Behind the facade: an architect at large

BEHIND THE FACADE: an architect at large By John Wells-Thorpe. Publisher: Book Guild Publishing Ltd. £17.99

Michael Manser, past president of the RIBA, reviews the recollections of a gentleman architect of the modernist persuasion.

In general, architects are not literary people. Thomas Hardy was an exception. Judged by the house he designed for himself, it is clear he later found a better career. However, in the last twenty years young architects entering offices - having completed seven years of academic study, prefaced by thirteen years general education in the private or state sector - not infrequently verge on being illiterate. So it was a pleasure to be asked to review no less than 423 pages of a book written in exemplary and enjoyable prose by a later-than-middle-aged architect. 

John Wells-Thorpe has written the story of his career as an architect in Brighton, the town where he was born, where he received his training, where he founded his own successful business, and where he still lives. 

It is an unusual book, not least for its opening sentence : “If my father had not committed suicide I might not have become an architect” which may account for the marginally detached way in which he writes of how his life unfolded; even for the title of his book: “Behind the Façade”. 

He has had a varied and interesting career. As a practitioner running a medium sized firm in Sussex, later as an itinerant architect overseas, a Council member and Vice-President of the RIBA, a magistrate for many years, an activist in charitable causes and an extensive world traveller in voluntary activities, principally for the Commonwealth Association of Architects, of which he was President. Finally he chaired the South Downs NHS Trust and still found time to chair government enquiries and be a member of a BBC Advisory Board. He is still active in the public sector. 

The book is entertaining, sometimes ruefully, about the vicissitudes and high spots of architectural practice, the ironies and the fun of being in the profession. Wells-Thorpe is a great raconteur and leavens his tales with lively and often caustic wit. 

“Behind the Façade” is a good and enjoyable read. It is in three stages: Youth and architectural practice. Public Life in Britain and in architectural politics and then his international life with the Commonwealth Association of Architects. Each part is written fluently and with revealing insights of professional life. It is not dissimilar in some ways to H.G. Cresswell’s Honeywood File in style but over a wider scope of work. His international travelling is recorded comparably in style and with the quality and perception of an established travel writer. As the end of his career approaches and working for the NHS one is aware of the wistfulness of someone who has tried hard in a public way to improve lives, enterprises and ambitions on a generous scale and realises there is not the time to make the impact he had sought. As I put the book down I realised that the author has set out his life in great depth but always kept something back. He is to a degree an enigma in today’s open and brash society, which is refreshing and dignified. What is irritating is that the book has no index, nor are events clearly recorded in chronological sequence. In a novel it would not matter but in a biography it is useful to be able to refer back and adjust perspectives. But that does not diminish the pleasure of the voyage around John Wells-Thorpe. 

Available from www.bookguild.co.uk, or from Amazon.