Labour Government & The Architecture of Education by Sai Wentum

Labour Government & The Architecture of Education To what extent did the design of school buildings represent Old Labour (1945-79) and New Labour’s, (1997-2011) differing ideologies? Sai Kófi Wentum

Sai K贸fi Wentum Student ID No: 145569062 University of Westminster Architecture & Built Environment Department MArch Architecture (RIBA Part 2) Module: 4ARC653.1 History & Theory Group Leader: Andrew Peckham Module Leader: John Bold Studio: DS 13 Tutors: Andrei Martin & Andrew Yau

Dedicated to David Dennis MA Dip.Arch (Cantab) a grand architect of schools design at the London Borough of Newham. Live long and enjoy retirement. Thanks for your mentorship.

“We have been elected as New Labour and we will govern as New Labour.” Tony Blair (1997, 2 May).

Introduction

Labour’s preceding mandate (1997-2011) was the result of a radicalised party manifesto led by it’s leaders Tony Blair & Gordon Brown which reorganised the Labour party and it’s policies. As advocates of many conservative ideals, Blair and Browns ‘New Labour’ had reflected a shift from the socialist beliefs and traditions, that the Labour Party was found upon and had exercised throughout their post-War governments terms of 1945-51, 1964 - 70 and 1974 - 79. With each mandate came the promise of modern building programmes which would support their socialist vision and the needs of the electorate. Schools were often of high priority as a support of new policies (i.e.1944 Butler Education Act), a response to population growth throughout the post-WWII ‘baby boom,’ alongside a need to restore Britain’s towns and cities devastated by conflict. Such conditions raised up a generation of architects who were socially conscious, returning from the war avid to serve by rebuilding. This would generate the first series of modernist works in Britain that held a strong social agenda and aimed to reflect each governments Education Policy. Throughout Attlee’s ministry (1945-51) Hertfordshire City Council (HCC), were particularly influential, hosting a pool of young talent – many whom had trained at the AA and Liverpool – that were constructing school designs which would successfully promote the government’s agenda. Cheshunt and Essendon Junior Mixed & Infant School were two schools they designed which were key to initiating a focused government programme, from within the Ministry of Education that would shape the course of school-building for over a decade. So influential were the design of these two schools that members of it’s design team would soon after be appointed to the MoE directly and establish special branches and consortiums sol-

emnly devoted to the architecture of British schools. Many more schools were built between Labour’s electoral terms, including the first purpose built Kidbrooke Comprehensive School for Girls (c.1955), but by the end of the seventies Labour’s many shortcomings, did not allow them to form government again for up to eighteen years. When they finally regained the mandate in 1997 their policies [and soundbites] expressed a yearn to prioritise education: “Ask me my three main priorities for government and I tell you: education, education and education.1”

1 Blair, T. (1996, 1 October). Party Conference Speech. Speech presented at the Labour Party Conference, Blackpool, UK.

However the encouragement of specialist schools – academies – under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 proved there policies to be more akin to those of the former Conservative governments under Thatcher than any previous Labour reforms. Bexley Business Academy and Capital City Academy both designed by the prolific Lord Foster – who’s life peerage was received during Labour’s first term – was the first of an ensemble of academies designed by Foster & Partners to launch the governments major new education initiative, Building Schools for the Future (BSF) 2. As projects endorsed through PFI’s, they highlighted Labour’s shift away from nationalisation, freeing these specialist schools from the control of Local Government with funding provided through private enterprise.

2 Blair, Tony. “’Building Schools for the Future’.” Capital City Acadmey opening. Labour Party. UK, London. 12 Febuary 2004. Speech.

An analysis of these two sets of buildings, both at crucial beginnings of two very different Labour governments, aims to identify the shift in political ideology, that effected educational policy as represented through architecture.

