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Architectural Proportion in Britain 1945–1957

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Eva-Marie Neumann
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Extract

In 1953 Rudolf Wittkower referred to proportion as ‘a problem that to-day is perhaps more on artists’ and architects’ minds than at any time during the last 150 years’. Indeed, from the end of the Second World War until the late fifties, proportion aroused exceptional interest among artists and architects. Why, we might ask, at a time of prevailing modernist ideology, was the historically rooted and rather esoteric subject of proportion of absorbing interest to many architects, and why should that interest have vanished towards the end of the fifties?

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 39 , 1996 , pp. 197 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1996

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References

Notes

1 Wittkower, Rudolf, ‘Systems of Proportion’, in Architects Year Books, ed. Dannati, Trevor (London, 1953), pp. 9–18 (p. 9)Google Scholar. In this essay, a ‘system of proportion’ will generally be understood as a method of architectural composition using mathematical proportion. The term ‘proportion’ will broadly refer to mathematical proportion, i.e. an equality of two ratios, but will also encompass the more nebulous meanings which architects ascribed to the word.

2. Wittkower, Rudolf, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 4th edn (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Rowe, Colin, ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa’, Architectural Review, 101 (1947), pp. 101–04 Google Scholar; see also Scholfield, P. H., The Theory of Proportion in Architecture (Cambridge, 1958)Google Scholar.

3. For studies on proportion, see for example, Russell, Barry, Building Systems: Industrialization and Architecture (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Pérez-Gómez, Alberto, Architecture and the Crisis of Modem Science (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1983)Google Scholar; Mitrovic, Branko, ‘Palladio’s Theory of Proportion and the Second Book of the “Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura”’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 59 (1990), pp. 279-92Google Scholar. For interest in proportion in early post-war Britain, see Banham, Reyner, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic? (London, 1966)Google Scholar. Banham offers an interesting analysis of proportions among the Brutalist architects in the fifties. See also Saint, Andrew, Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School-Building in Post-war Britain (London and New Haven, 1987)Google Scholar. For more critical views of proportion, see Steadman, Philip, The Evolution of Designs: Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts, (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 17–22 Google Scholar, a rather crude dismissal of theorists of proportion; Bentmann, Reinhard and Müller, Michael, ‘The Villa as Architecture ofDornination’, 9H (1983), pp. 104-14 (pp. 106, n, 112-13)Google Scholar, a radical study of the Palladian villa which exposes the ideological meaning of proportion; Monnier, Gerard, Histoire critique de l’architecture en France 1918-1950 (Paris: Philippe Sers, 1990), pp. 37–39 Google Scholar, a critical view of proportional methods in early modern French architecture.

4. Fry, Maxwell, ‘Walter Gropius’, Architectural Review, 117 (1955), pp. 155–57 Google Scholar (p. 156).

5. Wittkower, Architectural Principles, pp. 134-37; Perrault, Claude, Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method of the Ancients, trans, by McEwen, Indra Kagis, Introduction by Pérez-Goméz, Alberto (Santa Monica, CA, 1993), pp. 1–44 (pp. 21, 23)Google Scholar.

6. Wittkower, Rudolf, ‘The Changing Concept of Proportion’, in The Visual Arts Today, ed. Képes, György (Middleton, CT, 1960), pp. 203-19 (pp. 206-13)Google Scholar; Payne, Alina A., ‘Rudolf Wittkower and Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 53 (1994), pp. 322–42 (p. 327)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steadman, Evolution, p. 19.

