22 minute read
A Living Library the revival and relevance of post-war designed landscapes
By Karen Fitzsimon
Karen Fitzsimon CMLI is a landscape architect and garden historian. She worked with the Gardens Trust on “Compiling the Record.”
An extraordinary thing took place last summer – post-war designed landscapes hit the national news!
This was as a result of Historic England’s announcement that 24 post-war designed landscapes, or elements of, had been added to or upgraded on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE), thus affording them a level of protection not previously enjoyed (1). Such was the unusual nature of the announcement that The Guardian architectural critic, Oliver Wainwright, mused if a revolution had occurred (2)? Prior to the announcement only 27 of the approximately 1,650 registered landscapes were from the post-war period, having been added to the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England over thirty years from 1987 (3). In one magnificent swoop, the new additions almost doubled the number of mid to late twentieth-century designed landscapes protected. This article will consider how that happened, the diversity of sites protected, and what it might mean for contemporary landscape architectural practice.
While appreciation of the heritage value of post-war architecture has increased in recent years, designed landscapes of the period are often neglected, despite the case that they can be a key component to the success of architectural and planning projects. The fact that this large batch of post-1945 designed landscapes have been given this protection brings focus to a neglected period of our heritage and helps us take an informed approach to their management. These landscapes are vulnerable and are disappearing. They often sit on generous or valuable plots of land, keenly eyed by developers, cash-strapped owners or local authorities with housing targets to fill. The sometimes ubiquitous nature of these landscapes can lead to a lack of understanding that they are actually designed places, or that they might have heritage value. This lack of perception can be compounded by the peculiar notion that they are too young to protect. In fact, one of the criteria for designation is that a landscape or building should generally be at least thirty years old, though by simply reframing that to ‘thirty years young’ the conception of what could be protected broadens considerably. Very occasionally, and under exceptional circumstances, they can be younger, such as the Grade II* garden designed by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe at Sutton Place, Surrey, which was only 21 years old when it was added to the Register in 2001.
The new additions to the Register cover a variety of land uses, as shall be explained later. Many were created by past and present Landscape Institute members, and offer a window on the practice of British landscape architecture from 1947 to 1993. In the words of landscape architect and Gardens Trust President, Dominic Cole, ‘they are like a living library of built landscapes that the profession and others can visit, explore and learn from’. Indeed, they can reflect not only good design but also echo broader social, cultural and political developments of the time. And of course, they connect people to place.
Churchill Gardens
© Historic England archive
Indignation, as noted by Mavis Batey et al at the dawn of the millennium, is often a driving force behind the protection of landscapes (4). So it was with these bulk additions to the NHLE.
By 2016, members of the Gardens Trust (GT) had become increasingly concerned about the incremental loss of post-war designed landscapes. That concern had been growing over previous decades, and a number of articles were published and conferences held. But it came to a head in 2015 following the demolition of the previously registered designed landscape of the Commonwealth Institute, London. The 1962 work, by landscape architect Dame Sylvia Crowe, was considered to be an excellent expression of unity between architecture and landscape, and although elements of the associated architecture were retained, the landscape was deemed expendable.
Golden Lane Estate roof garden
© Historic England archive
A three-pronged response was put into motion by the GT. First, a sold-out symposium entitled “Mid to Late C20 Designed Landscapes: Overlooked, undervalued and at risk?” was held in June 2017 at the Garden Museum. Expert speakers outlined works of the period, their significance, and their vulnerabilities. Secondly, the event launched a widely advertised crowd-sourced campaign called “Compiling the Record”, that sought nominations of works of the period from members of the public, landscape design professionals and GT members, that they thought worthy of assessment and inclusion on the NHLE (5). The campaign ran for seven months and resulted in over 112 detailed submissions. The types of sites nominated express the range of projects that landscape architects worked on from the middle to the end of the twentieth century: cemeteries, crematoria and memorial landscapes; civic places such as town centres, squares and city views; commercial sites including business parks, corporate headquarters and factory landscapes; country parks; private and public gardens; universities; sports sites; public and private housing; parks; and finally landscapes of infrastructure and industry, such as power stations, reservoirs, motorways and quarries.
