Where Have all the Lidos Gone?

Bathing Pool Poster

First of all, what is a lido? Is it anything more than a swimming pool? Strictly speaking, a lido can be defined as any open-air swimming pool or bathing beach. The word means beach or seashore, in seventeenth century Italian, from the Latin litus for shore. The Lido’s use as a word for a bathing place originates with Lido di Malamocco, the town on a long, narrow reef just to the south of Venice, where the sheltered, sandy beach was, and remains a popular resort for the wealthy and fashionable.

The 1930’s saw a wave of enthusiasm for lidos throughout the UK, both on the seashore and inland. Bathing and swimming were increasingly popular, seen as healthy activities for all the family; by the end of the decade there were around 170 throughout Britain. This was a whole movement and it was radically new. 

Bognor with bathing machines, from a nineteenth century postcard

During the previous 200 years, swimming had been regarded as an exclusively masculine activity. Women of the lower classes could frolic in the water, fully dressed, on female only stretches of beach, but nobody thought they could or should actually swim. Meanwhile wealthier ladies could immerse themselves by stepping from a bathing machine into slightly deeper water, whilst dressed in voluminous and impossibly impractical bathing costumes. They couldn’t swim either.

The decline of Victorian prudishness had an enormous effect, by 1901 mixed bathing was no longer actually forbidden in the by-laws of seaside resorts and so lidos could begin to evolve in the UK. For bathing enthusiasts a lido had to include additional facilities, especially an area for sunbathing which was increasingly seen as an additionally healthy activity. Most would also have somewhere to buy refreshments, at the least a tuck shop, while the most exclusive venues could have a high-class restaurant.  

Strand Pool, Gillingham, from a postcard

One of the earliest lidos was the Strand Pool at Gillingham in Kent. A local entrepreneur, Thomas Cuckow, realised an opportunity to creating a seawater bathing pool in the mud flats on the tidal shore of the River Medway. The pool used disused railway sleepers for shoring up and carriages as changing rooms. The incoming tide, filtered through sand beds, would fill the pool and it was emptied via a sluice gate. The pool opened in June 1896 with a special sports gala. The programme included underwater swimming, water polo matches and a greasy pole competition.

The Strand Pool prospered, once taken over by the town council in the 1920’s its facilities were increased to include a paddling pool, boating lake and park. Water filtration was improved and in 1935 concrete pools replaced the original muddy, tide-dependant pool. Strand Pool has always been locally popular and today, operated by Medway Council who have updated the facilities yet again, it continues to thrive.

​ But many more lidos have not survived. Even in the 1960’s almost every town had a pool of some description, but no longer. One, the huge bathing pool at St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex, was an ambitious design, on a grand scale by Hastings town engineer Sidney Little, with the Olympics in mind.

St Leonards Bathing Pool, postcard. It was never a financial success. 

By the 1950's it had become the main feature in a holiday camp.

The 1933 St Leonards’ pool was twice the size of the more stylish and upmarket Art Deco pool at Saltdean near Brighton, which was built in the same period. Both struggled financially. While the St Leonards pool only made a profit in its first year of operation and was finally demolished in the 1980’s, Saltdean has gained Grade II* listing and survived, by the skin of its teeth and through the vigorous activities of local enthusiasts.

At the opposite end of the scale, many mining villages in Wales acquired their own outdoor pools, when the local miners took time on their days off, during strikes and the redundancies of the depression to dig a pool for their own communities. All of these have been lost. The only historic pool of any note in Wales today is the Grade II listed Lido Ponty, in Pontypridd, which dates from 1927. Its Art Deco buildings and terraces were added in the early thirties.

Lido Ponty fell into disrepair during the 1980’s and was closed down in 1991. Its restoration, completed in 2015, was thanks to an EU-funded regeneration project. The restoration aimed to balance the conservation of the existing historic lido with the addition of a modern café, poolside terrace, visitor centre, multipurpose venue and dry play area.

So how many Lidos have been lost in the UK? Anne Green Jessel, a former competitive diver and international coach has a better answer than anybody. She has compiled an extensive, though not exclusive list on her fascinating website, https://www.lostlidos.co.uk, which lists 85 and counting, though she has counted them as a swimmer, not actually as lidos with extra facilities and her list includes some indoor pools.

