Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T12:46:48.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Built-in variety’: David and Mary Medd and the Child-Centred Primary School, 1944-80

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Extract

Children are the basis of school design.

(Ministry of Education Building Bulletin 1,1949, David and Mary Medd)

Connections between ideas of ‘child-centred’ primary education and the design of schools were arguably closer in post-war Britain than any period before or since. These relationships provide a commentary on the role of public architecture within a British post-war social democracy that combined the social objectives of architectural Modernism with an awareness of, and continuity with, preceding reformist movements for the advancement of public health and education. The ‘social’ aspect of the post-war school-building programme stemmed not so much from the application of labour or technology to processes of building, nor even the equitable distribution of common resources, but rather from the ability of the designer to shape and articulate processes of teaching and learning within the locus of the welfare state. Social and pedagogical ends were often pursued to the almost total exclusion of architectural self-expression. If this ‘humane functionalism’ was rooted in an understanding of the activities and experiences of learning, it was dependent on a multi-disciplinary, investigative and creative collaboration between architect and educational ‘client’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Ministry of Education (hereafter ‘MoE’), New Primary Schools, Building Bulletin 1 (London, 1949); Saint, Andrew, Towards a Social Architecture: the Role of School-Building in Post-War England (New Haven and London, 1987), p. 127.Google Scholar

2 Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, passim.

3 Mary Medd’s married name is used throughout this article for the sake of consistency, even with reference to the period before her marriage in 1949. She often employed her maiden name of Crowley in publications.

4 Seaborne, Malcolm and Lowe, Roy, The English School: its Architecture and Organisation. Volume II, 1870–1970 (London, 1977), p. 180 Google Scholar; Maclure, Stuart, Educational Development and School Building: Aspects of Public Policy 1945–73 (London, 1984), p. 65.Google Scholar

5 London, British Library (hereafter ‘BL’), C467/30, 1998 interview with David Medd.

6 Department of Education and Science (hereafter ‘DES’), A Study of School Building (London, 1977), p. 63.

7 DES, A Study of School Building, p. 63.Google ScholarPubMed

8 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 6768, 75Google Scholar; Medd, David, ‘Responding to Change’, Trends in Education, 31 (July 1973), p. 26.Google Scholar ‘Race against time’: MoE, The Story of Post-War School Building, MoE Pamphlet no. 33 (London 1957), p. 1.

9 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. ix.Google Scholar

10 See, for example, the CLASP school, designed in the Architect’s Department of Nottinghamshire County Council, which won the Gran Premio con Menzione Speciale at the 1960 Milan Triennale. Banham, Reyner, ‘A Gong for the Welfare State’, New Statesman, 6 January 1961, pp. 2627.Google Scholar

11 Maclure, Educational Development and School Building; Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 65.Google Scholar

12 MoE, The Story of Post-War School Building.

13 ‘Butskellism’ was a term used to caricature the politics of consensus in post-war Britain: ‘Mr Butskell’s Dilemma’, The Economist, 13 February 1954, pp. 439–41. ‘Mr Butskell’ was a fictitious amalgam of ‘Rab’ Butler, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer 1951–55, and Hugh Gaitskell, Labour Leader of the Opposition 1955–63.

14 Warman, Christopher, ‘Councils are Told to Curb Rise in Spending’, The Times, 10 May 1975, p. 1.Google Scholar

15 ‘[At] Hertfordshire and the Ministry of Education […] “development” was born into architectural activity, not as an isolated activity, but part of a chain that includes educational policy, the child and the factory and the drawing board and the building bulletin’. London, Institute of Education Archives (hereafter ‘IoE’), ME/Q/9/1, letter of 6 April 1970 from David Medd to Stephen Gardiner, p. 3. ‘Dynamics of English school building’: Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 156.Google Scholar

16 Saint, Towards a Social Architecture; Bullock, Nicholas, Building the Post-War World: Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Britain (London, 2002), pp. 183–95Google Scholar; Powers, Alan, Britain: Modern Architectures in History (London, 2007), pp. 5051.Google Scholar

17 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 26 Google Scholar; London, IoE, ME /B /1, transcript of 1998 BL interview with David Medd, p. 54.

18 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, ‘New Education — New Design’: transcript of talk given by David Medd in Dublin on 21 November 1969, p. 1.

