REALITY CHECK

Forget starchitects and their iconic, ego-driven structures – the ‘real architecture’ of the last century is lovingly presented in this modest series. Hugh Pearman reads on

Here is the antidote to all those overlarge vanity-published monographs of architects for whom building is not enough, and early publication seemingly essential. This series of illustrated softbacks sums up posthumously the careers of some of the best post-war British architects, none of them superstars. True, Hidalgo ‘Jacko’ Moya of Powell & Moya produced an enduring icon in the Skylon at the 1951 Festival of Britain, but this was an exception in the practice’s work.
The practices covered in the first three volumes – along with the imminent fourth on Aldington Craig and Collinge by Alan Powers – could in fact be described as ‘good ordinary’. They were not the Smithsons or Stirling, Lubetkin or Lasdun. They quietly did excellent work and while hardly revolutionary were generally much more progressive than most of their peers.  Thus this series – a collaboration with English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society – says more about the state of British architecture of the time than more headline-grabbing stuff.
Of the three volumes, the most interesting is Denison’s McMorran & Whitby. What might these inventive neo-classicists not have achieved, had they not died relatively young (61 and 56)?  Their great London works – Wood Street police station and the Old Bailey extension – showed a practice at the height of its powers, offering a real alternative to standard-issue modernism of the time. As Gavin Stamp says in his forward, in the early 1970s the modern movement looked increasingly vulnerable and an architecture of solidity, humanity and resonance could have made real headway. At this moment Whitby died, as did that other progressive neoclassicist, Raymond Erith, at 69. Momentum faltered, and the opportunity was lost in the us-and-them rhetoric of the Prince Charles era, and the fog of postmodernism. Perhaps now is the time for another attempt on the modernist citadel.
One of the joys of this book is the light it sheds on the roots of this interesting practice and the way it re-introduces us to its lesser-known work, such as its London council estates, Devon County Hall, Cripps Hall at Nottingham University, or Whitby’s early, almost Chipperfield-like Plashet girls’ school in East Ham. It was 1954 and led to a damaging court case, but it survives to this day.
The Ryder and Yates book is chiefly interesting for telling how this north-eastern firm came out of the doomed Peterlee new town by Lubetkin – his influence, and that of Le Corbusier, whom Peter Yates knew, was profound. Yates fancied himself as an artist in the Corb mould, and produced passable Shell guide-style images. But their buildings, though good, were faint echoes of the masters and often too self-consciously sculptural. They are an interesting footnote, little more.
This could not be said of Powell & Moya, who deserve a book for Churchill Gardens in Westminster and the Skylon alone. It also has overlooked buildings such as its restlessly-articulated QE2 conference centre behind Parliament Square. And its pavilion for Expo 70 in Osaka – a mast-suspended affair – anticipates the later high-tech work of Rogers and Grimshaw.  The Oxbridge work still looks very good but, inevitably, there was a falling-off, and its later hospitals are pretty forgettable.
What is good about this series so far is that it’s all about partnerships, the way most architect-designed buildings are produced. These are not about the cult of the solo genius, but the meshing of personalities to create good work. If anything represents that elusive thing,  ‘real architecture’, these books do. Warmly recommended.

First three volumes of Twentieth Century Architects:
McMorran & Whitby
by Edward Denison
Powell & Moya
by Kenneth Powell
Ryder and Yates
by Rutter Carroll
RIBA Publishing, £20 each PB

Editor’s selection

Camps: A Guide to 21st Century Space
Charlie Hailey. MIT Press
£19.95 PB
Hailey takes us on a riveting journey into the psychogeography of the modern camp. With diverse occupants – detainees, migrants, refugees, pilgrims, activists and tourists – this is a new reading of the contemporary condition. CK

Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books
Jo Steffens Ed. Yale University Press £16.00 HB
In this pictorial tour of the libraries of 10 architects, like Diller + Scofidio, Eisenman, Tschumi, Sorkin and Michael Graves, Corb and Venturi turn up a lot. But there’s plenty more here too. A good stocking filler. CK

Architecture’s Desire: Reading the Late Avant-Garde
K Michael Hays. MIT Press £14.95 PB
Hays discusses architecture as a cultural signifier and a way of perceiving and constructing identities and differences. This dense semiotic text is challenging but chapter headings – ‘Desire’, ‘Analogy’, ‘Repetition’ etc, help. CK