Although too many open-air pools have been lost up and down the country, others do flourish and in a surprising variety of places. Greater London has eight lidos open to the public, including natural bathing in the Serpentine river in Kensington Gardens and the more structured, ever popular Tooting Bec lido which dates back to 1906. The newest pool in London was the Kings Cross bathing pond, opened in 2015 behind the station, however this was intended as a temporary installation and has now closed.

Hathersage Pool, Derbyshire was opened in 1936

There are also popular pools even in small villages, such as the beautiful lido in the village of Hathersage in Derbyshire. Hathersage has a population of only 2,000 but its proximity to the city of  Sheffield brings it plenty of custom. Being close to the county boundary, Hathersage pool has funding from both Derbyshire Dales District Council and the neighbouring High Peak Borough Council. 

Seaside towns in the British Isles may have larger populations than Hathersage, but many have fewer advantages to help financially. Some seaside pools, such as the spectacular Tarlair pool near Banff, which today is unfunded and fading into history. Tarlair is the UK’s most northerly lido, but has sadly become just a Grade A listed, art-deco ruin.

Other pool sites have been altered to accommodate year-round, indoor bathing. For example, in Rhyl the original open-air pool became the indoor Sun Centre, with slides and waves. After a second metamorphosis Sun Centre is now the SC2, which has re-introduced a limited amount of outdoor bathing alongside an indoor fun pool.

Tarlair Swimming Pool, 1930's postcard

Today the Northernmost properly funded lido in the UK is the Stonehaven Lido in Aberdeenshire, which has a fifty-metre pool with sun terraces and heated seawater. It’s run by Aberdeenshire Council in conjunction with the Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool. The Friends have become a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO). A number of other pools also stay functional due to the considerable efforts of the voluntary sector.

Scarborough in Yorkshire has adopted a different approach. The brand new Alpamare Water Park, near the site of the former North Bay pool is a pricey, privately run and inelegant replacement for two beautiful seawater lidos. However if its heated fresh water, exciting water features, year-round operation and newly opened wellness spa gains more footfall and provides more employment than the old, cold lidos, it may benefit the town. 

Porthtowan Rockpool, Cornwall. Not really a lido, but wonderful!

The Westernmost lido is in County Down in Northern Ireland. The Tropicana consists of two shallow, seawater pools with slides, opened in the 1980’s and aimed at children. Further down the coast is the much deeper and rather Spartan, although locally popular Rock Pool which was built in 1933. Both are run by Down Council.

In England there are at least 15 successful open-air pools remaining beside the sea, and many more inland. These range from brand-spanking-new water parks to art deco masterpieces, more mundane bathing pools, paddling pools and tidal rock pools. A number of these pools stay operational with the enthusiastic efforts of the voluntary sector.

Imagination and innovation are needed to keep many going. For example in Cornwall is the spectacular art-deco triangle of Penzance Lido jutting out into St Michael’s Bay, Cornwall. It was opened in 1935 and named with great celebration for King George V's silver jubilee. Formerly run by the town council and now by Jubilee Pool Penzance Ltd, a Community Benefit Society. Jubilee Pool is currently breaking new ground with a bore hole being drilled to provide geothermal heating for the pool.

In Wales, no original seaside pools have survived but some have evolved into good sized paddling pools. One of the best is Blackpill Lido, run by Swansea Council. This is free and has a large splash pool, a baby pool and fountains, in a lawned area with play equipment, cafe and the start of the land train which runs along the front.  

Blackpill Lido, Swansea

 

Children gravitate towards waves, fountains, even puddles and as we have entered a more health-conscious era, similar to the 1930’s, the popularity of swimming pools and water-play areas is bound to increase, particularly at the seaside. Open-air pools encourage healthy exercise, saltwater ones may have additional health benefits over highly chlorinated ones and if sustainably heated, their seasons can be extended. 

The days of creating huge lidos with Olympic standard swimming pools are probably gone, but there should be opportunities to contribute to public health and amenity, attract holidaymakers and enhance the environment with new and exciting pools.         

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Article and research by Susan Gilbert, Director of ArchiFACT Limited.                

