Mark Wilson Jones on Recent News Favouring Traditional Architecture & Urbanism

Encouragement for the cause of traditional architecture and urbanism has recently come from various quarters, some expected, some unexpected. In anticipation of the upcoming Awards Event here are further causes for celebration:

The second week of October saw the 2023 International Making Cities Liveable (IMCL) conference take place in Dorchester and Poundbury, this showcased a wealth of research and initiatives, including much from across the Atlantic. Especially informative were the presentations by Patrick Condon, David Brain and Ettore Mazzola. But the high point was the trio of late talks by George Fergusson, Nicholas Boys Smith and Hugh Petter, a feast of success stories setting everyone up for an animated social evening. Other TAG members who contributed included Robert Adam, Pablo Alvarez Funes, Ben Bolgar, Harriet Wennberg and myself.

Ben Pentreath and George Saumarez Smith shared their ‘insiders’ view’ on Poundbury, followed by a walking tour. Outside of the continent or British city centres it’s rare to encounter such a number of speciality shops and thriving cafes, an index of success quite apart from the house price premium.

George Fergusson, Nicholas Boys Smith and High Petter at the IMCL 2023

Meanwhile The Aesthetic City released an interview with Boston-based Ann Sussman, featuring the researches of HAPI (Human Architecture and Planning Institute) in the field of Cognitive Architecture, the title of her book.

Then came Thomas Heatherwick’s Building Soul mini-series on BBC Radio 4. Rather surprisingly for an icon-minded designer, the first two episodes joined in exposing the shortcomings of modernist architecture and urbanism. He recruits neuroscientific research parallel to that disseminated by HAPI, IMCL and kindred organisations as to the negative effects of alienating modern environments on health and wellbeing. Indeed, it’s almost as if he was presenting to the IMCL, or giving a TAG Talk! 

It seems we are all in agreement in decrying the misguided ideologies promoted by Louis Sullivan (“form follows function”), Adolf Loos (“Ornament and Crime”, Le Corbusier (“the house is a machine for living in” and the Voisin plan for Paris), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (“less is more”). Heatherwick, Sussmann and IMCL’s speakers agree too on the value of Neuroscientific research explaining why us humans prefer buildings with ornament and qualities associated with history and tradition, for example activity and variety at street level. 

Meanwhile the Labour conference saw the leader of the party, Kier Starmer, pledge, if elected, to tackle Britain’s housing crisis by creating new towns, while expressing a preference for traditional patterns of development such as the Georgian terrace.

Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge, SW7, London

There then followed a spate of coverage in the press reinforcing many of the same points, including articles by Simon Jenkins, Rowan Moore and Nicholas Boys Smith, as well as a profile of Ben Pentreath and his work. The common thread tells of urbanism that went off-piste in the 20th century, together with the conviction that a return to liveable environments can only be achieved by applying the lessons of traditional ways of building everything from settlements to cities.

Interestingly, Moore took issue with Heatherwick’s journalistic simplifications, for example the dismissal of Sullivan, “who was a genius at the kind of elaborate ornament that Heatherwick admires”, as well as his claim that the problem today lies with bland and boring architecture. As Moore went on to point out, “the generally admired terraces of Georgian cities would score badly on his ‘“boring-o-meter’” 

Precisely!

So, while TAG members might subscribe to much of Heatherwick’s analysis of the problem, his personal solution goes in the quite the wrong direction. Rather than grasp that the vitality and liveability of the traditional city is due to a natural, positive and satisfying symbiosis of sameness and difference, of rule and variety, of ordinary and novelty, of family and individuality, Heatherwick aligns himself with the artificial imposition of illusory difference masking systemic sameness.

Heatherwick holds up as a model the approach used in the development at Borneo Sporenburg in Holland, where an assemblage of apparently dissimilar units designed by a number of practices was strung together. The result might seem appealing at first sight (the waterside setting almost guarantees that), but it is likely to deliver liveability only for as long as it remains fashionable.

There is however the sad news of the death of Rob Krier, who was a prolific architect, Driehaus Prize laureate and author. While our heartfelt condolences go out to his brother Léon Krier, we owe both of them an immense debt for their intuitions, insights and humour that paved the way towards the new ways of thinking highlighted here.

2023 has also been the 300th anniversary of the death of Christopher Wren, a year that has seen a suite of conferences and events celebrating his legacy. The most recent contribution was that of Janet DeLaine, best known for her work on ancient architecture, who delivered a wonderful analysis of Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford for the Society of Architectural Historians, revealing a series of hitherto unnoticed antique glosses embedded in the design. And still to come is Elizabeth Deans’s lecture on Wren’s influence on Hawksmoor as part of the same series.  

So much to celebrate, then. Looking forward to conversations around such topics, and so much more, at the upcoming Awards event!

written by Mark Wilson Jones, TAG Chairman

Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, designed by Sir Christopher Wren