19 Whitbread, Nanette, The Evolution of the Nursery-Infant School, 1800–1970 (London, 1972), p. 87 Google Scholar; Selleck, R. J. W., English Primary Education and the Progressives, 1914–1939 (London, 1972), p. 71 Google Scholar; Cunningham, Peter, Curriculum Change in the Primary School since 1945: Dissemination of the Progressive Ideal (London, 1988), p. 11.Google Scholar

20 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 39 Google Scholar; Burke, Catherine, ‘“Inside out”: a Collaborative Approach to Designing Schools in England, 1945–1972’, Paedagogica Historica, 45 (2009), pp. 421–33 (p. 427).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Aldrich, Richard, The Institute of Education 1902–2002: a Centenary History (London, 2002), pp. 100–02.Google Scholar

22 Board of Education, The Primary School (London, 1931)Google ScholarPubMed; Board of Education, Infant and Nursery Schools (London, 1933).Google ScholarPubMed

23 Board of Education, The Primary School, p. 93.Google ScholarPubMed

24 Cunningham, , Curriculum Change, pp. 3845.Google Scholar

25 Burke, Catherine and Grosvenor, Ian, ‘The Progressive Image in the History of Education: Stories of Two Schools’, Visual Studies, 22 (2007), pp. 155–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Cunningham, , Curriculum Change, pp. 5767.Google Scholar

27 Lowe, Roy, Schooling and Social Change 1964–1990 (London, 1997), p. 58.Google Scholar

28 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, the ‘Plowden Report’ (London, 1967).

29 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, Annex B, Part Eight: ‘Primary School Buildings and Equipment; Status; and Research’.

30 Hansard, House of Commons debate, 21 March 1960, 620 cc. 52. Later attitudes to primary teaching and curricula: DES, Curriculum Organization and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools (London, 1992).Google ScholarPubMed

31 Lowe, Roy, The Death of Progressive Education: How Teachers Lost Control of the Classroom (London, 2007).Google Scholar

32 London, IoE, ME/T/7, David Medd’s lecture notes for talk given at an Architects and Buildings Branch meeting on 13 May 1987.

33 Mary Medd’s father, Ralph Crowley MD, was Senior Medical Officer for the Board of Education. See Saint, Andrew, ‘Early Days of the English Open-Air School (1907–1930)’, in Open-Air Schools: an Educational and Architectural Venture in Twentieth-Century Europe, ed. Châtelet, Anne-Marie et al. (Paris, 2003), pp. 5679.Google Scholar

34 The Evolving School’, Trends in Education, 2 (April 1966), p. 4.Google ScholarPubMed

35 ‘Umbrella men’: Oddie, Guy, ‘The New English Humanism: Prefabrication in its Social Context’, Architectural Review, 43 (September 1963), pp. 180–82.Google Scholar

36 Catherine Burke, A Life in Education and Architecture: Mary (Crowley) Medd (1907–200$) (forthcoming, 2012). Burke’s recent articles on the subject of post-war schools bring to bear an educational perspective on the architect/educationist dialogue which, it is hoped, is complemented by the focus of the present article on cultures and processes of architectural design. Burke, ‘“Inside out”’; Burke, Catherine, ‘About Looking: Vision, Transformation, and the Education of the Eye in Discourses of School Renewal Past and Present’, British Educational Research journal, 36 (2010), pp. 6582 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burke, Catherine and Grosvenor, Ian, ‘The Hearing School: an Exploration of Sound and Listening in the Modern School’, Paedagogica Historica, 47 (2011), pp. 323–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 David Medd, ‘School Design: a Personal Account, 1920S–1970S’ (unpublished manuscript, 2009), p. 9.

38 Oddie, , ‘The New English Humanism’, p. 180.Google Scholar

39 London, IoE, ME/Q/9/1, letter from Medd to Gardiner, p. 5.

40 Wheeler, Sheila, ‘Education in a Changing World’, Architects’ Journal, 147 (26 June 1968), pp. 1453–65 (p. 1463).Google Scholar

41 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, p. 397.Google ScholarPubMed

42 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 188.Google Scholar

43 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, ‘An Attitude to School Design: in Retrospect’: transcript of an address given by David Medd at the Open Plan Primary School Conference at Easthampstead Park, Berkshire, 27–28 April 1984.

44 Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, p. 62.Google Scholar

45 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm, 28 September 2011.

46 Stirrat Johnson-Marshall left the MoE in 1956 to co-found Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners (RMJM) with Robert Matthew.

47 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 28 September 2011.