Hastings Pier is Up and Running again

The 144-year-old Hastings Pier, originally designed by Eugenius Birch, and Grade II Listed since 1976, has reopened this year, eight years after closure and six years after the structure was almost totally destroyed in a devastating fire in October 2010. The blaze, thought to have been started by vandalism, destroyed the pier head ballroom, all of the kiosks and stalls, much of the decking and one of the two curved pavilions. No one has been prosecuted.

The revived pier, with restored 1916 pavilion to the left. 

Following the fire English Heritage assessment confirmed that the heritage value of the substructure remained, so an application was submitted for funding to the Heritage Lottery at the end of November 2010 to restore the substructure of the Pier and renovate the remaining pavilion. Heritage Lottery trustees visited the pier on 16 March 2011 to assess the application. Hastings Borough Council were granted £100k toward emergency works by to pay for structural supports to be applied to the central section which was weakened by the loss of the deck in the fire.

5 October 2010, the blaze destroyed most of the
structures on the pier and damaged the substructure

Auguste Endell, Architect of the Month, May 2016

August Endell was born on 12 April 1871 and grew up in Berlin. In 1892 he went to the University of Munich to study aesthetics, philosophy and art. Always an intellectual he became interested in the aesthetics of art and design and wrote a number of papers on the subject including 'On Beauty' in 1896 which can be considered an anticipation of abstract art. He befriended Jugendstijl sculptor and designer Hermann Obrist who influenced and encouraged him to move from academia.

A self-taught artist, Endell began working on translating his theories into architecture and the built environment and in 1896 received his first commission. Endell's design for the façade and interior of the Hofatelier Elvira, an existing building in Munich

Interior of Hofatelier Elvira 

which he embellished with typically turbulent Jugendstijl forms and motifs, made him famous overnight. The Atelier was to be run as a photographers' and artists' studio by Anita Augspurg and Sophia Goudstikker and was said to have been the first such business in Germany created and run by women. The building was vandalised by the Nazis and later destroyed by bombing during WWII.     

From 1898 Endell joined other artists and designers in the Munich arts and crafts movement where he became regarded as an innovative leader. He continued to publish articles and papers including in 1901 on "Originality and Tradition". At the same time he moved from Munich to Berlin which encouraged him to move from the flamboyance of Jugendstijl design and towards Modernism. He contributed to the design of the Theater Bunte, in Berlin Germany, which has since been destroyed.

Marine Art Deco Ashore - Picture of the Week 30 March 2016

Marine Court. 

This Art Deco style apartment block in St Leonard's-on-Sea - was deliberately designed to somewhat resemble an ocean liner, the RMS Queen Mary. To describe Marine Court takes a combination of architectural and nautical terms. At the eastern end, the curved lower floors protrude like a ship’s bow and the floors above recede like the stacked decks of a liner. At the west end the balconies end in a graceful curl, leaving a gap at the stern. The architects, Kenneth Dalgleish and Roger K Pullen, stopped short of adding portholes, but every seaward facing flat has a balcony. On a sunny day, residents may imagine they are enjoying a luxury cruise from the comfort of their own flat.

RMS Queen Mary sailed the North Atlantic Ocean between 1936 -1967 for Cunard White Star Line. She was built by John Brown & Co on Clydebank, Scotland and sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936. With the outbreak of the war she was converted to ferry soldiers for the duration of the war. After the war, the Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service and began the transatlantic passenger service for which she and her sister ship the RMS Queen Elizabeth were designed. They dominated the transatlantic passenger service until the jet age in the late 1950s. After several years of decreased profits for Cunard Line, Queen Mary was officially retired from service in 1967. She left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the port of Long Beach, California, United States, where she remains permanently moored. Much of the machinery, including one of the two engine rooms, three of the four propellers, and all of the boilers, were removed. Today the ship serves as a tourist attraction featuring restaurants, a museum and a hotel. 

Picture of the Week; Leeds first Gasometer

While researching for an extended article on gasometers for publication in QS Eye magazine, I came across this very early photo of an even earlier gasometer.

This stood beside the gasworks at Bean Ings Mills in Leeds and was probably built before 1800. Do you know of an earlier gasometer anywhere?

Bean Ings wool mill, owned by Benjamin Gott was one of the town’s biggest employers from 1790, with over 2000 workers. Gott engaged steam engineers Boulton and Watt to provide a steam engine for this woolen mill when earlier, water-powered mechanisms, which relied on water from the nearby canal, proved unreliable. Bean Ings Mill also acquired its own gasworks (one of the first ever built), complete with a rigid gasometer, so that Gott’s weavers could work by gaslight late into the night.