7. See for example Kerrich, Thomas, ‘Observations on the Use of the Mysterious Figure, Called “Vesica Piscis” in the Architecture of the Middle Ages and in Gothic Architecture’, read to the Society of Antiquaries, 20 January 1820, Archaeologia or Miscellaneous Tracts Rekting to Antiquity, 19 (1821), pp. 353–63Google Scholar; Ray, D. R., Proportion, or The Geometric Principle of Beauty, Analysed (London and Edinburgh, 1843)Google Scholar; Pennethorne, John, The Elements and Mathematical Principles of the Greek Architects and Artists (London, 1844)Google Scholar; Pennethorne, John and Robinson, John, The Geometry and Optics of Ancient Architecture (London and Edinburgh, 1878)Google Scholar; Odgen, P., ‘Science and Proportion’, RIBA Journal, 19 (1912),pp. 704-15Google Scholar; Edwards, A. Trystan, The Things Which Are Seen (London, 1921)Google Scholar; Edwards, A. Trystan, Architectural Style (London, 1926)Google Scholar; Roberts, Harry W., R’s Method of Using Ordinary Set Squares in Drawing and Design (London, 1927)Google Scholar; Lutyens, Robert, Sir Edwin Lutyens: An Appreciation in Perspective (London, 1942), pp. 55–66 Google Scholar.

8. See Crinson, Mark and Lubbock, Jules, Architecture: Art or Profession?: Three Hundred Years of Architectural Education in Britain (Manchester and New York, 1994), pp. 102, 107Google Scholar.

9. Corbusier, Le, Towards a New Architecture, trans, by Etchells, Frederick (London, 1927 Google Scholar; repr. London, 1989). Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture is listed in the bibliography of the AA School prospectuses throughout the thirties. Architect Bruce Martin recalls that Le Corbusier’s traces régulateurs were popular among a group of students at the AA before the war. (In interview with the author, 26 July 1990). Inspired by Le Corbusier, the architect Wells Coates used regulating lines in his designs between the two World Wars, and remained a devotee of proportion in the post-war period. Cantacuzino, Sherban, Wells Coates: A Monograph (London, 1978), p. 52, 54-55Google Scholar; ‘I have always used a proportional regulating system in all my work which is partially a development of the “golden number” and which I find, under proper control, extremely useful and easy to operate within the many varying dimensional problems which exist in different kinds of buildings.’ Letter from Wells Coates to Alfred Neumann, 27 March 1950, British Architectural Library, RIBA; Manuscripts Collection, Alfred Neumann Papers.

10. Thomas, Mark Hartland, Aesthetics the Vanguard Now’, Architectural Design, 17 (1947), pp. 36–37 (p. 37)Google Scholar.

11. Robertson, Manning, ‘The Golden Section or Golden Cut: The Mystery of Proportions in Design’, RIBA Journal, 55 (1948), pp. 536-45 (p. 543)Google Scholar.

12. Holmes, J. C., Correspondence, RIBA Journal, 56 (1948-49), p. 38 Google Scholar.

13. Curtis, H. Lewis, ‘Functional Proportion’, RIBA Journal, 56 (1948-49), pp. 178-79 (p. 178)Google Scholar.

14. Roberts, A. Leonard, Correspondence, RIBA Journal, 56 (1949), pp. 179-80, 287Google Scholar.

15. Roberts, A. Leonard, ‘R’s Method: The Achievement of Proportion in Architectural Design’, Architectural Design, 18 (1948), pp. 197-99, 214-16, 246-49, 272-74; 19 (1949), pp. 17-20, 46-49 (18 (1948), p. 197)Google Scholar.

16. RIBA Journal, 56 (1949), p. 287.

17. Corbusier, Le, ‘The Golden Section’, Architects’ Journal, 107 (1948), pp. 35–36 Google Scholar. The AA School of Architecture prospectus for 1949 has a first-term series of introductory lectures entided: ‘Approach to design, scale, proportion’. For discussions of proportion in the AA Journal, see Barefoot, Peter T. (student), ‘Alvar Aalto at the A.A. School’, AA Journal, 62 (1946), pp. 49–50 Google Scholar; see also Correspondence, 62 (1946), p. 78; 62 (1947), pp. 108, 127-28, 141; 63 (1947), pp. 13-14, 47; Goldfinger, Ernö, ‘The Art of Enclosing Space’, A A Journal, 63 (1948), pp. 177–87 (pp. 179-80, 185)Google Scholar; Greenfield, Alec (student), ‘Richard J. Neutra’s Talk to the A.A. Students’, AA Journal, 64 (1948), p. 61 Google Scholar.