Concurrent with this activity Historic England (HE) was aware that although post-war buildings were well represented on the NHLE, designed landscapes of the period were notably lean. So, the third and most essential part of the GT response was its partnership with HE, established so that the nominated landscapes could be assessed for inclusion on the NHLE (6) HE convened an expert panel, including landscape architects in practice, in academia and from heritage organisation, to help create a short-list of 42 sites to be evaluated, 26 were assessed by HE over an eighteen month period, of which a number of the nominated sites were already in the HE system or deemed under threat so were assessed earlier (7).
Broadwater Park
© Historic England archive
Housing sites were the big winners in the roll call of designations. Prior to the campaign, the only residential landscape registered was the GII* Barbican in the City of London. Eight more, both public and private, have now been added. With a seamless integration of architecture and landscape, they vividly express the aspiration and hopes of the post-war period. Registered at GII, they are: Brunel Estate, Westbourne Park by Michael Brown; Powell and Moya’s Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico; Alton East Estate and Alton West Estate, Roehampton by LCC Architects’ Department; Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s Golden Lane Estate, City of London; Water Gardens, Edgware by Philip Hicks; and the Span development of Fieldend, Twickenham by Michael Brown while Janet Jack’s Alexandra Road Park, South Hampstead secured a GII* (8) .
Shute House Gardens
© Karen Fitzsimon
Although the development of business parks, factories and corporate headquarters has been an important source of post-war work for landscape practices, especially in the 1980s, only a handful of such landscapes had been registered before “Compiling the Record”9. This has now been addressed with a number of new additions – Jellicoe’s 1952 water garden at the former Cadbury factory (see case study on p40), Wirral has been listed at GII, while four other sites have been added to the Register of Parks and Gardens, also at GII: Dan Kiley’s 1966 designed landscape for Cummins Engine factory, Darlington (see case study on p36); Preben Jakobsen’s 1984 Broadwater Park, Denham; and Bernard Ede’s designs for the vast Stockley Park, Hillingdon, completed from 1985 to 1993. The assessment and registration of Professor Arnold Weddle’s designed landscape at the Pearl Centre in Peterborough preceded the others by a couple of months when the work was identified as being at risk of redevelopment.
As is to be expected, gardens are well represented in the new registrations, with a total of eight added, mostly private, bulking up the previous nine post-war garden entries on the List. Jellicoe’s exemplary work at Shute House Garden, Shaftesbury, has been recognised at GII*. The Arts and Crafts inspired York Gate Gardens – just outside Leeds and created by the Spencer family – was registered at Grade II, and confirms the fact that not all post-war designed landscapes are inspired by modernism. The inclusion of Beth Chatto’s eponymous gardens in Colchester, and also Denmans Garden in Fontwell (designed by Joyce Robinson and John Brookes), are especially welcome developments because, unlike most of the entries, they have not been developed around strong architecture or hard landscape detailing, but rather are plant focused designs, a genre that has traditionally been more difficult to assess. Two public gardens have been designated: Roper’s Garden in Chelsea (see case study on p39), and the complex Improvement Garden in Stockwood Park, Luton, (designed by polymath Ian Hamilton Finlay with Bob Burgoyne and Sue Finlay), which has been registered at Grade II*. It is deemed the artist’s most important work in England.
Following WWII new towns provided tremendous opportunities for landscape architects. Parks were an integral component of those towns, and two have been added to the Register at GII: Harlow Town Park in Essex, by Dame Sylvia Crowe with Sir Fredrick Gibberd, and Campbell Park in Milton Keynes, by Walker, Mosscrop, Mahaddie and Neil Higson. In tandem with second and third wave new towns came the expansion of the university sector. Despite the significant body of work by the profession in this field, very few of their designed landscapes have made it to the Register. St. Catherine’s College Oxford, by Arne Jacobsen, was previously protected at Grade II, but was reassessed as part of “Compiling the Record” and upgraded to Grade I (10) . Disappointingly, of the seven other university landscapes nominated, only one was assessed – Brenda Colvin’s 1960’s work at University of East Anglia – but even more disappointing is the fact that it was not registered.
