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Townscape, anti-scrape and surrealism: Paul Nash and John Piper inThe Architectural Review

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602360903027988

1466-4410

John Macarthur,

Cultural Industries and Urban Development

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgement This paper draws on research by Mathew Aitchison for his doctoral dissertation, Visual Planning and Exterior Furnishing: A Critical History of the Early Townscape Movement, 1930 to 1949, and on other works we have jointly authored which are recorded in the Notes. I am very grateful for Mathew's assiduous research and for his intelligent, lively and generous discussion of the ideas presented here. Whilst I have drawn on Dr Aitchison's ideas and the wider context of his, and our, other projects, any faults in facts or errors of argument in the present paper are my own. Notes Gordon Cullen, Townscape (London, Architectural Press, 1961);———, The Concise Townscape (London, The Architectural Press, 1971). John Macarthur, The Picturesque: Architecture, Disgust and Other Irregularities (London, Routledge, 2007). Mathew Aitchison, ‘Visual Planning and Exterior Furnishing: A Critical History of the Early Townscape Movement, 1930 to 1949’ (University of Queensland, Australia, 2009);———, ‘Visual Planning and the Picturesque: Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Townscape Revisited’ (paper presented at the Celebration: 22nd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), Napier, New Zealand, 2005); John Macarthur and Mathew Aitchison, ‘Pevsner's Townscape’, in Nikolaus Pevsner, On Visual Planning and the Picturesque, ed., Mathew Aitchison (Santa Monica, Getty Research Institute, 2010: forthcoming); Erdem Erten, ‘From Townscape to Civilia: The Evolution of a Collective Project’ (paper presented at the Cities of Tomorrow: 10th International Planning History Conference, University of Westminster and Letchworth Garden City, July 10th -13th 2002); ———, ‘Shaping “The Second Half Century”: The Architectural Review 1947–1971’, PhD (Cambridge, Mass., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004). The Editor, ‘Exterior Furnishing or Sharawaggi: The Art of Making Urban Landscape’, The Architectural Review, 95 (1944); ———, ‘The Second Half Century’, The Architectural Review, 101, no. 601 (1947); ———, ‘The First Half Century’, The Architectural Review, 101, no. 601 (1947); Ivor de Wolfe, ‘Townscape: A Plea for an English Visual Philosophy Founded on the True Rock of Sir Uvedale Price’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 636 (1949). Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Heritage of Compromise: A Note on Sir Joshua Reynolds Who Died One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago’, The Architectural Review, 92 (1942); ———, ‘Price on Picturesque Planning’, The Architectural Review, 95 (1944); ———, ‘The Genesis of the Picturesque’, The Architectural Review, 96 (1944); ———, ‘The Other Chambers’, The Architectural Review, 101 (1947); ———, ‘Humphrey Repton: A Florilegium’, The Architectural Review, 103 (1948); ———, ‘Reassessment 4: Three Oxford Colleges’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 632 (1949); ———, ‘C 20 Picturesque’, The Architectural Review, 115, no. 688 (1954). Nikolaus Pevsner, On Visual Planning and the Picturesque, ed., Mathew Aitchison, op. cit.. Camillo Sitte, Der Städtebau Nach Seinen Künstlerischen Grundsätzen (Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, Vieweg, 1889 [reprinted 1983]); George R. Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins, Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning, with a Translation of the 1889 Austrian Edition of His City Planning According to Artistic Principles (New York, Rizzoli, 1986). Pevsner, ‘Price on Picturesque Planning’, op. cit. Robert Venturi and the Museum of Modern Art, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Museum of Modern Art Papers on Architecture, 1 (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1966); Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1972); Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, ‘Collage City’, The Architectural Review, 158, no. 952 (1975). Iñaki Ábálos, Atlas Pintoresco- El Observatoria Vol 1 (Barcelona, Editorial Gustavo Gill, 2005); ———, Atlas Pintoresco- El Observatoria Vol 2 (Barcelona, Editorial Gustavo Gill, 2006); Rem Koolhaas et al., Great Leap Forward (Cologne/Cambridge, Mass., Taschen/Harvard Design School, 2001). Nash, Paul. ‘Swanage or Seaside Surrealism’, The Architectural Review, 79 (1936), pp.150–54; ———, ‘The Object’, The Architectural Review, 80 (1936), pp.207–8. Nash, Paul, Roland Penrose and The Editor, ‘Competition Result. Holiday Surrrealism’, The Architectural Review, 80 (1936), pp.218–20. Nash, Paul, ‘Found Sculpture’, The Architectural Review, 85 (1939), p.301. Editor, The, ‘Poor Man's Sculpture. [Bollards]’, The Architectural Review, 87 (1940), pp.27–28. Donner, Peter F.R., ‘Criticism [Sir Herbert Baker's Extension to Sir John Soane's Bank of England]’, The Architectural Review, 90 (1941), pp.91–92. Editor, The, ‘Blast-Proof Architecture [Book Review Of ‘Space, Time and Architecture’ By Sigfried Giedion]', The Architectural Review, 90 (1941), p.184. Piper, John, ‘A Cubist Folk Art’, The Architectural Review, 94, no. 559 (1943), pp.21–22. Editor, The, ‘Exterior Furnishing or Sharawaggi: The Art of Making Urban Landscape’, The Architectural Review, 95, no. 565 (1944), pp.3–8; ———, ‘Surrealist City’, The Architectural Review, 99, no. 592 (1946), p.125; ———, ‘Summer, 1945’, The Architectural Review, 99, no. 593 (1946), p.130; ———, ‘Marginalia. Paul Nash [Obituary]’, The Architectural Review, 100, no. 597 (1946), pp. lix–lx; ———, ‘The Second Half Century’, The Architectural Review, 101, no. 601 (1947), pp.21–26; ———, ‘The First Half Century’, The Architectural Review, 101, no. 601 (1947), pp.26–36. de Wolfe, Ivor, ‘Townscape. A Plea for an English Visual Philosophy Founded on the True Rock of Sir Uvedale Price’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 636 (1949), pp.354–62. Pevsner, Nikolaus, ‘Surrealism in the Sixteenth Century’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 636 (1949), p.399. The Editor, ‘Exterior Furnishing’, op. cit. H.F. Clark, ‘Lord Burlington's Bijou, or Sharawaggi at Chiswick’, The Architectural Review, 95, no. 569 (1944); S. Lang and Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Sir William Temple and Sharawaggi’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 636 (1949); H.F. Clark, ‘Lord Burlington's Bijou, or Sharawaggi at Chiswick’, The Architectural Review, 95, no. 569 (1944). The Editor, ‘Exterior Furnishing’, op. cit., p.5. The Editor is incorrect about the ox. It was Price who used this example of a painting by Rembrandt. Ibid. Ibid., p.5. Ivor de Wolfe, ‘Townscape: A Plea for an English Visual Philosophy Founded on the True Rock of Sir Uvedale Price’, op. cit., p.361. The Editor, ‘Exterior Furnishing’, op. cit., p.6. Ernst's work was exhibited with that of Arp, Miró and Picabia in the first significant public showing of surrealism at the Mayor Gallery, London, in 1933. Michel Remy, Surrealism in Britain (Aldershot, Hants, England / Brookfield, Vt., Ashgate, 1999), p.33 The photograph of the monumental swan was by ‘Archibald Angus (aged 14 & ½)’ (‘Eyes and No Eyes in East Anglia: A Schoolboy's Holiday Tour’), The Architectural Review, 79 (1936), pp.263–68. This person might well have been Piper judging by the structure of the tour of East Anglia from which it was taken. The mediaeval door, with hinges in a Danish pattern, perhaps from the time of the Norman Conquest, was exactly the kind of artefact that had fascinated Piper since he toured rural Hampshire as a boy writing his own guidebooks. In 1936–37 Piper was commissioned to photograph mediaeval sculpture for the