18. Alison, and Smithson, Peter, Correspondence, RIBA Journal, 59 (1952), p. 140 Google Scholar.

19. Banham, New Bmtalism, pp. 14-15. See Payne, ‘Rudolf Wittkower’ (see n. 6 above). Payne argues that views of Renaissance architecture developed in historical studies since the nineteenth century have consistendy mirrored contemporary modernist polemics (p. 337). According to Payne, the success of Architectural Principles amongst modernist architects is thus due, to a large extent, to its timely consecration of the late-forties consensus on modern architecture as rational, scientifically based but firmly part of the historical continuum.

20. Olitsky, Ruth and Voelcker, John, ‘Form and Mathematics’, Architectural Design, 24 (1954), pp. 306-07 (p. 306)Google Scholar.

21. See Graf, Hermann, Bibliographie zum Problem der Proportionen, Literatur über Proportionen, Mass und Zahl in Architektur, bildender Kunst und Natur, Teil 1: von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart (Speyer, 1958), pp. 74–85 Google Scholar; and Borsi, Franco, Per una storia della teoria delle proporzioni, Quaderni della Cattedra di Disegno della Facoltà di Architettura 2 (Florence, 1967), p. 144—55Google Scholar.

22. Corbusier, Le, The Modulor, trans, by de Francia, Peter and Bostock, Anna, 2nd edn (London, 1954), p. 5 Google Scholar; Wittkower, ‘Changing Concept’, pp. 213-14.

23. See Monnier, Histoire Critique, pp. 37-39; Paul, Jacques, ‘Modern Architecture and the German Classical Tradition’ (doctoral thesis, University of London, 1972), pp. 498–509 Google Scholar; Banham, Reyner, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 2nd edn (London, 1960), p. 142 Google Scholar.

24. The Fibonacci series, named after their thirteenth-century discoverer, are ‘additive series, … in which each term is equal to the sum of the two preceding ones, and the ratio of the consecutive terms tends very quickly towards the Golden Section ratio [1.618]’. Ghyka, Matila, ‘Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Concept of the Golden Mean’, Architectural Review, 103 (1948), pp. 39–42 (p. 40)Google Scholar.

25. Milion, Henry A., ‘Rudolf Wittkower, “Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism”: Its Influence on the Development and Interpretation of Modern Architecture’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 31 (1972), pp. 83–91 (p. 85)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Banham, Brutalism, p. 18; Ghyka, ‘Le Corbusier’s Modulor’, pp. 39-42; Entwisde, Clive, ‘How to Use the Modulor’, Plan, no. 9 (1951), pp. 3–6 Google Scholar; Keyte, Michael and others, ‘Derivation of a Module’, Plan, no. 9 (1951), pp. 7—11 Google Scholar; Rykwert, Joseph, review ofCorbusier’s, Le ‘Le Modulor’, Plan, no. 8 (1950), p. 33 Google Scholar; Collins, Peter, ‘Modulor’, Architectural Review, 116 (1954), pp. 5–8 (p. 7)Google Scholar.

26. ‘Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation’, Discussion of members of the Housing Division of the LCC Architect’s Department, Architectural Review, 109 (1951), pp. 293-300 (p. 300).

27. Forty, Adrian, ‘Le Corbusier’s British Reputation’, in Le Corbusier: Architect of the Century, eds Raeburn, Michael and Wilson, Victoria (London, 1987), pp. 35–41 (pp. 37-38)Google Scholar.

28. Rowe, ‘Mathematics’, p. 102.

29. See Eagleton, Terry, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (London, 1990), pp. 8–9, 64-65Google Scholar; Wittkower, Architectural Principles, p. 130. Williams, Raymond, Culture and Society (London, 1987), p. 32, 34, 43Google Scholar.