Finally, the design of memorial landscapes was also a focus for the profession after the war, especially crematoria and cemetery design. Yet, of the 22 commemorative landscapes nominated, two were assessed and only one, the Kennedy Memorial in Runnymede, was added to the Register (GII) (11). This was important because the memorial stone itself had been designated a listed structure (GII) in 1998, but the profound and integral Jellicoe designed landscape was excluded – a separation in heritage terms which, had the landscape been damaged, would have undermined the meaning of the site.
The addition of these sites to the Register is a major milestone and cause for celebration, especially in the wake of COVID-19 and the increased appreciation of green space. But it draws attention not only to the sites that were not selected for assessment or denied registration, but also the notable gaps in the selection and categorization process, such as landscapes of infrastructure, sport and Country Parks. There is much work yet to do to ensure protection for the most significant post-war designed landscapes and also to stretch the focus beyond the South East.
The Kennedy Memorial
© Historic England archive
What does all of this mean for the profession today? It is likely that more post-war sites will be redeveloped over coming years, and some may find their way onto your ‘drawing board’. Not all of them will be protected, yet they may still have heritage value. In this era of climate change, landscape architects have a duty to not only minimise carbon release, but also to thoroughly examine and understand the design intent and heritage value of sites they inherit. By doing so, the degree of change that the site can tolerate will be legible. Heritage value does not exclude change – indeed it can add to the creative response. But we should sometimes be brave enough to ask how little intervention a site requires. Finally, a plea that if you do have to remove vintage post-war paving or other materials of the period, don’t chuck them – they now have salvage value!
The Kennedy Memorial
© Historic England archive
Karen Fitzsimon has devised an online lecture series for The Gardens Trust about post-war designed landscapes. The lectures run weekly from 15 January to 5 March and will be delivered by the author and a variety of landscape architects.
https://www. eventbrite.co.uk/e/englands-post-war-designedlandscapes-rediscovered-and-revaluedtickets-132182065115
References
1 The Best of England’s Post-War Parks, Gardens and Landscapes Protected. 21 August 2020 https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/best-post-war-parksgardens-and-landscapes-protected
2 Let’s hear it for the Jammie Dodgers ponds! Everyday marvels win protection, The Guardian, 21 August 2020.
3 A small number of the 27 sites were modern landscapes within older registered sites.
4 Batey, M., Lambert, D. and Wilkie, K. (2000). Indignation! The campaign for conservation. London: Kit-Cat Books.
5 http://thegardenstrust.org/compiling-the-record
6 https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/apply-for-listing/listing-priorities/moderngardens-landscapes
7 This included: University of York Campus West by Frank Clark and RMJM registered at Grade II; the GII garden at Kingcombe, Glouc. by Sir Gordon Russell, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and Russell Page and 5 Piper’s Green Lane, Edgware by Preben Jakobsen which was not registered.
8 The stainless-steel slide at Brunel Estate was also listed at GII.
9 These were Pilkington Glass HQ complex, St. Helens; Mountbatten House, Basingstoke; former CEGB HQ Bristol.
10 Mary Mitchell’s design at The Vale, University of Birmingham was implemented 1959-1960 and is Grade II registered 11 Taunton Deane Crematorium in Somerset, 1963, by Peter Youngman, was assessed but not registered.
Case Study
Cummins Engine Factory and Brunel Estate: Dan Kiley, Michael Brown and the links between Britain and America
Luca Csepely-Knorr, Manchester School of Architecture
Dr Luca Csepely-Knorr is a chartered landscape architect, art historian and Reader at the Manchester School of Architecture. She is currently Co- Investigator of the AHRC-funded project ‘Landscapes of Post-War Infrastructure: Culture, Amenity, Heritage and Industry’ (https://www. msa.ac.uk/postwarinfrastructure/), and co-convener of the multidisciplinary conference and research network ‘How Women Build?’.