Cheshunt and Essendon Junior Mixed & Infant School:

3 Andrew Saint, Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987) pg. 62

4 Andrew Saint, Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987) pg. 62

Subsequent to the after-effects of the War, Attlee’s Ministry were elected in voters faith that Labour and their social policies would restore the nation. As a result key components of Britain’s current welfare state, such as the National Health Service (NHS) were created. As Labour’s winning manifesto recalled, a building programme to provide housing and other civic amenities was a matter of urgency and quick and efficient construction methods were needed to ensure unquestionable delivery. Reforms in education set by the Butler Education Act 1944 – which raised the school leaving age to fifteen – made this requirement particularly important in the nation’s need of schools. In response to the crisis, the new Ministry of Education under Labour, were pressing Local Education Authority’s (LEA) to develop school-building programmes, instead of continuing in a pre-war, hand-to-mouth manner 3. Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) found great fortune in having John Newsom as a progressive and dynamic 4 chief education officer, committed to providing examples of modern school environments geared towards a progressivist approach to education. His zeal was a catalyst for many skilled and like-minded architects, who arrived at Herts to form the councils architectural team, led by it’s chief architect, C.H. Aslin. Supportive of Newsom and the social agenda they would commit to many of the promises set out by Labour’s manifesto, calling for the use of modern methods and modern materials. However this call for modernity, was not just a response of the zeitgeist injected by the popularisation of Modernism. War had left Britain to still endure the rationing of building materials. The Minister of Education indicated this in a foreword recorded by AJ in special report on Education in May 1948: New educational ideas and new constructional possibilities combined with shortages of materials and labour set him [the architect] problems which are sometimes baffling, but I hope always interesting. There is no single solution, and I trust that there never will be. If we are to get schools of first-class design and good construction at a reasonable cost in men, money and materials, we shall need the combined efforts of many minds.

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Everybody says that we must have houses. Only the Labour Party is ready to take the necessary steps - a full programme of land planning and drastic action to ensure an efficient building industry that will neither burden the community with a crippling financial load nor impose bad conditions and heavy unemployment on its workpeople. There must be no restrictive price rings to keep up prices and bleed the taxpayer, the owner-occupier and the tenant alike. Modern methods, modern materials will have to be the order of the day. There must be a due balance between the housing programme, the building of schools and the urgent requirements of factory modernisation and construction which will enable industry to produce efficiently. (extract from Labour 1945 Manifesto)

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The result of many minds led to the development of a hybrid construction method of an 8 feet 3 inches prefabricated system set-up in a grid structure – rather than bay –which allowed for the flexibility to arrange classes in various formations. Progressively developed from it’s initial use on Cheshunt and Essedon it would go on to shape Britain’s school programme for the next decade, when endorsed and issued by the MoE. Not only did this allow the MoE to enforce a strategy of school design across all LEA’s – arguably a strong characteristic of nationalisation – it helped deliver the promise of Labour’s manifesto by producing two economically designed schemes that responded to a need of the nation. Frampton cynically identifies the systems association with Herts and the welfare state in his seminal text Modern Architecture - A Critical History:

A great deal of this work – outside such precocious authorities as the Hertfordshire County Council which, under the leadership of C.H. Aslin, was to pioneer the wholesale prefabrication of schools – came to be carried out... in the so-called Contemporary style... largely modelled on the official architecture of Sweden’s long established Welfare State. This largely identifies the system to have been associated with a Labour government who initiated Britain’s welfare state, under circumstances quickly requiring a utilitarian architecture. The urgent need for function lead to a detachment from the tradition of neo-classical architecture of ornament associated with the Conservatives, which took an extended amount of time to build and did not promote the idea of social equality that Labour were striving for. Civic constructs like the Royal Festival Hall (c.1951) designed by the LCC also carried this idea. This modern style derived out of concepts of function and social equality, which were adopted by a social democratic Labour as of their cost saving and quick build-ability. Additionally Cheshunt and Essedon can be defined as more socially democratic examples of British architecture based on a composition, more so aligned to the educationalist ideology of Progressivism. For the designers

Trial sections of the 8 feet 3 inches systen at the Hills works, West Bromwich with claddings, junction windows, etc. The mature stage of the system in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development c.1953

Four methods of school planning using standardized construction with a dimensional discipline, showing their advantages and disadvantages.

Steel frame of the eraly 8 feet 3 inches system in course of erection by Gee Walker and Slaterr at Burleigh Junior School, Cheshunt . The early lattice, girders have a delicate. artistic appearance.

