huxley, G.A. Jellicoe, Barbara Jones, G.M. Kallmann, Sir Osbert Lancaster, Susan Lang, Leonard Manasseh, Ian McCallum, Harding McGregor Dunnett, Ruari McLean, Raymond Mortimer, Lewis Mumford, Paul Nash, Ozenfant, Roland Penrose, Frank Pick, John Egerton Christmas Piper, Peter Quennell, Sir James Maude Richards, R.P. Ross Williamson, Michael Rothenstein, Kenneth Rowntree, Thomas Wilfred Sharp, Osvald Sirén, Marian Speyer, John Steegman, Dorothy Stroud, John Summerson, Aileen Tatton Brown, William Tatton Brown, William Townsend, Julian Trevelyan, Christopher Tunnard, Rex Wailes, J.D.U. Ward and Clough Williams-Ellis. My research has identified 136 authors in this ‘outer-circle’: these include: Alexandra Artley, Matthew Baigell, (Peter) Reyner Banham, C.H.R. Bailey, Gerald Barry, Derek Barton, Geoffrey W. Beard, Elisabeth Beazley, Manfredo Bellati, Terence Bendixson, Peter Beresford, Michael Blee, Lewis Braithwaite, Peter Bush, W.S. Butler, Sherban Cantacuzino, William Carr, Rodney Carran, Brian Carter, Miles Coslany, David Crawford, Elizabeth Denby, Donald Dewar Mills, Michael Dower, A. du Gard Palsey, D.R. Dudley, Melville Dunbar, Alexei Ferster Marmot, John Fleming, Charles Forehoe, R. Furneaux Jordan, Keith Garbet, K.B. Gardner, Roy Gazzard, Usam Ghaidan, Leslie Ginsburg, John Gloag, Andor Gomme, David Gosling, Christopher Gotch, L.F. Gregory, Richard Guyatt, Thos Halcro, Edward T. Hall, Andrew Hammer, Eileen Harris, Jon Harris, E.M. Hatt, F.H.K. Henrion, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, John Hope, R.G. Hopkinson, Richard Hughes, M. Hugo-Brunt, James Hunter, M. Iljin, J. Jahr, Peter Jay, Charles Jencks, Roger Johnson, Percy Johnson-Marshall, Edwin Johnston, Geoffrey S. Kelly, John Kelsey, Edgar Knobloch, Art Kutcher, Laurie Lee, Maurice Lee, Kenneth Lindley, David W. Lloyd, James Macaulay, Saadja Mandl, Walter Manthorpe, Charles Marriott, Georgina Masson, Anthony Matthews, Collin McWilliam, Michael Middleton, G. Moncur, Robert Moore, Lucien Myers, G.J. Nason, Geoffrey Newman, J.R. Nichols, Max Nicholson, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Bev Nutt, G.G. Pace, R. Pearson, Simon Pepper, Alan Plater, Hugh Popham, G. Popplestone, Jonathan Raban, Roger Radford, Herbert Read, Richard Reid, Paul Ritter, Helen Rosenau, Diana Rowntree, Gordon Russell, Michel Santiago, Sylvia Sayer, Edwin Schoon, Vincent Scully, Hida Selem, Derek Senior, Graeme Shankland, Peter Shepheard, Gerald Smart, I. Smith-Raeburn, Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson, W.J. Sparrow, George Speaight, Betty Spence, Freya Stark, Betty Swanwick, Margaret Tallet, Nicholas Taylor, Nigel Temple, Margaret Tims, Rex Touchstone, Noel Tweddell, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, Peter Varnon, Robert Venturi, Claude Vincent, Harland Walshaw, David Watkin, Julian Wells, Bryan Westwood, Marcus Whiffen, Graham Winteringham, H. Myles Wright and Lance Wright. See Note 8 above. See, for example: Anthony Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural Modernism (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2008); Jorge Otero-Pailos, Architecture's Historical Turn: Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2010); Reinhold Martin, Utopia's Ghost: Architecture and Postmodernism, Again (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2010); K. Michael Hays, Architecture's Desire: Reading the Late Avant-Garde (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2010).