The Grade II listed landscapes of Cummins Engine Factory (1) and Brunel Estate (2) might seem very different – in scale, intended use, financing – but they are both key examples of the postwar period, when landscape architects were deployed to new and emerging situations. However, a closer look into the career of the designers reveals intricate links that are crucial in understanding how the landscapes of Britain, and the profession of landscape architecture itself, has changed in the post-war period.
Cummins Engine Factory was designed by Dan Kiley, who was instrumental in defining what modern American landscape architecture should be. Together with his fellow students at Harvard, Garret Eckbo and James Rose, Kiley published a series of articles about new directions in landscape architecture (3). Kiley later established his own practice, and designed more than 1000 landscapes throughout his career.
‘Miller Garden, (Columbus, IN) designed by Dan Kiley 1953-1957
© Luca Csepely-Knorr
Michael Brown was a Scottish architect and landscape architect, who studied at Edinburgh College of Art. After graduating, he worked for the London County Council, and for The George Trew Dunn Partnership in London. In 1955, Brown started a fellowship to study landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, on Ian McHarg’s newly launched landscape architecture course. With very few educational opportunities in the UK for landscape architects in the 1950s, studying abroad wasn’t exceptional. In McHarg’s inaugural course, out of nine students, six were from Britain (4).
After his studies, Brown started to work for Dan Kiley in Vermont, and assisted Kiley on flagship projects, such as the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York and Miller House for Irvine Miller, the owner of Cummins Engines. In Brown’s Archive, kept at the LI Archives at MERL, there is a series of photos about these projects. The Miller Garden is regarded as one of the most important projects by Kiley, a turning point in his long career. His only known British work in Darlington has a lot of similarities to the Miller House, as pointed out in the Historic England Report.
After returning to the UK in 1960, Brown worked for Eric Lyons and established his own practice, Michael Brown Partnership, in 1962. His practice was involved in projects of all scales, from landscape assessments, New Towns or infrastructural projects to hospitals and roof gardens. He is best known for the high quality – and in many senses, revolutionary – housing landscapes he created across London. Brunel is regarded as one of the most important, but his awardwinning Winstanley Estate housing landscape in Battersea, or the internationally published Lancaster Road in North Kensington, also deserve attention. His designs and understanding of the space, its flow, and the landscape as a ‘total environment’, all owed a lot to both of his American mentors, McHarg and Kiley. The now Listed slide at Brunel estate is a testament to Brown’s understanding that every object should be designed ‘to make places that lend themselves to a multitude of uses (5).’
While Cummins factory might be the only landscape by Kiley in Britain, his ideas influenced the work of Michael Brown, and certainly many others. To understand these intricate links, more research is needed to reveal networks and ideas that look beyond iconic designs.
Miller Garden, (Columbus, IN) designed by Dan Kiley 1953-1957, in Michael Brown’s photo.
© LI/MERL, Michael Browncollection
References
1 The landscape at Cummins engine factory is Grade II listed on the Register of Parks and Gardens, while the building is listed Grade II*: https://historicengland.org. uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1467759
2 Brunel Estate is Grade II on the Register of Parks and Gardens, and its iconic slide is now a Grade II listed structure: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/ the-list/list-entry/1468979
3 ’Landscape Design in the Urban Environment’, ‘Landscape Design in the Rural Environment’ and ‘Landscape Design in the Primeval Environment’ were originally published in 1939 and 1940 in the Architectural Record. The texts were reprinted in: Treib, M. (ed) (1992) Modern Landscape Architecture: A critical review Cambridge (Mass) – London: The MIT Press pp. 78-91.
4 Out of the six UK students Brown graduated with, four came back to the UK. Brown started to work in Oxford and London, while David N. Skinner, James S. Morris and Robert T. Steedman all worked in Edinburgh. For more Scottish students studying at McHarg’s courses, see: https://mchargsscotland.tumblr.com/post/ 182326621778/mchargs-students and Charlotte McLean’s research about Mark Turnbull.