Steel frame and cladding for the assembly hall, Greenfields School, Oxhey (Oxhey Site 9â&#x20AC;&#x2122;), 1951 . A developed stage of the Hills system with concentional and large girders in one direction and thin transverse ones.

at Herts the principles of Progressivism translated into an architectural construct which would have sill heights low enough for children to look out of windows even when sitting down; low heights of shelves, pictures, door handles and taps for a child’s easy access. You will also find children’s colours with gaiety, surprise and lightness in all parts of the building 5. 5 Aslin, C.H. Primary School’s , Architect’s Journal, May 20, 1948, pg 458-9

6 Harrison, Molly. The Educational Background , Architect’s Journal, May 20, 1948, pg 457

7 Hill, Dave. The Third Way in Britain: New Labour’s neo-liberal education policy. Northhampton: University of Northampton, 2001. Web. <http://www.ieps. org.uk/PDFs/newlaboursneoliberal.pdf>.

This would help contradict many of the principles set out by a conservative and Traditionalist view of education – which presided until the early twentieth century and created spaces with high levelled windows to limit a child’s distractions and deployed colour schemes of the sombre brown and dark green to enforce the sameness of institutionalisation, all of which failed to reflect a new educational emphasis on the child as the centre of a learning Environment, as opposed to an authoritative teacher at the centre of a teaching environment. Molly Harrison also asserts this view of the ‘progressivist’ learning space, when she describes what an architect should expect, if observing a modern and progressive school environment: ... children scattered in groups as they busily pursue a variety of practical activities. The teacher far from standing in an authoritative manner in front of the class, would be mingling with them, giving the individual help and encouragement...6

Clearly Labour endorsed this idea of these school environments, as it coincided with promoting their social democratic agenda of educational policies which saw the teacher as a professional who must be willing to apply a contextual approach to teaching in aid and support of social equality as opposed to an approach based on moral code. Labour’s social democratic reforms in education didn’t go as far as suggesting the teacher as a guide, but it aimed for a lighter approach that required the teacher to be authoritative but relatively democratic and antiauthoritarian 7. Additionally out of a need of urgency traditional Labourite principles of nationalisation were exercised through the works of the HCC, providing the simple fact that never before had government architects been able to monopolise an abundance of the nations work. With so many school’s to build, most LEA’s approached the school programme, utilising an in-house team of architects, who they could provide with continuous work; on a par-

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Plan of Cheshunt

Aeriel view of Cheshunt school.

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ticular building type; able to foster regular contact with the client, end-user and manufacturer (due to nationalisation of manufacturing industries), to ensure efficient delivery and continuos development of the structural system. Furthermore when prominent members of the Herts architectural team – Stirrat Johnson-Marshall, David Medd and his wife Mary (neé Crowley) Medd – were appointed to the MoE, they successfully reasoned that they’re remit should include more than administrative duties of overseeing incoming plans, giving them the power to run full design schemes. Saint (1987) tells of the reaction to this by the industry: 8 Andrew Saint, Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987) pg. 62

This proposal aroused widespread displeasure and opposition. The RIBA saw it as a further blow to the job prospects of the private architect and complained to the Ministry...8

Although indirectly this worked for the Labour government to further promote the idea of centralisation. So much so were the effects and importance of the works of the architects at Herts and the likes of the London County Council that it could be argued to have sustained the importance of civil architects in Britain until the mid seventies.

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Infants spilling out their classrooms at Essedon.

Early Herts colour schemes. Hert’s David Medd writes an arcticle about application of colour schemes to school in an issue of AR, June 1949

Infants classroom

‘Bean’ basin in use,

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Capital City Academy, Barnet, London. No more corridors but a well lit street.

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After four successive general election defeats, the definition of the traditional Labour Party began to change featuring a radical reorganisation of both their policies and party structure. New Labour, New Life for Britain, was there motto championed by their leader Tony Blair, whom with much charisma, helped convince the electorate for three successive terms that Labour were the party for Britain.

Bexley Business Academy and Capital City Academy:

Blair’s regime featured a series of changes widely deemed as an adoption of Thatcherism and Conservative Party policies, detaching the party from fundamental principals of ‘Old’ Labour ideology in nationalisation, social equality and economic distribution by the welfare state. A clear example of this was the strengthening of private enterprise in public programmes, with incentives for businesses to encourage the setup of PPP’s and PFI’s. This strategy of ‘denationalisation’, was applied greatly to the education sector, upon Labour’s mandate to establish academies under the Learning and Skills Act 2000, as a means of providing exemplary education environments, independent of local government control. Lord Foster and Partners were appointed to produce the first of many manifestations of this policy, starting with Bexley Business Academy (BBA) and Capital City Academy (CCA) in London. Dubbed as the flagship schools of the academy programme, both strived to provide examples of Labour’s aims for a ‘21st Century’ school environment by applying Foster’s brand of ‘high-tech’ architecture – significant in it’s application to the office environment. Alan Dunlop also makes this association to the architecture of the workspace by comparing CCA to a high-spec office development for an IT company9. Both schools provide the early two-thousand’s office aesthetic in various ways. For example the limited colour palette featuring, white and shades of grey, to reflect light and create bright spaces; the application of louvers; fully glazed floor to ceiling curtain wall-systems, emphasising this idea of “democratic transparency” often found in the concept of office and government architecture. Even the unfamiliar feature of turnstiles in schools at CCA’s entrance, makes a clear reference to the modern office environment.

