Obituary: February 2012

Harold Cassius Higgins, 1926-june 2011

Expert in the design of both public housing and one-off homes, with a strong social and political agenda

Hal Higgins belonged to that idealistic group of young post-war architects whose early work was infused with a strong social and political agenda. As a graduate of both the Architectural Association and the School of Planning and Regional Research he considered architecture, particularly in public housing, a critical determinant of society and ultimately a branch of the social sciences rather than the arts. As a result his early work is highly rigorous in concept, so stripped of aesthetic caprice that it attracted some robust criticism at the time.

Higgins and his partner Peter Ney formed Higgins Ney & Partners in 1954. For five years they survived on low-cost housing and community planning projects. Then came a private house commission in Hampstead, a rare opportunity in cash-strapped 1950s Britain. Even more remarkably, the client accepted an uncompromisingly modern solution in brick and glass that established the firm’s design style for the next 20 years.

Higgins Ney developed a strong reputation for high-density, low-rise housing with novel planning arrangements. Most notable was the ‘High-Deck’ design, constructed in Fulham, London, that had upper walkway access to individual duplex apartments over a covered parking zone. This space, where children could safely play in view of their parents, was a direct challenge to the high-rise dogma of the time. Dismissed by some critics as the ‘new back-to-backs’ the approach had, by the end of the decade, become respectable enough for the scheme to receive a Civic Trust Award in 1970.

The late 1960s were a busy time for Higgins. The practice was now a dozen strong with public housing schemes across London and the north of England. It was also attracting private clients, most notably a spectacular family home in the modern style in Highgate, London, which won grade II status in 2006.

The atmosphere in Higgins Ney at this time is best summed up by Chris Hutton, an associate of the firm, who wrote recently that Higgins ‘was inspiring with his very quick mind developing and debating new strategies – he could be somewhat impatient with those of us who struggled to keep up. But I learnt a great deal from him in manipulating architectural ideas, and developing a theoretical basis for practice… working at HNP was like an informal school of architecture and a form of continuing education.’

As public housing projects declined under Mrs Thatcher the firm’s other specialism, exhibition design, came to the fore. Beginning with the interior of the Museum of London, Higgins Ney quickly attracted museum clients in the UK and overseas, including Saudi Arabia and Libya. During the 1980s Higgins spent considerable time travelling in the Middle East on cultural commissions, developing a strong appreciation of Islamic design principles that echoed, through its geometrical rigour, the analytical approach of his earlier work.
Chairman of Higgins Gardner & Partners from 1986, his work focused on the adaptation or alteration of historic buildings. Notable was his design for the Bank of England Museum (winner of the 1988 City Heritage Award), which accurately reinstated Sir John Soane’s Bank Stock Office. For many years he was also a consultant to the Sue Ryder Foundation, advising on works to its many listed buildings.

Higgins had a strong connection with academia, lecturing for five years in urban planning at Kingston School of Architecture, and had a visiting lectureship at the Hochschule für Technische, Stuttgart. From 1968-74 he was a visiting professor at the USA’s University of Virginia, which included directorship of the Center for Housing and the Social Environment. He was also chair of architecture and housing at University College Dublin.

He is survived by his son Matthew, an architect practising in California, and his daughter Caroline Liddington, a book illustrator.

In memoriam:
This month, the RIBA has learned with regret of the following members’ deaths
Frank James Winstone Dann, elected 1958, Oxford,
Kenneth Noel Baker, elected 1959, Hull, East Yorkshire
Kenneth Barnard, elected 1959, Hull
Campion Charles Carter, elected 1959, Chester
Geoffrey Matthews, elected 1959, Portugal
John Bartlett, elected 1960, Weybridge, Surrey
Rex Stafford Critchlow, elected 1961, Grimsby, Humberside
Harry Kilberger, elected 1961
David John Bonnett, elected 1961, Bath
James Patrick Furlong, elected 1962

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