5 Brown, M. (1981) ‘Placemaking Start with Facts, Finish with Values’ Landscape Architecture May 1981 p.382. For more on Brown’s housing estates and play areas see: Csepely-Knorr, L. & Roberts, A. (2019) ‘Towards a ‘total environment’ for children. Michael Brown’s landscapes for play’, available to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8sBnk-sigg
Case Study
Roper’s, Goldsmiths’ and Lancaster University
Annabel Downs
Annabel Downs CMLI is Chair of FOLAR (Friends of Landscape Archive at Reading)
Out of a shortlist of 42 possible sites for the 2020 post-war landscape listings, three proposals were of work by Bridgwater, Shepheard and Epstein, or by Shepheard and Epstein. Roper’s Garden (Gll) was selected, but how was this decision made?
One nominated project was the campus at Lancaster University, commissioned in 1963 and designed jointly under Peter Shepheard and Gabi Epstein. This is a large scale, long-term, multidisciplinary project. Like several other shortlisted projects, it was held over for future review, partly in anticipation that many more post-war designed landscapes would attract scholarly research, thereby establishing a better base from which to make informed assessments.
The other two projects are small urban London gardens, both open to the public. Goldsmiths’ Garden, commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths’ in 1957, and Roper’s Garden, commissioned by the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in 1960 (known as ‘Cheyne Walk ‘on office drawings), were both designed
by Peter Shepheard with Margaret Maxwell under Bridgwater, Shepheard and Epstein.
Axonometric watercolour sketch of Goldsmiths’ Garden by Peter Shepheard
© Landscape Institute / Museum of Rural Life
There are many similarities between these two gardens. Both were created on historic waste land: Goldsmiths’ was built on the site of St John Zachary (destroyed in the 1666 fire), and Roper’s was a WW2 bomb site. They are both, unusually, partly sunk below pavement level. They contain many features typical of Shepheard and Maxwell: a bold and confident design; use of quality and enduring materials, principally stone and brick; walls and piers with stone caps and inbuilt bird boxes; and planting plans which show a delightful and considered selection of trees, shrubs, climbers, herbaceous plants and areas of grass. Step details including Shepheard’s so-called “Chinese gutter”, a slope at each side for easier sweeping. Both gardens have contemporary seats and provide informal seating such as steps. Above all, both designs created sheltered microclimates, establishing comfortable places to welcome people and wildlife.
Goldsmiths’ Garden in 2018; a series of recent introductions distract from the simplicity of the garden
© Karen Fitzsimon
Their different locations and custodians have been determining factors in how much the sites have been challenged and changed. Roper’s Garden on Chelsea Embankment has survived largely unaltered, with only an additional Jacob Epstein sculpture located there in recognition of this being the site of his studio. Adding this garden to the Historic England register was straightforward. However, like many other city centre sites, Goldsmiths’ Garden has been subjected to change. The most radical alteration was replacing the adjacent office block with Grimshaw’s Lloyds Bank HQ, a building which takes more from the garden than it lends. The shared boundary was made more permeable at ground and basement level, and the garden was subsequently refurbished in the mid-1990s to accommodate the new neighbours. Goldsmiths’ head gardener at this time, Sue Madden, consulted Shepheard’s archive at the Landscape Institute to ensure that, as much as possible, all design changes (including materials and plants) were made in accordance with Shepheard and Maxwell’s ideas. Twenty five years on, this garden is now at risk from what Shepheard called the ‘threat ‘of ‘godwottery,’ losing its original simplicity and clarity of design as it becomes overtaken by multiple litter bins, signs, random plant pots sporting seasonal bedding, possibly the wrong stone to replace the main flight of steps, gifts of fountains located in the middle of the lawn, and an important but entirely unrelated sculptural group relocated here out of convenience. Another visit to the landscape archive at Reading is urgently recommended to ensure that, with a better understanding of the designers’ intent, this garden can and should have a place on the HE Register as one of the special post-war designed landscapes.