48 Burke, , ‘“Inside out”’, p. 427.Google Scholar

49 Liz and Ian Fraser, pers comm., 18 October 2010.

50 Schiller, Christian, ‘Introduction to “Designing Primary Schools’”, Froebel Journal, 11 (Spring 1971), p. 5.Google Scholar

51 A parallel in post-war British architecture is the partnership of Alison and Peter Smithson, bêtes noires of the Medds (who detested their image-conscious school of 1949–54 at Hunstanton [David Medd, pers. comm., 3 July 2008]).

52 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 16 September 2010.

53 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 11 March 2011.

54 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm, 16 September 2010.

55 The Medds’ disagreements with other team members led to the reorganization of what became Eveline Lowe, the departure of the Medds from the Ilkeston Chaucer project and the abandonment of a middle school development project in the West Riding. The Medds instead worked with neighbouring Bradford on what became Delf Hill. David Medd, pers. comm., 3 July 2008; Liz and Ian Fraser, pers. comm., 18 October 2010.

56 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, ‘Design of Schools: A Collaboration Between Education and Architecture’, paper read by David Medd at the 1970 conference of the National Union of Teachers.

57 Mass Observation: Hubble, Nick, Mass-Observation and Everyday Life (London, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, Building Bulletin 36 (London, 1967), pp. 1213.Google Scholar

59 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 16 September 2010; Liz and Ian Fraser, pers. comm., 18 October 2010.

60 London, British Architectural Library / Victoria and Albert Museum, MOD / EDUC /1–11 [outstore], twelve models of Architects and Building Branch development projects. For an example, see Fig. 13.

61 Technical basis of prefabricated construction after 1944: Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 5657, 68.Google Scholar

62 MoE, Regulations Prescribing Standards For School Premises, Statutory Rules and Orders, 345 (London, 1945). Subsequently revised in 1951, 1954, 1959, 1971, 1972, 1981 and 1996.

63 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 8790.Google Scholar

64 Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, p. 69.Google Scholar

65 The Hertfordshire County Architect’s Department’, Architectural Review, 101 (February 1947), pp. 6366 (pp. 64–65).Google Scholar

66 ‘Hen & chicks’: Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, p. 138. The term ‘cluster plan’ seems to have developed in the United States; see, for example, the ‘prototype elementary school’ that Collier’s Weekly commissioned from The Architects’ Collaborative: Prototype Elementary School’, Progressive Architecture, 35 (October 1954), pp. 12732 Google Scholar; Medd, David et al., ‘The Work of the DES Development Group’, Architectural Association Journal, 80 (1965), p. 268.Google Scholar

67 Aslin, C. H., ‘2. Primary Schools: the Contemporary Planning Approach’, Architects’ Journal, 107 (20 May 1948), pp. 462–65 (p. 463)Google Scholar; ‘ Four Schools in Hertfordshire’, Architectural Review, 111 (June 1952), pp. 373–84 (pp. 373–75)Google Scholar-

68 Limbrick Wood County Primary School, Coventry’, RIBA Journal, 59 (October 1952), pp. 446–49.Google Scholar Unusually, Limbrick Wood involved the collaboration of A&B Branch and local authority architects. E. C. Tory and C. A. Grey of Coventry City Council Architect’s Department was credited along with Jack Lloyd and Michael Smith of A&B Branch as job architects. Tory and Smith had earlier worked together at Hertfordshire, where they would have been familiar with ‘hen & chicks’ plans. Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 138.Google Scholar

69 Medd, David, ‘Stirrat Johnson-Marshall, a Personal Tribute’, Performance, n.v. (April/May 1982), p. 70.Google Scholar

70 Primary School at Hertford’, Architects’ Journal, 112 (31 August 1950), pp. 215–20.Google Scholar

71 Templewood: ‘Primary School at Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire’, Architects’ Journal, 115 (27 March 1952), pp. 395–99Google Scholar; Oakland: Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 77 Google Scholar

72 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 103–05.Google Scholar Summerswood: ‘Primary School in Furzehill Road, Boreham Wood, Herts’, Architects’ Journal, 116 (7 August 1952), pp. 161–70Google Scholar; Beechwood: ‘Four Schools in Hertfordshire’, pp. 366, 383–84.Google Scholar

73 MoE, Development Projects: Junior School, Amersham, Building Bulletin 16 (London, 1958)Google Scholar; Primary School in Mitchell Walk, Amersham, Bucks’, Architects’ Journal, 126 (1 August 1957), pp. 183–94.Google Scholar

74 Crook, David, ‘“The Middle School Cometh” … and Goeth: Alec Clegg and the Rise and Fall of the English Middle School’, Education, 41 (2008), pp. 117–25.Google Scholar

75 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 10 March 2011.

