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Towards a New Cathedral: the Competition for Coventry Cathedral 1950–51

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Louise Campbell
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Extract

In January 1951, Colin St John Wilson, a young architect working in the Housing Division of the LCC Achitect’s Department, enthusiastically greeted the appearance of the competition conditions for a new cathedral at Coventry. The conditions did not follow the recommendations of a commission headed by Lord Harlech in 1947—that the new cathedral should be ‘in the gothic tradition’ — or the Cathedral Council’s own proposal that it should harmonize with the tower and spire which had survived the war. Wilson interpreted this as a gesture of encouragement to his generation, signifying that ‘the moderns are now entitled to enter the fray’. Writing in the Observer, Wilson pointed out that recent discussions of twentieth-century architecture had tended to minimize its expressive qualities and had fostered a highly artificial opposition between modernism and tradition. He detected an upsurge of interest in ‘a monumental and emotive expression’ among architects of his own generation, who since the war had been restricted to the essential work of housing, factory, and school building. Given the historical and emotional significance attached to the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, Wilson anticipated that the competition would produce exciting results.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 35 , 1992 , pp. 208 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1992

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References

Notes

1 A meeting of 22 July 1947 agreed that ‘the new Cathedra] should be built in good weathering red sandstone, the architect being free to make his own choice of style provided that the new Cathedral is built in continuity and harmony with the tower and spire’. Coventry Cathedral Council Minutes, 1937–58.

2 ‘Towards A New Cathedral’, Observer, 7 January 1951.

3 ‘Coventry Cathedral: Progress of Plans to Create a new Centre of Worship’, The Times, 28 September 1950; letters of 3, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 16 October 1950, reprinted in Architectural Review, January 1951.

4 ‘Coventry Cathedral’, leading article, The Times, 19th July 1947.

5 ‘The New House of Commons. Conflict between Ancient Forms and Modern Functions’, The Times, 18 October 1950.

6 ‘Canons of Criticism’, Architectural Review, January 1951.

7 The Rt Revd H. A. Wilson, Bishop of Chelmsford (1876-1961).

8 Bishop Gorton wrote to Harlech on 10 October 1947 that the Cathedral Council ‘are very angry about the RIBA and felt that you could protect them from being imposed upon by the RIBA’. Copy of letter, Reconstruction Committee file 1947-1950, Coventry Cathedral.

9 The Reconstruction Committee, chaired by Col. Siddeley from 1947 to 1949, and by Ernest Ford from 1949 to 1955, contained six lay members (mostly local businessmen), a representative of the Free churches, a Baptist minister representing the Christian Service Centre Joint Council, and the Provost. The Bishop, while not a member of the committee, was invited to attend its meetings.

10 R. Banham, ‘Strictly Trad, Dad’, New Statesman, May 1962; G. Cope, ‘A Cool Look at Coventry’, Listener, 8 November 1962.

11 Maufe papers, British Architectural Library, Ma E/135/2.

12 Copy of letter of 2 August 1950, Ma E/13 5/1.

13 ‘Considerations submitted by the Bishop of Coventry for the Assessors on the new Coventry Cathedral’, MaE/135/1.

14 See note 29. Ford was the author of a plan for Coventry which was supplanted in 1941 by the more sweeping proposals of the City Architect. See K. Richardson, Twentieth Century Coventry (1972), pp. 286-87.

15 According to a letter from Thurston to Thomas, 7 September 1950. Ma E/135/1.

16 Coventry Cathedral Architectural Competition: Conditions and Instructions to Competing Architects, October 1950, p. 17.

17 Col. Siddeley noted ‘Mr. Robertson says that new Cathedral should be built in keeping with properties around.’ Notes of Meeting between Assessors and Reconstruction Committee held 13 July 1950, Reconstruction Committee file 1947-50.

18 The New Coventry Cathedral Plan and Scheme (1944).

19 Coventry Cathedral: Report of Lord Harlech’s Commission (1947), p. 19.

20 Annotation to R. T. Howard, Guide to Cathedral Church of St. Michael, Coventry, Ma E/135/3.

21 Cited by Thurston, N. T. Coventry Cathedral 1940-1962. Ms copy in Coventry Cathedral archives, Chap. III, p. 16 Google Scholar.

22 Builder, 24 September 1951.

23 See for example the publication Resurgam, Town Planning Institute(?) n.d., c. 1944, p. 66.

24 Letter dated 12 August 1944, signed by Marjory Allen of Hurtwood, David Cecil, Kenneth Clark, F. A. Cockin, T. S. Eliot, H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, Julian Huxley, Keynes, E. J. Salisbury, reproduced in H. Casson, Bombed churches as war memorials (1945), p. 4.

25 The Birmingham Gazette reported on 16 November: ‘The proud spirit of Coventry Cathedral yesterday stood as a sentinel over the grim scene of destruction …’, quoted N. Longmate, Air Raid (1976), p. 212.

26 ‘We ask … that there should be an economy of space, and that the space available should not be too much broken up in transept, nave and additional chapels on traditional lines.’ Appendix I, Ma E/135/1.

27 Conditions and Instructions, p. 21.

28 For example, the following passage: ‘It could be directed vertically in the analogy of a stretching of the hands upwards instead of towards an end. The building … might be … circular or octagonal ….’. Appendix III, Ma E/135/1.

29 Letter from Thomas to Maufe, 4 September 1950, Ma E/135/1: ‘The Committee feel they must stick to tradition’.

30 Letter from Gorton to Thomas 2 August 1950, loc. cit.

31 Minutes of Reconstruction Committee, 21 November 1950; 6 July 1951.

32 See letter from Maufe to Thomas, 6 November 1950, Ma E/135/1.

33 Letter from Town Clerk to Thurston, 25 May 1948, Coventry City Record Office, SEC/CF/1/11432.

34 ‘Coventry Cathedral Competition’, September 1951, p. 258.

35 Notebook inscribed ‘Coventry. August 1951.’ Ma E/135/2.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Report of Lord Harlech’s Commission, p. 21.

39 Architects’ Report, reprinted in Churchbuilding, January 1963.

40 See Banham, ‘Revenge of the Picturesque: English Architectural Polemics 1945-65’, Concerning Architecture, ed. J. Summerson (1968), p. 273.

41 Wilson, ‘Towards A New Cathedral’, Observer, 7 January 1951.

42 Architects’ Report, Churchbuilding, January 1963.

43 Reprinted as Appendix C to B. Spence, Phoenix at Coventry (1962) p. 123.

44 In an interview on 26January, 1987. She also claimed that when the assessors asked the engineer Ove Arup for his opinion of the design which the Smithsons had produced in conjunction with Ronaldjenkins, a member of his own firm, Arup expressed doubts about its structural integrity.

45 ‘Chapel of Unity a fine ‘Tent’… ‘Carefully considered vistas’, Ma E/135/2, and also in a letter to Thomas on 3 August.

46 Ma E/135/1.

47 Ibid.

48 Harlech retained his interest in the cathedral scheme, and supported the clergy’s right to express their preference as regards style: ‘… it is a matter of national concern to get the right architect and to keep the building client’s end up vis à vis the growing syndicalism of dictatorial professional architects in Portland Place!’ wrote Harlech to Gorton on 18 September 1947. Reconstruction Committee file, 1947-50, Coventry Cathedral.

49 Letter of 4 August 1950, loc. cit.

50 A. E. Richardson wrote in his diary, ‘Here is an Exhibition type of design, frightful to look upon and exactly like the Festival Buildings’, cited S. Houfe, Sir Albert Richardson: the Professor (1980), p. 187.