The exact date of this gasometer’s installation at Gott’s mill is unclear, but some years later, in 1800, much of the mill burnt down and Gott moved the enterprise to Armley. The gasometer must have lasted longer than that, for the photograph to have been taken as photography wasn't around at the time.

Today the site of the mill is home to the Yorkshire Post building at the end of Wellington Street.

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Photo found at :- http://www.leodis.net/discovery/discovery.asp?page=2003219_348858059&topic=200335_73055447&subsection=2003724_663265408&subsubsection=2003911_593959988

The De La Waar Pavilion, Bexhill is not an Art-Deco Masterpiece; Picture of the Week 26 September 2015

The De La Waar Pavilion was built in the 1930's as an arts centre to lure the cognoscenti to the delights of Bexhill-on-Sea, a previously quiet seaside resort of no great fame.  The pavilion has often been described as an Art-Deco masterpiece.  I disagree, it was designed as a Modernist masterpiece. 

The only possibly Art-Deco element in this design might be that curvaceous semi-circular stairwell, though the lines are pure and very plain. There's none of the extraneous decoration which seems to be compulsory in supposedly Art-Deco designs. In fact the term 'Art-Deco' is a post WWII invention. 

'Art-Deco' was unheard when the De la Waar was built.  http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/art-deco/ 

“A modernist building of world renown that will become a crucible for creating a new model of cultural provision in an English seaside town which is going to lead to the growth, prosperity and the greater culture of our town.”  Thus said the 9th Earl De La Warr in May 1935, as he laid the plaque which forms part of the floor of the De La Warr Pavilion's foyer.


The Pavilion opened to the public for the first time on the 12th December 1935, to critical and popular acclaim and controversy. Some Conservative critics were horrified by the plain lines and lack of ornamentation, but the public flocked to the concerts and the seafront restaurant.

The interior of the elegant stairwell is beautifully functional, following the tenets of Modernism as practiced by its major practitioners Le Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe. The design for a Modernist building should abide by the principle of form following function, without the necessity for extraneous detail or ornamentation. The De la Waar building has no Art-Deco flourishes, no sunbursts, no Egyptian motifs. It relies on simple lines and generous spaces to provide a graceful, practical place for its designated functions.  

Today the De la Waar Pavilion is a Grade I Listed building : http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-292006-the-de-la-warr-pavilion-east-sussex/photos/?connected_with=facebook#.Vgcc0vnBzGc

The Hepworth, Wakefield - a Runaway Success in just 4 Years, Picture of the Week, 13.7.15

The award winning Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield opened in May 2011. As well as highlighting a collection of wonderful work by Yorkshire sculptor Barbara Hepworth, it took over the collection formerly housed in the Wakefield City Art Gallery.

The award winning building is beautifully situated on a weir on the River Calder.

Despite opening before the recession ended, visitor numbers have exceeded all expectations. The original modest hope was for up to 150,000 visitors per year, this number was achieved in the first eight weeks after opening. Even though numbers reduced slightly after the initial enthusiasm, the Hepworth greeted their one millionth visitor, a delighted Australian woman, after just two and a half years, in December 2013.

I make no apology for plugging this lovely gallery. There is no comparable place named after a woman artist that I know of and anyone who is interested in modern art or architecture shouldn't miss it. Visitors from further afield could even make an art holiday out of their visit. The Hepworth's proximity to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has led to the formation of the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle, helping the Hepworth's popularity. The third point in the triangle is Leeds Art Gallery and its conjoined twin the Henry Moor Institute. Four fantastic galleries and, apart from special exhibitions, entry for everyone is free!

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http://www.ysculpture.co.uk/

http://ripassetseu.s3.amazonaws.com/www.hepworthwakefield.org/_files/documents/dec_13/FENT__1386266814_Press_Release_-_5_Dec_-_The_He.pdf

The Gasometer - a Vanishing Sight. Picture of the week 3 July 2015

Is there a gasometer near you? If there is, take a photograph for posterity because this iconic part of our industrial heritage won't be around for much longer.

