MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr. and Catherine K. Bauer [Essays]: MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1937. First edition [3,000 copies]. Sm 4to. Light blue cloth stamped in brown. 101 pp. 53 black and white plates. 28 architectural plans. Blue cloth lightly sunned and discolored at spine. Gutters mildly foxed and former owners dated pencil signature to front free endpaper. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A very good or better copy.
7.5 x 10 hardcover book with 101 pages with 53 black and white plates and 28 architectural plans. Catalog for an exhibition that brought to the American attention the high quality of modern architecture in England in the 1930's, including work by Wells Coates, E. Maxwell Fry, Joseph Emberton, Frederick Gibberd, Oliver Hill, G.A. Jellicoe, Tecton, E. Owen Williams, F.R.S. Yorke, and Adams, Holden & Pearson, among other British architects, as well as works by Europeans including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, William Lescaze and Mendelsohn and Chermayeff.
- The British Nineteenth Century and Modern Architecture by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr.
- Elements of English Housing Practice by Catherine K. Bauer
- Modern Architecture in England by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr.
- Plates
- Catalog of the Exhibition
Architects include Joseph Paxton; Alexander Thomson; Charles Rennie Mackintosh; Marcel Breuer; Sir John Burnet, Tait, & Lorne; Serge Chermayeff; Anthony Chitty; Wells Coates; Connell, Ward & Lucas; Joseph Emberton; Maxwell E. Fry; Frederick Gibberd; Walter Gropius with Maxwell E. Fry; Valentine Harding; Oliver Hill; Geoffrey Allan Jellicoe; William Lescaze; Mendelsohn & Chermayeff; Christopher Nicholson; A.V. Pilichowski; Godfrey Samuel; Slater & Moberly; Marshall Sisson; Tecton; Sir E. Owen Williams; S.A. Heaps; and, Adams, Holden, & Pearson.
In Modern Architecture in England, Mr. Hitchcock writes: “The International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art five years ago consisted in the main of buildings in France, Holland, Germany and America, England was barely represented.
“Today, it is not altogether an exaggeration to say that England leads the world in modern architectural activity Modern architecture had won a foothold in England as in America before the depression began, but the newer English architecture of the late twenties reflected chiefly a European half-modernism already past its prime.
“International Style” is peculiarly descriptive of the current English architecture scene. To London, even before the depression showed signs of lifting, Lubetkin came, drawn from Paris where construction had all but ceased. Later Gropius, Mendelsohn, Breuer and Kaufmann, to mention but the best known, came from Germany after the revolution of 1933 cut off in its prime the largest and most materially successful school of modern architecture in the world. Lescaze, from America was also active in England from 1931 on. Yet, for all its international personnel, the English school of architecture must not be considered an alien phenomenon. It is artificial and misleading to make a sharp distinction between the current work of the foreign-born architects and that of men like Connell, Ward and Lucas, or Wells Coates, who themselves owe their architectural principles ultimately to the Continent. The English school of modern architecture may therefore be fairly considered as a coherent entity. . . .
“Since English modern Architecture has developed in a period of economic recovery, the types of building which the architects have been asked to provide have rarely been of advanced sociological interest. Middle-class houses and apartments, large stores, recreational structures, casinos, cinemas, zoos, schools and factories, rather than low-cost housing, have been demanded. Since the practice of modern architecture is concentrated in London, its patrons have been chiefly metropolitan but not mainly of foreign origin. While it would be absurd to say that the predominant conservatism of English taste had been basically modified, the public support of modern building seems assured. The British public has proved effectively open-minded in patronizing modern architecture. One might now hope that the general esthetic forces of the nation may soon be educated and mustered for a solid front. Then the good work of the past would still receive its due—which it does not always today—and the good work of the present would be supported against blatant revivalism, sickly traditionalism, and pseudo-modernism.
“The work of the English contemporary school in the last few years, still so evidently expanding and improving, sets a mark which we will not easily pass in America. It sets that mark, moreover, under cultural conditions more like our own than those of most other countries of the world. We can understand what the obstacles have been in the way of these men, what temptations to compromise, what general distrust, what whimsical building regulations, what indifference to earlier national steps toward modern architecture they have had to overcome. The psychology of recovery is generally conservative rather than experimental, and in a world of rising nationalistic prejudice England's hospitality not only to Continental ideas but to foreign architects has been amazing One can end a consideration of English architecture in the winter of 1937 not merely with the conclusion that its present achievement is almost unique and could hardly have been foretold even five years ago. One can also prognosticate that this achievement very probably represents the opening stage in an architectural development of prime creative significance.” [MoMA Press Release, 1937]