76 Geraint Franklin, ‘Buckinghamshire’, in ‘England’s Schools 1962–88’ (forthcoming English Heritage Research Report); Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 156.Google Scholar

77 Medd house at Welwyn: Bullivant, Dargan, ‘Architects’ Own House in Herts’, Architectural Design, 24 (October 1954), pp. 294300.Google Scholar

78 MoE, Amersham; Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 156 Google Scholar; ‘Primary School in Mitchell Walk, Amersham, Bucks’. Archchrome range: MoE, Colour in School Buildings, Building Bulletin 9, 2nd edn (London, 1956).Google Scholar

79 Two Village Schools’, Architects’ Journal, 131 (30 June 1960), pp. 1005–12.Google Scholar

80 Pearson, Eric, Trends in School Design (London, 1972), p. 33Google Scholar; Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, p. 130.Google Scholar

81 Medd, , ‘School Design: a Personal Account’, p. 29 Google Scholar; Parker, David, John Newsom: A Hertfordshire Educationist (Hatfield, 2005), p. 40.Google Scholar

82 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, Medd, ‘New Education — New Design’.

83 Chorlton, Alan, ‘Appraisal’, Architects’ Journal, 131 (30 June 1960), pp. 1007–08 (p. 1007).Google Scholar

84 Burke, , ‘About Looking’, p. 74.Google Scholar

85 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, Medd, ‘An Attitude to School Design’, p. 11.

86 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, p. 45.Google Scholar

87 Medd, David, ‘School Architecture’, supplement to Education, 164 (21/28 December 1984), pp. ivii (p. v).Google Scholar

88 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, p. 395.Google ScholarPubMed

89 Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 190.Google Scholar

90 ‘Open plan’, ‘loft plan’: Educational Facilities Laboratories (hereafter EFL), New Schools for New Education (New York, 1959), pp. 18, 48Google ScholarPubMed; EFL, Schools Without Walls (New York, 1965).Google ScholarPubMed

91 List of EFL publications available at: http://archone.tamu.edu/crs/engine/default.asp7type=EFL&action=list (accessed on 9 September 2011).

92 A remarkable Architectural Association fourth year project of 1952 for a deep and open-plan primary school on the Hills system anticipates North American trends. The project, by Ablewhite, John, Burkett, John and Sheere, Gordon, was published in the Architectural Association Journal, 63 (1952) pp. 7072.Google Scholar

93 EFL, Hillsdale High School, San Mateo, California (New York, 1960).Google Scholar

94 MoE, Village Schools, Building Bulletin 3 (London, 1961), p. 14.Google ScholarPubMed

95 MoE, Village Schools; MoE, Schools in the U.S.A., Building Bulletin 18 (London, 1961).Google Scholar

96 MoE, Schools in the U.S.A., p. 112.Google Scholar

97 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, Medd,‘An Attitude to School Design’, p. 7.

98 For example, Pluckrose, Henry, ‘Open Plan Schools — an Environment for Learning’, Froebel Journal, 11 (Spring 1971), pp. 1520.Google Scholar Examples of British ‘open plan’ schools are Ilford Jewish Primary School, London Borough of Redbridge (Scott, Brownrigg & Turner, 1968–69); Eastergate Church of England Primary School, Chichester (West Sussex County Council Architect’s Department, 1969–70); The American School in London, London Borough of Camden (Shaver & Co. with Fitzroy Robinson & Partners, 1969–71), the William Morris Middle School (London Borough of Merton Architect’s Department, 1971–72) and Waterfield Secondary School, London Borough of Greenwich (Greater London Council Architect’s Department, c. 1971–76). These schools were published in three journals each, excepting the Waterfield School, which was featured in five.

99 Laboratories Investigation Unit, An Approach to Laboratory Building: a Paper for Discussion’ (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Tony Branton, pers. comm., 23 February 2011.

100 London, BL, C467/30, 1998 interview with David Medd.

101 Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, p. 93 Google Scholar; Liz and Ian Fraser, pers. comm., 18 October 2010.