This rather elegant lattice structure is part of Huddersfield's gasometer (or gas-holder), a familiar sight near the town centre, just off the Leeds Road. Any fan who has ever watched a match starring either the Huddersfield Giants or Huddersfield Town FC and tried to park near the John Smith (formerly Galpharm) Stadium will have passed it or parked in its shadow.

Strictly speaking this is the structure which supports the actual telescopic gas holder as it rises and falls according to how much gas is inside, sealed in by the reservoir underneath. The telescoping gasometer was invented as early as 1824, in Wolverhampton. In Huddersfield the actual gas holder never rises these days, the curve of its top is just visible above the roofs of the factory sheds in the photo below. The structure is obsolete, surplus to the requirements of modern technology which the grid uses today to distribute gas by less impressive methods.

 All over the country, gasometers are being demolished, reduced to scrap metal. It can only be a matter of time before the same fate falls to this one.

The former Huddersfield Gas Works site (dating back to the 1820's) covered an area of 3.2ha and originally by 1837 had three gasometers. Over the years gasometers have come, gone and been re-built on the site. This last remaining one was built in 1916, it is 127 feet high and 220ft in diameter and the actual gas holder (the 'bell') has 3 telescoping sections which rise as the internal gas pressure increases. The gas works itself was decommissioned in 1972, when National Grid started distributing natural gas from the North Sea.

The Huddersfield Gasometer has been immortalised by local artist David Blackburn, whose 1981 pastel painting Industrial Landscape with Gasometer is in the V & A Museum in London.

Sarah O'Carroll @GasometerGal is trying to record as many gasometers as possible, before they all bite the dust.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30405066

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/gas-holder-huddersfield-a-february-2012.t68912

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Gas/Production.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10473071/Gasometers-a-brief-history.html

Window, Natural History Museum London. Picture of the week 23.02.2014

 

A beautiful window in Victorian eclectic style with Romanesque arches, elaborate mullions and plaques and statues representing animals, there are an eel, a snake and a  jackal below this window, but each window has its own unique creatures. The stone pilasters are covered with naturally occurring patterns such as crystals, tree bark, honeycomb and fish scales. The ornamentation is in cast terracotta, a material which was chosen partly to save money when the building was built between 1865 and its opening in 1881.

The architect, Alfred Waterhouse created the museum’s distinctive blue and buff colour scheme by tinting the terracotta clay with ground slate before it was fired. A shortage of materials meant he had to cut back on the amount of blue.

Lost Buildings 1 - Alexandria and Berlin

Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989
(photo from thecommune.co.uk)

All around the world, buildings vanish every day, as do other manmade structures. Some losses are notable. Nobody is likely to mourn the loss of the Berlin Wall, which for 28 years divided not just the city of Berlin but the surrounding countryside for 100 miles, before inexorable political change led to it being torn down in 1989.

On the other hand, the Ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt was deliberately burned down by Christian fanatics in 391 AD after Emperor Theodosius outlawed 'paganism'. This barbaric act lead to the loss of a thousand years of learning.  It was only with the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone and its eventual translation, 22 years later, that the way to read the hieroglyphic writing of the Ancient Egyptians was re-learned.




The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina 2006 (my Photo)

I saw the Berlin wall as a teenager and happily re-visited, with my own children in July 1990, to observe its demise. There was some left then and I have a piece which I picked up from beside the Brandenberg Gate. And as if to celebrate a brave new world, in Egypt the Library of Alexandria, lost almost 1700 years ago, was finally replaced by a superb new library, designed in 1989 by Norwegian architects from the Olso and New York Snǿhetta practice.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina Interior 2006 (my Photo)

This modern building, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which I was lucky enough to visit in 2006, is a beautiful low pyramid of glass and steel housing a multilingual library. It seemed popular and well used when I visited, I sincerely hope that Egypt's current political, religious and social disruption doesn't damage this beautiful and essential  repository of learning.  The Egyptian people deserve to live with education and erudition freely available and if it can remain associated with great architecture, so much the better.

Between the world famous extremes of the Berlin Wall and the Great Library of Alexandria, many smaller, less significant structures also fall, sometimes almost unnoticed and their loss is often nothing to do with either religion or politics. I'll talk about some of them in a week or two.

Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Picture of the Week 25 December 2013

The Irish Museum of Modern Art is housed in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the finest 17th-century building in Ireland. The Royal Hospital was founded in 1684 by James Butler, Duke of Ormonde and Viceroy to Charles II, as a home for retired soldiers and continued in that use for almost 250 years. The style is based on Les Invalides in Paris with a formal facade and a large elegant courtyard. The Royal Hospital in Chelsea was completed two years later and also contains many similarities in style. The Royal Hospital Kilmainham was restored by the Government in 1984 and opened as the Irish Museum of Modern Art in May 1991.

The formal gardens are being restored as part of an on-going heritage programme and already contain a number of classical and modern works of art, including the fountain sculptor by Linda Benglis.

Nicholas Grimshaw, Architect of the Month, October 2013

It seems that engineering has always flowed in Nicholas Grimshaw’s blood. His buildings are noted for their innovative approach to construction and this urge to engineer solutions goes back further than his enthusiastic childhood experiments with Meccano and tree house projects. Two of his great grandfathers were engineers, one creating dams in Egypt and the other oversaw the construction of the sewers in Dublin. Grimshaw has said of his architecture that it, “glorifies construction, and the beauty of the way things go together.”

This beauty is exemplified in the gridshell domes designed for the Eden Project in Cornwall. The project was initiated in 1996 with the idea to create giant greenhouse biomes containing different eco-climates. The aim was to educate people about environmental matters. The Eden Project has become an international success and is the largest tourist attraction in Cornwall.

Despite his grim, northern sounding surname Nicholas Grimshaw (who shouldn’t be confused with Radio DJ Nick Grimshaw) was born in Hove, the quieter neighbour to the bright lights of Brighton, on 9 October 1939, just a month after the outbreak of WWII. He was sent to Wellington College, a public school for the children of British armed services officers. One of his childhood pleasures was building tree houses.

He subsequently studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art before winning a scholarship to the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London – he graduated in 1965 and went into partnership with Terry Farrell. They worked together for fifteen years and one of their joint creations, the 1976 Herman Miller Factory in Bath, described as an outstanding early Hi-tech building, was given a Grade II listing just last month.


Grimshaw set up his own practice in 1980 and has continued his technologically advanced approach to design which is particularly appropriate for the transport projects the practice has become famous for. Structures include the new International Terminal for London's Waterloo Station, whose enormous curved roof welcomes international visitors to London via border controls within the station.

Nicholas Grimshaw has been acknowledged as one of the most foremost, technologically modern architects in the UK, alongside Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and his former Partner, Terry Farrell. He has lectured internationally and received a Knighthood in 2002. In 2004 he was elected to the presidency of the Royal Academy of Arts, a post he held until 2011.

He continues to lead his much expanded practice, now known simply as Grimshaw, which has offices in London, New York and Melbourne, Australia, where it has completed yet another award winning railway project with the Melbourne Metro. The most recent offices are in Sydney and Doha, in Quarter. The latest Grimshaw project is a watery version of the Eden Project. NIRAH (National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats) will be the first large aquarium project devoted to freshwater species of plants and animals. 

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sources include:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/academicians/architects/nicholas-grimshaw-ra,136,AR.html

http://grimshaw-architects.com/person/grimshaw-sir-nicholas/

 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/dec/19/architecture.highereducation )

I shot the photographs at the Eden Project in 2003.

 

The Best Building in London - The Natural History Museum

This wonderful Romanesque entrance doesn't lead into a cathedral but to my favourite London building, the Natural History Museum, on Cromwell Road. The temporary barriers don't enhance the appearance, but are sometimes necessary for crowd control in a building which has almost five million visitors each year.

I was first taken to the Natural History Museum when I was just five or six and I fell in love with the building before we even got inside. The exterior of the building is covered with statues, gargoyles and plaques of creatures which were hand-modelled and then cast in terracotta. I was fascinated by the plaques around the gates which depict mice and squirrels.



Plaque depicting three mice on a gatepost
 outside the main entrance.

No creature is too insignificant, everything from mice and beetles to wolves and sabre-toothed tigers are sculpted.

Pterodactyl plaque on the roof

Large statue of a Sabre-toothed cat
on the West tower, stylised to appear
heraldic - the head was cast separately

Small plaque of a crab on a mullion between
lower ground floor windows








The designs were individually sketched by Alfred Waterhouse, the Liverpool architect who was responsible for the whole building. His sketches were then sculpted and cast by a firm of terracotta manufacturers Farmer & Brindley. The named sculptor is M. Dujardin,
his first name was possibly Oscar or Hubert. He is thought to have been French but little is now known about him.