An affected or over-elaborate style of gardening or attitude towards gardens.’ “God-wottery” in WordSense.eu Online Dictionary (21st November, 2020)
Case Study
Jellicoe and the industrial landscape
Gillian Darley
Gillian Darley is a writer, broadcaster and biographer. She was the part-time director of Jellicoe’s Landscape Foundation from 1994-1997. Since 2014, she has been President of the Twentieth Century Society.
In the early 1950s, Geoffrey Jellicoe’s tiny office was asked to landscape the setting for several new and expanding industries. He had been recognised for the bravura fifty-year masterplan for Hope Valley Cement Works, starting in 1943. With Sheila Haywood, Jellicoe drew up a phased programme to balance the sensitive landscape of the Derbyshire Peak District with the long-term future of mineral extraction, two considerations that were seemingly at odds.
The factory landscape is tinged with late 19th century paternalism, epitomised by photographs of Cadbury’s women employees lounging around rose beds at Bournville. In 1954, Geoffrey Jellicoe was commissioned to improve the setting of Cadbury’s newly built cake factory on the Wirral. He was faced with ‘a diabolical site’ that had been cut in two with a drain. Yet that water course, later dignified as a canal, unleashed design possibilities. Given the exceptionally windswept conditions of the site, he introduced muscular tree planting, while dredged silt was moulded into buffers. Above all, he toyed with the perspective of the watercourse and its perimeter. Ten years later, he wrote that the scheme had nudged him towards an interest in the subconscious, since ‘the imagination can create worlds which do not in fact exist.’ His interest in Jungian thought was to inform much of his ambitious late work, particularly the Moody Gardens project in Galveston. The life of the industrial site is frequently brutish and often short. At Moreton, designed for a workforce of 450, Cadbury employed 6000 at the peak of its operation, before it became Burton Biscuits and then fell derelict. Now, the site has been cleared, and a substantial housing scheme (named after Jellicoe) will replace the crisp brickwork and sawtooth roofs of the factory. The canal, divided into pools, cascades and balconies, ran beside the footpath workers took on arrival, though few would have recognised Jellicoe’s ironic nod to the Georgian ha-ha. The Listed landscape is focused on the water course, viewing platforms and weirs, and all features are stabilised and repaired with the assistance of drawings from the Jellicoe office.
Similar features were also essential elements in the design and construction of Jellicoe’s Hemel Hempstead water gardens, where their effects were greatly magnified. If a muddy waterway on the Wirral drove the Cadbury design, a grubby stream in Hemel Hempstead promised greater possibilities. Jellicoe’s inspiration came from Paul Klee, and he sought to make it ‘a ghost within the visible’ – that is, a serpent-form. The ‘serpent’ travelled from source (the river) to endpoint (the lake at the heart of the New Town), beginning with its ‘tail’ – curled around an artificial hill – and ended with its ‘eye’ (as Jellicoe termed it), the fountain in the lake. The journey is interspersed with viewing platforms and bridges, and defined by mature trees. It has emerged in remarkably fine fettle from the recent renovation.
Cadbury Factory
© EdBennis
Factory landscapes were, at best, a way of bringing interest, even dignity, to drab surroundings. In St Helens, the office modelled recreational parkland around Pilkington’s glassworks, but Geoffrey Jellicoe’s enthusiasm was for their Glass Age project, culminating in Motopia. Compared to that, transforming a stream alongside the Delta Metals factory in West Bromwich had scant appeal. (From then on, Hal Moggridge remembered, he routinely passed on new quarry commissions to Sheila Haywood.) For Marc Trieb, Jellicoe’s work at Hope Valley or his ‘aesthetic’ use of the waste soil at Guinness Hill, reconciled ‘principles of formal composition with contemporary environmental problems.’ However, the long term retention of designed industrial landscapes is likely to be due to a key masterstroke or two – for example, keeping major site lines in Derbyshire, particularly the dominant escarpment, while the survival of the Cadbury scheme is all down to that complicated little watercourse and its recognition by listing.