102 Medd, , School Design, p. 22.Google Scholar

103 Evolution of the Primary School: Collaboration at Manchester’, Architects’ Journal, 146 (9 August 1967), PP. 345–50.Google Scholar

104 Abraham Moss Centre, Manchester’, Architects’ Journal, 163 (26 May 1976), pp. 1042–44Google Scholar; DES, Abraham Moss Centre: Progress Report, A&B Paper no. 1 (London, 1978).Google Scholar

105 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Half Our Future, Newsom Report (London, 1963)Google ScholarPubMed; Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools.

106 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, p. 400, fig. 9.Google ScholarPubMed

107 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, p. 18 Google Scholar; David Medd, pers. comm., 3 July 2008; ‘Henry Pluckrose’, obituary, The Guardian, 3 May 2011.

108 MoE, Village Schools, pp. 2728.Google Scholar

109 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, p. 3.Google Scholar

110 London, IoE, ME/E/18/5, drawing annotated ‘Early sketch plan for Eveline Lowe’; compare with DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, pp. 24–25.

111 London, IoE, ME/E/7/5, Medd, , School Design, p. 33.Google Scholar

112 London, IoE, ME/E/7/5, Medd, , School Design, p. 31.Google Scholar

113 An earlier use of the term kiva in this context: New Schools — Economy Too’, Life, 1 February 1954, p. 74.Google ScholarPubMed

114 Evaluating the Eveline Lowe School’, Design, 286 (1972), p. 26.Google Scholar

115 London, IoE, ME/Q/9/1, letter from Medd to Gardiner, p. 7.

116 DES, Eveline Lowe School: Appraisal, Building Bulletin 47 (London, 1972), p. 22.Google Scholar

117 David Medd, pers. comm., 3 July 2008.

118 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, p. 72.Google Scholar The technical basis of SEAC (South Eastern Architects’ Collaboration) was the Hills system as refined by Hertfordshire County Council.

119 London, IoE, ME/E/7/5, note OI 23 July 1964by David Medd.

120 The earliest located reference to ‘ingredients of planning’ dates to 1969: London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, Medd, , ‘New Education — New Design’, p. 1.Google Scholar In 1987, David Medd commented ‘even then we were slow — it was not til BB [Building Bulletin] 47 that the ingredients of working area[s] were spelled out publicly first’. London, IoE, ME/T/7, Medd lecture notes, 13 May 1987. DES, Eveline Lowe School: Appraisal, Appendix 3: ‘Some Suggested Ingredients of Planning for Working Areas’.

121 Medd, David and Medd, Mary, ‘Designing Primary Schools’, Froebel Journal, 11 (Spring 1971), pp. 611 Google Scholar; ‘The Design of Primary Schools’, unsigned article by David Medd, Built Environment, 1 (May 1972); Neufert, Ernst, Architects’ Data, 2nd (international) English edn (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Mills, Edward D., Planning: the Architect’s Handbook, 10th edn (London, 1985).Google Scholar Ingredients of planning were also featured in Maclure, Educational Development and School Building, pp. 146–47.

122 DES, Eveline Lowe School: Appraisal, p. 10.Google Scholar

123 Bennett, Neville, Open Plan Schools (Windsor, 1980), pp. 168–69.Google Scholar

124 DES, Eveline Lowe Primary School, p. 45.Google Scholar

125 DES, Chaucer Infant & Nursery School, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, Design Note 11 (London, 1973), pp. 14, 53Google Scholar; Ilkeston Chaucer Infants and Nursery School’, Architects’ Journal, 163 (26 May 1976).Google Scholar

126 Medd, , ‘The Design of Primary Schools’, p. 105.Google Scholar

127 Mills, , Planning, p. 489.Google ScholarPubMed

128 DES, Chaucer Infant & Nursery School, pp. 14,53Google Scholar; DES, Guillemont Junior School, Farnborough, Hampshire, Building Bulletin 53 (London, 1976), pp. 712 Google Scholar; Guillemont Junior School’, Architects’ Journal, 163 (May 1976), p. 1049.Google Scholar

129 Aldous, Tony, ‘A Lesson in Learning’, Building Design, no. 327 (10 December 1976), pp. 1617.Google Scholar

130 Medd, ‘The Work of the DES Development Group’, p. 269.Google Scholar

131 London, IoE, ME/M/4/4, Medd, , ‘An Attitude to School Design’, p. 12.Google Scholar

132 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 29 September 2011.