The building's two wings depicted different groups of creatures, those ornamenting the exterior of the West wing were extinct, those on the East wing were, at the time they were modelled, still surviving. Some larger sculptures had to be cast in more than one piece and certain creatures were given heraldic stylisation.

Today the building is in a much better state than when I first saw it. The exterior was cleaned of a century's worth of London soot and grime in the 1970's, I remember it as being  all black. Now the detailed terracotta can be enjoyed in all its glory.

Serge Chermayeff - Architect of the Month – August 2013

Serge Chermayeff was born in 1900 in Grozny, Chechnya, then part of the Russian imperial state. His family sent him to England at a young age to be educated.  He went to Harrow school, but his family’s business was destroyed by the Russian revolution and he was unable to follow his ambitions to go to Cambridge. He spent some time in Argentina, then returned to England to work as a designer for furniture manufacturer Waring and Gillow.  He became a British citizen at the age of 28. As an industrial designer he created Bakelite radios for EKCO.

De La Warr Pavilion, staircase (2013)

In 1930 he established his own architectural practice.  His work was modernist and Bauhaus influenced. His first building was a small concrete house for a schoolmaster and his most famous building in England came about when he joined up with German architect Erich Mendelsohn in 1933. They entered and won an RIBA competition to design a new, modern pavilion for the seafront at Bexhill-on–Sea. The building was sponsored by the 9th Earl De La Warr. The brief was for a completely modern structure with no heavy stonework. 

De La Warr Pavilion, seafront elevation (2013)

The resulting building is a beautiful Modernist design which shows signs of the Bauhaus and Constructivism as well as the more Anglicised version of Art Deco, which excelled at seaside and marine- style design. The pavilion has been recognised as being of international significance and given a Grade I listing.  The Chermayeff Mendelshon partnership created other buildings including Cohen House, built alongside a development by Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry in Chelsea.

Both Chermayeff and Mendelshon were members of The Modern Architectural Research Group, or MARS Group, a think tank created in 1933 by architects and academics in the UK who were involved in the Modernist movement. These included Fry, Morton Shand and Wells Coates as well as supporters such as John Betjamin. The MARS group proposed a radical plan for the redevelopment of London, at its height there were 58 members and their greatest success was in 1938 with a show at the New Burlington Galleries, which unfortunately left them in debt.

Despite the success of the De la Warr Pavilion, Chermayeff’s partnership with Mendelshon only lasted a few years. By the end of the 1930’s, Chermayeff’s practice was in difficulties, he went bankrupt in 1940. This and the war persuaded him to emigrate to the USA. He became involved in academia, co-founded the American Society of Planners and Architects and worked in universities in California and Chicago as well as Harvard and MIT. He published several books and his working life concluded as head of architecture at Yale, he retired in 1970.

Chermayeff designed his own house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where he lived with his wife Barbara and family for 55 years and died in May 1996. His son Peter is an architect and his son Ivan is a graphic designer.

Hastings Pier; Good News

The derelict Hastings Pier, which followers of this blog will remember I’ve been interested in for some time, will have a £14m restoration after the Hastings Pier Charity formally took ownership of the ruin this week.

The 140-year-old structure was almost completely destroyed by fire in October 2010. Renovation work is due to start very soon, hopefully this month. This will include refurbishing the remaining pavilion and building a new visitor centre, the project is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2015, which seems quite quick until you remember that the pier was closed in 2008, after being declared unsafe. It then belonged to a nominally Panamanian company, Ravenclaw, who did absolutely nothing with it, leaving the gates padlocked and the structure subject to the ravages of weather and, with no security in place, vulnerable to idle trespassers and vandalism. 

 Ravenclaw was issued with a compulsory purchase order last year, after it failed to carry out any repair work or even appear to explain why it had not. Hastings Borough Council formally took ownership of the pier this week, on Wednesday 15 August and passed ownership directly to the Hastings Pier Charity, which will oversee the work. Most of the £14m will come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, significant amounts have also been allocated to the project by the Coastal Communities Fund, Community Assets Fund, Hastings Borough Council and East Sussex County Council.

