Some personal thoughts on architectual style - TrustNews Dec 16
It would be very interesting for the Trust to have a debate one day, perhaps leading to a reasoned view about the use in Winchester of styles from different periods. Our current policy is that it is not style that matters so much as how well it is done - contemporary or period. To this l would add that there are three legitimate approaches to the style of a new building:
1) completely modern, in harmony with its surroundings,
2) a period style knowledgeably executed,
3) a clever interpretation of a period style in a modern idiom - the hardest and most challenging of the three in my opinion.
Over my 50 or so years as an architect, l have gradually softened to the idea of designing in an historic style. As students and keen young graduates of an avant-garde school of architecture we all thought that to design in anything but one‘s own period was contemptible, and that working on historic buildings was not really architecture. There are plenty in the profession who still think so, creating a contemporary version of the 19th century ‘battle-of-the-styles’.
In due course I found myself adding to, and becoming deeply involved in, the care, repair and adaptation of historic buildings. Faced with how one should add to an older building l came to the conclusion that it depended on circumstances rather than principle. It is a good principle, however, that as most of our predecessors worked in the style of their period, we should do the same. Robert Adam argues, on the other hand, that as he is a living architect, anything he designs cannot avoid being contemporary.
But, totally new, run-of-the-mill buildings, should they ever be designed as if they were Georgian or Arts-and-Crafts or whatever? My training and experience says ‘no’, but l have thoroughly enjoyed doing it myself in special circumstances, and agree that a derivative style can look very acceptable if done well. There are two fairly obvious reasons for this. One is nostalgia for times past and a desire for the elegance and prestige of a bygone age reinforced perhaps by distrust of new-fangled design for one’s home. The other reason is what has been called the ‘shadow of taste’: as if, in our journey through time, we cast a shadow that adversely affects our appreciation of design until it emerges once more into the sunlight of our approval.
l think there is a third and even stronger subconscious reason. Past styles have a degree of order about them: a discipline with proportion, material and detail that is inherently pleasing. Whereas much modern design tends to be experimental or led by the latest fashion. The leaders of fashion in clothes can be wildly experimental to draw attention to themselves. Leaders in architecture, on the other hand, tend to design in a serious and deeply thought out way even if they experiment as well, and reputation follows success. Whereas many of those who admire what they do and wish to emulate them, do not understand the underlying purpose and just play with the elements - there is logic, for example, in changing from masonry to a lighter material for an upper floor or a projecting bay, but not for cladding an arbitrary area of a façade for no apparent reason. So they are ignorantly using ‘modern-badges’, just like others use stuck-on glazing bars or fanlights inserted within front doors as ‘period-badges’.
Context will play a major part for client, designer and public alike, which is not adequately taken into account in my three-option philosophy in the first paragraph, and I hope to look into this another time, particularly as it relates to urban regeneration.