133 The Evolving School’, Trends in Education, p. 6.Google ScholarPubMed

134 Prosser, Trevor, ‘Delf Hill Middle School, Bradford’, Architects’ Journal, 147 (29 May 1968), pp. 1223–27.Google Scholar

135 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 16 September 2010.

136 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 10 March 2011.

137 Welsh Education Office, Small Rural Primary Schools in Wales, Design Study 1 (Cardiff, 1975).Google Scholar

138 Central Council on Education (Wales), Primary Education in Wales, ‘Gittins report’ (Cardiff, 1967), section 7.6.3.Google ScholarPubMed

139 London, IoE, ME/T/7, Medd lecture notes, 13 May 1987. The Medds worked with Len Evans of Dyfed County Council Architect’s Department (London, IoE, ME/E/8/6, letter of 19 October 1979 from David Medd to R. Howell).

140 Welsh Education Office, An Area School in Dyfed, Design Study 1 (Cardiff, 1976)Google Scholar; Pearson, Eric, ‘Five Into One … Five Small Rural Schools Merged into a New Area School in Llangybi’, Architects’ Journal, 165 (15 June 1977), pp. 1117–18.Google Scholar

141 Times Educational Supplement, 22 July 1977.

142 Berger Primary School, Hackney, London’, Wood, 33 (June 1968), pp. 15–19; ‘ Johanna Primary School, London, SEI, Official Architecture & Planning, 29 (September 1966), pp. 1290–93.Google Scholar

143 Between 1953 and 1998, the Medds undertook 106 international ‘missions’ on school consultancy, many of which David Medd detailed in his 1998 BL interview. London, IoE, ME / B /1, transcript of 1998 BL interview with David Medd, p. 118.

144 Weston, Richard, Schools of Thought: Hampshire Architecture 1974–1991 (Winchester, 1991)Google Scholar; Franklin, ‘Hampshire’ and ‘Buckinghamshire’ in ‘England’s Schools 1962–88’.

145 Franklin, ‘Voluntary and Independent Schools’, in ‘England’s Schools 1962–88’. In England and Wales, voluntary schools were provided by Church or other voluntary bodies but maintained by the local education authority. In the case of ‘voluntary aided’ schools, the providing body bore the cost of building with the help of a DES grant covering a proportion of capital costs. SirPile, William, The Department of Education and Science(London, 1979), p. 65.Google Scholar

146 Ipswich, Suffolk Record Office, HG3 / 3 / 2 / 68/4/15, memo of 4 September 1968 meeting between Tayler and Green and representatives of the Norwich Diocesan Council for Education and the Norfolk County Council.

147 Ipswich, Suffolk Record Office, HG3/3/2/68/4/15, letter of 16 October 1968 from Herbert Tayler to Dr F. Lincoln Ralphs, Chief Education Officer to the Norfolk County Council.

148 Catherine Burke, Conversations Between Architects and Educators in Designing the Post-War Primary School, British Academy Film, 2007.

149 Moorhouse, Edith, A Personal Story of Oxfordshire Primary Schools 1956–2968 (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Aitchison, Sarah, ‘Eynsham School and the Progressive Experiment 1967–83’ (MA thesis, Institute of Education, 2004), pp. 2936.Google Scholar

150 Darvill, Peter, Sir Alec Clegg: a Biographical Study (Knebworth, 2000)Google Scholar; Cunningham, , Curriculum Change, pp. 4957.Google Scholar

151 Pontefract Cobblers Lane Infants’ School’, Architects’ Journal, 156 (8 November 1972), pp. 1058–60Google Scholar; Pel Ltd, ‘Furnishing a School’ (1974); London, IoE, ABB/E/21, DES, ‘Cobblers Lane Infant School, Pontefract, West Yorkshire’, DES Broadsheet no. 7 (London, undated).

152 James Peacock Infants’ School: Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 173.Google Scholar

153 Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, pp. 184–85.Google Scholar

154 Parklands: Neufert, , Architects’ Data, p. 120.Google Scholar

155 Desmond Williams, pers. comm., 20 October 2011.

156 St. Thomas of Canterbury Roman Catholic Primary School’, Architects’ Journal, 153 (28 April 1971), pp. 941–54Google Scholar; London, IoE, ABB/E/21, DES, ‘Egerton CE Primary School, Ordsall, Salford’, DES Broadsheet no. 8 (London, undated).