For more recent information see:-   http://hpcharity.co.uk/tag/hastings-pier/

For a complete history of Hastings Pier:-  http://www.hastingschronicle.net/hastingsPier.html

Cuthbert Brodrick, Architect of the Month for July 2013

Architect of the Month - Cuthbert Brodrick 1821- 1905

Interior of Leeds Corn Exchange, built in 1860
(photograph c1980)

Cuthbert Brodrick was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in the coastal town of Kingston-upon-Hull on 1 December 1821. He was one of ten children, the sixth son of John and Hannah Brodrick. His father was a wealthy merchant and ship owner, and the family lived at 39, George Street, in the best residential area of Hull.

Brodrick attended Kingston College, he left school at fifteen to become a pupil in the offices of Architect Henry Francis Lockwood at Dock Street in Hull, where he stayed for 8 years learning the profession. In May 1844 he set off on the Grand Tour of Europe, travelling through France and Italy to  Rome, no doubt hoping to expand his architectural studies and expertise.

This must have worked, on his return to Hull in in 1846, Brodrick was offered a partnership in Lockwood’s practice. He turned this offer down to set up on his own, at Savile Street in Hull.

In 1852, when he was 31, Brodrick entered a national competition for the design of a new town hall for the burgeoning town of Leeds. It is said that Brodrick's mother Hannah tried to dissuade him, thinking he had no chance of winning. The competition was judged by Charles Barry, known for his work on the Palace of Westminster and Brodrick's design won. Leeds Town Hall was opened by Queen Victoria in September 1858.

At the time, Leeds was in competition with Manchester for the title of cloth-manufacturing capital of Great Britain. Manchester had just achieved official status as a City and Leeds was determined not to be outdone, however their application to become a city was turned down and Leeds had to wait until 1893 for city status. In the mean time it acquired a magnificent Town Hall. The building and Cuthbert Brodrick became famous, and he moved to Leeds, to set up his practice there, at 30 Park Row. 

Brodrick's next competition win was a design for a new Corn Exchange for Leeds. The old one was only 35 years old, but already inadequate in scale for the growing needs of the corn factors (traders). The first stone was laid on 7th May 1861 on the site near the Kirkgate Market, which had opened there in 1857 following a move from Briggate, though the famous market hall, home of the original Marks and Spencer, would not appear until 1904 .

Corn Exchange interior in around 1915

The builder chosen for the Corn Exchange was Samuel Addy, stonemason, who had been responsible for the Town Hall's clock tower. The Corn Exchange's domed roof structure, in wrought iron, was made at Kirkstall Forge, which is said to be the oldest iron and steel works in Britain, by Butler & Co. The Clerk of Works was apparently a Mr Cairns. The building project was delayed by the discovery of previously dug pits on the site as a result of earlier digging for iron ore, possibly to feed Kirkstall Forge. This discovery no doubt gave Brodrick and Mr Cairns a few sleepless nights but, despite hold-ups, Leeds Corn Exchange opened for business on 28 July 1863.

In 1870 Brodrick moved to France and bought a house at St. Germain, near Paris. After he retired he spent his time painting, exhibiting his work and indulging his love of gardening. In 1898 he went to live near his niece in Jersey, where he rented a house at Gorey on the west coast of the island. He designed and planted a garden there, perhaps his last design task. He died on 2 March 1905, and is buried in St. Martin's Churchyard, Gorey.
  
Other buildings designed by Cuthbert Brodrick include:-

The Leeds Mechanics Institute 1860, which became the Civic Theatre in 1949 and in 2008 the Leeds City Museum;

The Oriental Baths in Cookridge Street, Leeds 1866 - demolished in 1965 - site now occupied by an unattractive Weatherspoon's pub named 'the Cuthbert Brodrick,' though obviously not designed by him;

The Scarborough Grand Hotel;

Headingley Hill Congregational church 1864 - now known as the Ashwood Centre and used by City Church, Leeds.
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Acknowledgements and for further information and photographs of Victorian Leeds, see http://www.leodis.net/discovery/default.asp

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This is the first of what will, I hope, become a regular feature on the architects who have designed some of the iconic, and maybe not so iconic, buildings around Britain.  Buildings which we usually take for granted, but have histories of their own.