30. Crinson, and Lubbock, , Architecture, Art or Profession? (Manchester and New York, 1994)Google Scholar.

31. Finnimore, Brian, Houses from the Factory: System Building and the Welfare State (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

32. Finnimore, Houses, p. 121.

33. Finnimore, Houses, p. 127.

34. Wittkower, ‘Changing Concept’, p. 216.

35. Finnimore, Houses, p. 218.

36. Le Corbusier, TheModulor, p. 63.

37. Finnimore, Houses, p. 146.

38. Ehrenkrantz, Ezra, The Modular Number Pattern: Flexibility through Standardization (London, 1956), pp. 2–4 Google Scholar.

39. See Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 208, 210; Ehrenkrantz, Ezra and Kay, John D., ‘Flexibility through Standardization: part 1: The Hertfordshire Prefab Schools’, Progressive Architecture, 38 (1957), pp. 105–11 Google Scholar; ‘Flexibility through Standardization: part 2: The Modular Number Pattern’, pp. 112-15.

40. See ‘Summary-Report of a Public Discussion on “Modular Coordination” ’, Transactions of the Modular Society, 1.4 (May 1953), pp. 1-20, a-f (p. 17); ‘Summary-Report of a Public Discussion on “Modular Coordination”‘, Transactions of the Modular Society, 1.3 (April 1953), pp. 1-37 (p. 9); Thomas, Mark Hartland, ‘The Modular Society’, RIBA Journal, 60 (1953), p. 361 Google Scholar.

41. Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, p. 208.

42. Gunnis, J. Neville, ‘Summary-Report of a Public Discussion on “Modular Coordination”’, written contributions, Transactions of the Modular Society, 1.4 (May 1953), pp. a-f (p. b)Google Scholar.

43. Martin, Bruce, ‘Products, Dimensions & Modules’, Transactions of the Modular Society, 3.12 (March 1955), pp. 1–7 Google Scholar; Allen, William, ‘Modular Coordination Research: The Evolving Pattern’, Modular Quarterly, Transactions of the Modular Society (Summer 1955), pp. 14–25 Google Scholar; Ehrenkrantz, Ezra D., ‘Development of the Number Pattern for Modular Coordination: Flexibility through Standardization’, Modular Quarterly, Transactions of the Modular Society (Winter 1955-56), pp. 39–46 Google Scholar; Discussion (Spring 1956), pp. 22-33.

44. Corbusier, Le, ‘Préfabrication’, Prefabrication, I (1953), p. 29 Google Scholar.

45. ‘The Architecture of Prefabrication’, Préfabrication, 1 (1954), p. 6.

46. Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth, On Growth and Form, ed. Bonner, John Tyler, abr. edn (Cambridge, 1961), p. 326—27Google Scholar; Cook, Theodore A., The Curves of Life (London, 1914, repr. New York and London, 1979)Google Scholar. See Wittkower, ‘Changing Concept’, p. 211.

47. Entwistle, , ‘How to Use the Modulor’, Plan, no. 9 (1951), pp. 3–6 (pp. 3-4)Google Scholar.

48. Fechner, Gustav Theodor, Vorschule der A esthetik (Leipzig, 1876)Google Scholar. Wittkower,’Changing Concept’, p. 210.

49. See Beloff, J., Correspondence, AA Journal, 63 (1947), p. 13 Google Scholar; Curtis, ‘Functional Proportion’, p. 178; Roberts, Correspondence, pp. 179-80.

50. Ehrenkrantz, Modular Number Pattern, p. 62; Alexander, Christopher, ‘Perception and Modular Coordination’, RIBA Journal, 66 (1959), pp. 425-29 (p. 429)Google Scholar; mentioned by Allen, William in ‘Report of a Debate on the Motion “that Systems of Proportions Make Good Design Easier and Bad Design More Difficult”’, RIBA Journal, 64 (1957), pp. 456–63 (p. 461)Google Scholar. Mentioned by Bruce Martin (in interview with the author, 26 July 1990).