157 Hampton County Infants School, Architects’ Journal, 150 (30 July 1969), pp. 229–42.Google Scholar

158 London, IoE, ABB/E/21, DES, ‘Brixington Junior School, Exmouth, Devon’, DES Broadsheet no. 6 (London, undated).

159 Michael Hacker, pers. comm., 23 September 2010. ‘Hertfordshire family tree’: Maclure, , Educational Development and School Building, p. 93.Google Scholar

160 Burke, ‘“Inside out“’.

161 Links between the Medds and their counterparts in Denmark resulted in the former contributing over a dozen articles for Arkitekten over the period 1953 to 1980. London, IoE, ME/G/9/1, and Burke, Catherine, ‘Putting Education in its Place: Mapping the Observations of Danish and English Architects on 1950s School Design’, Paedagogica Historica, 46 (2010), pp. 655–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

162 London, IoE, ME/T/7, Medd lecture notes, 13 May 1987.

163 London, IoE, ME / S /10, ‘School Planning and Design: An International Seminar for Designers, Educators and Administrators’, British Council, 28 April–8 May 1985, p. 13.

164 Brogden, Mike, ‘Plowden and Primary School Buildings: A Story of Innovation without Change’, Forum, 49 (2007), pp. 5566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

165 ‘Semi-open plan’: Seaborne, Malcolm, Primary School Design (London, 1971), p. 63 Google Scholar; Saint, , Towards a Social Architecture, p. 189.Google Scholar

166 London, IoE, ME/T/7, Medd lecture notes, 13 May 1987.

167 For example, Bennett, Open Plan Schools.

168 David Medd on Malcolm Seaborne’, Education, 152 (25 February 1972), p. 177.Google Scholar

169 ‘People like Miss Gilbari of Bristol, Miss Scurfield of Welwyn Garden City, and above all Miss Moorhouse of Oxfordshire are the people architects have been trying to understand and catch up with in the last 30 years. They were doing “open plan” education while Hitler was still living.’ London, IoE, ME/Q/9/1, letter from Medd to Gardiner, p. 6. The text to which Medd was responding was never published, but Medd clearly uses quotation marks to distance himself from the term ‘open plan’.

170 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 16 September 2010.

171 Guy Hawkins, pers. comm., 10 March 2011.

172 DES, Eveline Lowe School: Appraisal, p. 3.Google Scholar

173 Audrey Destandau (director), Principles of Primary School Design: Towards a Common Vocabulary of Practice,DVD (2010).

174 Quoted in Nuttgens, Patrick, Understanding Modern Architecture (London, 1988), p. 208.Google Scholar

175 Burke, ‘“Inside out“’.

176 The New Empiricism: Sweden’s Latest Style’, Architectural Review, 101 (June 1947), pp. 199204.Google Scholar Sven Backström earlier referred to ‘the “new objectivity”’: Backström, Sven, ‘A Swede Looks at Sweden’, Architectural Review, 94 (September 1943), p. 80.Google Scholar ‘The New Humanism’: Banham, Reyner, ‘The New Brutalism’, Architectural Review, 118 (December 1955), pp. 355–61 (p. 356).Google Scholar

177 Oddie, ‘The New English Humanism’.

178 Medd, David, ‘The Man From SOM’, Architects’ Journal, 143 (2 March 1966), pp. 568–69 (p. 568).Google Scholar

179 London, IoE, ME/B/3, transcript of 1998 BL interview with Mary Medd.

180 See, for example, Red House, Baillie Scott’s house of 1892–93 on the Isle of Man and his 1894 design for an ideal house, in which the principal rooms are separated by folding screens. Kornwolf, James D., M. H. Baillie Scott and the Arts and Crafts Movement: Pioneers of Modern Design (London, 1972), pp. 99, 107.Google Scholar David Medd’s views on the Arts and Crafts movement: London, IoE, ME/Z/3/1, David Medd, ‘a Note for Visitors in the Edward Barnsley Workshop’ (2000).

181 London, IoE, ME / Q / 9 /1, letter from Medd to Gardiner, p. 7. Dorothy Scurfield, headmistress of Ludwick School in Welwyn Garden City in the 1950s, was a pioneer of ‘free activity’ and ‘play and discovery’ methods in infant teaching.

182 London, IoE, ME/B/3, transcript of 1998 BL interview with Mary Medd.

183 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Children and their Primary Schools, p. 394.Google ScholarPubMed

184 Douglas, J. W. B., The Home and the School (London, 1964).Google Scholar

185 Franklin et al., ‘England’s Schools 1962–88’.