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British Schools of Thought
| Article
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10384 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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2 / 1993 |
1,871 Words |
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Marcus Binney
Marcus Binney, is president of Save Britain's Heritage. |
Public architecture in England is enjoying a renaissance, thanks to the brilliant and varied output of the architects department of one county council. Hampshire, with its capital in the ancient cathedral city of Winchester, has done more to foster good contemporary architecture than virtually any other patron, public or private, in the country.
Here is an array of exciting, accomplished, and genuinely popular buildings unrivaled in number and variety by any other practice in the country.
Early Ambitions
It all goes back fifteen years to the arrival of Colin Stansfield Smith as county architect. He had been with the London partnership Emberton, Frank, and Tardrew. (The founder of Emberton had designed such London landmarks as Simpson's in Piccadilly and Olympia in Kensington.) This was the era of local government reorganization, opening major new career opportunities, and naturally he leaped at the chance to run his own department.
Hampshire was then, like most education authorities in Britain, totally committed to system building--flat roofs and a kit of parts that went by the name of SCOLA--appropriately named after the deadly sounding Second Consortium of Local Authorities.
The design of schools, one of his colleagues recalls, was then governed by "the gang-lawn mower, the chain link fencing they'd just bought and the huge or insisted on bringing right up to the front door."
Since 1974 Stansfield Smith has built up a tremendously talented team, quite a number of whom are now in private practice, like Huw Thomas, architect of a series of prize-winning barn conversions. He is brilliant at drawing the best from people--there in no house style, simply a tremendous team spirit, reflected in the fact that most of the department goes to life classes every week to improve their draftsmanship, and each year they all set off together on an architectural holiday--recently to Barcelona and Rome.
Sixty percent of the workload is educational: The rest comes from the police and the social services. Two-thirds is done in house--the rest has gone to outstanding private practices including Ted Cullinan, the Prince of Wales' favorite community architect; Richard McCormack, author of major extensions to Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge; and Michael Hopkins, creator
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