51. Wittkower, ‘Systems of Proportions’, pp. 9-18 (pp. 9, 17); ‘The Changing Concept of Proportion’, pp. 203-19 (p. 217).

52. Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, p. 210; William Allen (in interview with the author, 4 July 1990); Finnimore, Houses, pp. 149, 166-67.

53. Banham, Brutalism, p. 18.

54. Banham, Brutalism, pp. 18, 41; See ‘Special issue, A Smithson File#x2019;, Arena, 81 (1966), pp. 173-220 (p. 182).

55. For the Smithsons’ and Colin St John Wilson’s entries for the Coventry Cathedral competition, see Campbell, Louise, ‘Towards a New Cathedral: the Competition for Coventry Cathedral 1950-51’, Architectural History, 35 (1992), pp. 208-34CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 233, 234), Figs 18, 19, 20 and 21.

56. Banham, Brutalism, p. 126. In 1953, St John Wilson gave a lecture on proportion at the Institute of Contemporary Art as part of the Independent Group’s discussion programme. See Whitham, Graham, ‘Chronology’, in The Independent Croup: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty, ed. David|Robbins (Cambridge, MA and London, 1990), pp. 12–48 (p. 23)Google Scholar.

57. Colin St John Wilson (in interview with the author, 24 April 1995). ‘Extension to the School of Architecture, Cambridge: Colin St John Wilson and Alex Hardy’, Architectural Design, 29 (October 1959), pp. 394-96, 399 (p. 395).

58. Cantacuzino, Sherban, Howell Killick Partridge & Amis: Architecture (London, 1981), p. 14 Google Scholar; Howell, , Killick, , Partridge, and Amis, , ‘Attitudes to Architecture 1’, 82 (1966), pp. 95–119 (p. 106)Google Scholar.

59. The façades of the Albert Drive Housing Scheme in Wimbledon were dimensionally co-ordinated with the help of a Fibonacci series. Untitled typed manuscript on Roehampton Lane (Alton West) consulted in office of Howell Killick Partridge & Amis (9 July 1954), pp. 7-8. See Haynes, Robert S., ‘Design and Image in English Urban Housing, 1945–57’ (M. Phil, thesis, University of London, 1976), p. 60 Google Scholar.

60. Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis, ‘Attitude’, p. 101.

61. John Partridge (in interview with the author, 18 July 1990); Partridge, John, ‘Alton West’, in ‘The Alton Estate, Roehampton, after 25 years’, Housing Review, 29 (1980), pp. 170–72 Google Scholar (p. 171).

62. John Partridge (in interview with the author, 18 July 1990).

63. Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, chs 3 and 4.

64. According to Bruce Martin (in interview with the author, 26 July 1990).

65. Richards, J. M., ‘Criticism’, Architects’ Journal, 126 (1957), pp. 105–07 (p. 107)Google Scholar; ‘Office Building in Albemarle street’, Architectural Design, 28 (1958), pp. 1-6 (p. 2); ‘Offices in Albemarle street, W.I.’, Architectural Review, 123 (1958), pp. 119-22 (p. 120).

66. Goldfinger, Ernö, ‘Criticism: The Architect Replies’, Architects’ Journal, 126 (1957), pp. 133–34 (p. 134)Google Scholar.

67. James Gowan (in interview with the author, 6 July 1990).

68. Monnier, Histoire critique, pp. 38–39.

69. ‘Report of a Debate on the Motion “that Systems of Proportions Make Good Design Easier and Bad Design More Difficult” ‘, RIBA Journal, 64 (1957), pp. 456-63 (p. 461).

70. ‘Report of a Debate’, p. 463.

71. Saint, Towards a Social Architecture, pp. 185–86.