British Museum and he reported on this in the AR in ‘Early English Sculptors’. The Editor, ‘The First Half Century’, op. cit., pp.31–32. Paul Nash and Andrew Causey, Paul Nash: Writings on Art (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). Roger Cardinal, The Landscape Vision of Paul Nash (London, Reaktion, 1989); Piper, Myfanwy, and Andrew Causey, ‘Nash, Paul (1889–1946)’, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds, H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004); David Boyd Haycock, Paul Nash, British Artists Series (London, Tate Publishing, 2003). Paul Nash, ‘Monster Field’, The Architectural Review, 88 (1940), p.122. Lyndsey Stonebridge, ‘Bombs, Birth, and Trauma: Henry Moore's and D.W. Winnicott's Prehistory Figments’, Cultural Critique, no. 46 (2000). Remy, Michel, Surrealism in Britain (Aldershot, Hants, England/Brookfield, Vt., Ashgate, 1999). Nash, Paul, ‘Swanage or Seaside Surrealism’, op. cit.; ———, ‘The Object’, op. cit.; Nash, Paul, Roland Penrose, and The Editor, ‘Competition Result. Holiday Surrrealism’, op. cit. Nash, Paul, Shell Guide to Dorset, ed., John Betjeman, Shell Guides to the English Counties (London, The Architectural Press, 1936). John Piper, ‘The Recent Watercolours of Paul Nash’, Town Flats and Country Cottages, 1:8 (May, 1937), referenced in Frances Spalding, ‘John Piper in the 1930s: “Abstraction on the Beach” ‘in, David Fraser Jenkins and Frances Spalding, eds, John Piper in the 1930s: ‘Abstraction on the Beach’ (London, Merrell, 2003), pp.9–65; 65. David Fraser Jenkins, ‘Piper, John Egerton Christmas (1903–1992)’, in, H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). Frances Spalding,. ‘John Piper in the 1930s: ‘Abstraction on the Beach’, op. cit., p.44. Ibid., p.58. Ibid., p.50. This tour produced the images for later publications including Betjeman, John, ‘Nonconformist Architecture’, The Architectural Review, 88 (1940), pp.160–74. Piper, John, ‘London to Bath. A Topographical and Critical Survey of the Bath Road [Written and Illustrated by John Piper]’, The Architectural Review, 85 (1939), pp.229–46. Piper, John, ‘Someone to Lean On’, The Architectural Review, 78 (1935), p.191; ———, ‘England's Early Sculptors’, The Architectural Review, 80 (1936), pp.157–63; ———, ‘Died April 1st, 1837: John Constable [Tribute]’, The Architectural Review, 81 (1937), pp.149–50; ———, ‘The Nautical Style’, The Architectural Review, 83 (1938), pp.1–14; ———, ‘London to Bath. A Topographical and Critical Survey of the Bath Road [Written and Illustrated by John Piper]’, The Architectural Review, 85 (1939), pp.229–46; ———, ‘Fully Licensed’, The Architectural Review, 87 (1940), pp.87–100; ———, ‘Decrepit Glory: A Tour of Hafod’, The Architectural Review, 87 (1940), pp.207–10; ———, ‘Towers in the Fens’, The Architectural Review, 88 (1940), pp.131–34; ———, ‘A Cubist Folk Art’, The Architectural Review, 94, no. 559 (1943), pp.21–22; ———, ‘Colour in Building’, The Architectural Review, 94, no. 563 (1943), pp.139–41; ———, ‘Colour in Building. Colour and Texture’, The Architectural Review, 95, no. 566 (1944), pp. 51–52; ———, ‘Blandford Forum’, The Architectural Review, 96, no. 571 (1944), pp.21–23; ———, ‘Warmth in the West’, The Architectural Review, 96, no. 573 (1944), pp.89–91; ———, ‘Flint’, The Architectural Review, 96, no. 575 (1944), pp.149–51. Editor, The, and John Piper, ‘East Budleigh, Devonshire. Colour in the Picturesque Village. [Introduction by the Editor]’, The Architectural Review, 97, no. 581 (1945), pp.130. Piper, John, ‘Shops’, The Architectural Review, 97, no. 579 (1945), pp.89–91; ———, ‘Colour in the Picturesque Village’, The Architectural Review, 97, no. 581 (1945), pp.149–50; ———, ‘Colour in Building. The Market Place’, The Architectural Review, 99, no. 593 (1946), pp.153–55. Editor, The, and John Piper, ‘Time, Weather and Sculpture’, The Architectural Review, 102, no. 612 (1947), pp.206–7. Piper, John, ‘Pleasing Decay’, The Architectural Review, 102, no. 609 (1947), pp.85–94; ———, ‘Reassessment 5. Stonehenge’, The Architectural Review, 106, no. 633 (1949), pp.177–82. John Piper, ‘Pleasing Decay’, op. cit. Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Scrape and Anti-Scrape’, in The Future of the Past: Attitudes to Conservation, 1174–1974, ed., Jane Fawcett (London, Thames and Hudson, 1976); Wim Denslagen, Architectural Restoration in Western Europe: Controversy and Continuity (Amsterdam, Architectura & Natura, 1994). Thomas Cocke and Peter Kidson, Salisbury Cathedral: Perspectives on the Architectural History (London, Royal Commision on the Historical Monuments of England, HMSO, 1993), p.50. Brian Ladd makes a strong case for the origins of the concept of urban context in preservation controversy. His account covers German discussions, but not similar and earlier British controversies. Brian Ladd, ‘Urban Aesthetics and the Discovery of Urban Fabric in Turn-of-the-Century Germany’, Planning Perspectives, no. 2 (1987). John Piper, ‘Pleasing Decay’, op. cit., p.93. Ibid. Mellor, David, ed., A Paradise Lost: The Neo-Romantic Imagination in Britain, 1935–55 (London, Lund Humphries for the Barbican Art Gallery, 1987). Kitty Hauser, Shadow Sites: Photography, Archeology, and the British Landscape 1927 – 1955 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). Hebert Read and Hugh Sykes Davies, eds, Surrealism: Contributions by André Breton, Hugh Sykes Davies, Paul Eluard, Georges Hugenet (London, Faber, 1936). Ibid., pp.27–28. Remy, Surrealism in Britain, op. cit., pp.96–97. Kevin Jackson, ‘Jennings, (Frank) Humphrey Sinkler 1907–1950’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2007), http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/view/article/37600 Paul Nash, ‘The Object’, op. cit., pp.207–8; 207. The Editor, ‘Exterior Furnishing’, op. cit., p.8. See, for example, Martin Price, To the Palace of Wisdom: Studies in Order and Energy from Dryden to Blake (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1970). Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London, Chatto and Windus, 1973). Gordon Cullen and The Editor, ‘Bankside Regained: A Scheme for Developing the South Bank of the Thames with an Eye to the 1951 Exhibition’, The Architectural Review, 105, no. 625 (1949), pp.15–24; de Wolfe, Ivor, ‘Civilia. The End of Sub Urban Man. [Special Edition]’, The Architectural Review, 149, no. 892 (1971), pp.326–408; The Editor, ‘Midland Experiment: 1. The Proposal. [Townscape]’, The Architectural Review, 114, no. 681 (1953), p.169; ____, ‘A Programme for the City of London. Part Three. A Test Case-the Precinct of St. Paul's’, The Architectural Review, 97, no. 582 (1945), pp.185–91. Stonebridge, ‘Bombs, Birth, and Trauma’, op. cit. Summerson, John, ‘The Preservation of Old Buildings [Excerpts from a Report to the Architectural Association by John Summerson]’, The Architectural Review, 90, July–December, December (1941), pp.184, XXXVIII, XL; The Editor, ‘Save Us Our Ruins [with a Foreword by the Dean of St. Pauls, W. R. Matthews]’, The Architectural Review, 95, no. 565, January (1944)' pp.13–14; Allen, Marjory, David Cecil, Kenneth Clark, F. A. Cockin, T. S. Eliot, H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, Julian Huxley, Keynes, and E. J. Salisbury, ‘Save Us Our Ruins [Letter to the Editor of the Times, August 12th]’, The Architectural Review, 96, no. 574, October (1944), p.XLV; Hussey, Christopher, ‘Save Us Our Ruins [Letter to the Editor of the Times, September 9th]’, The Architectural Review, 96, no. 575, November (1944), p.LI. J. M. Richards and John Summerson, The Bombed Buildings of Britain: A Record of Architectural Casualties: 1940–41 (London, The Architectural Press, 1942). Summerson's experiences lead him to be instrumental in the founding of the National Building Record in 1941 for the purpose of documenting buildings at risk. Ibid., p.3. The Architectural Review, 95 (1944), p.565.