9 Dunlop, Alan. “Alan Dunlop: Capital City Academy.” Architect’s Journal. (2009): n. page. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://www. architectsjournal. co.uk/home/openhouse-2009/alan-dunlop-capital-city-academy/5207826.article>.

However it’s Bexley’s open plan layout, which stands out as the strongest characteristic resembling the private sectors’ modern office environment. Foster himself draws reference to translating his achievements of the open-

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Capital City Academy, Barnet, London (left) Bexley Business Academy (right)

Twenty-first century offices. Newham Dockside London Borough of Newham who moved from the Edwardian Town Hall to the glazed building (left) Centrica, Scottish Gas HQ (c. 2003) (right ) Fosterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office formula of the early 2000â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

Early illustrations by Foster & Partners of both academies. They seem to be a lot more colour.

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plan office typology through to these academies in the publication, Catalogue (2005): Traditionally in the workplace they had been kept apart using ‘clean and dirty’, ‘us and them distinctions. Instead, we brought them together and in doing so tried to raise standards for everyone. Similarly, in the late 1960s I envisaged a school building [Newport School] that would be open-planned, filled with light, democratic and flexible, without corridors or institutional barriers. Today we have realised such a school in the Bexley Business Academy (2001-2003) and a related series of new City Academies.

Clearly this rhetoric of the workplace is used intentionally to monumentalise private enterprise in the public realm. Even in other public services this is apparent with a noticeable amount of local authority premises, moving from traditional civic amenities to be housed in capitalist glass ones, formerly only associated with corporate company identity. New Labour’s intentions were clear. Private enterprise was here to stay and infect the public sector to produce what they saw as the same level of managerial efficiency and technical quality, beneficial from privatisation. Additionally the nature of student admission for both Academies, reverses the policies that initiated comprehensive schools, championed by Old Labour in the 1960s. Placed in contexts’ of deprived urban areas, the schools applicants take tests, some of which relates to it’s specialisms’. They are then divided into a series of ability bands, offering places to a selection of children within each band, to form a mixed intake, in a process, arguably seen as ‘positive discrimination.’ Described as hierarchicalisation, New Labour effectively continue and even extend the structural aspects of the 1988 Conservative Education Reform Act, giving more evidence of their support and alignment of ‘Thatcherism’10. With a combined project value of just under £60 million, Foster’s vision promotes, New Labour’s yearn for selective ‘specialist schools’ by providing

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Capital City Academy, interior â&#x20AC;&#x201C; entrance and resturant.

Capital Section

City

Academy,

Bexley Business Academy Section

Bexley Business Academy interior central exhibition space. Should schools specialisign in business looks like an offices?

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a series of luxury and bespoke furnishings, fittings and fixtures that are said to complement the school’s design11 giving a selection of British students, a real sense of pride and worth through the best in British design12. This idea of specialist schools, has been argued by educational theorists to be unfair13, by it’s support of selection, which effectively brings back the tripartite system established by the Conservative’s. On the contrary although hierarchicalisation and selection may come across as Conservative ideals, is the architecture of these two Academies really conservative? One may argue that these two projects align with many of the ideals found within the progressivist educational theory and effectively represent New Labour’s social democratic aims, known as the ‘Third Way’. Both projects express a strong desire to extend the use of the program to the wider community by incorporating a series of social spaces such as libraries, restaurants and sports halls, accessible to members of the public, outside of school hours. CCA drives it’s community focus, by placing it’s public programmes at the entrance of the school as not only a security measure (i.e. prohibit wandering members of the public), but arguably as a reminder to the students that as members of the school, they too are members of their community. Furthermore, the curtain-wall glazed system, accentuates not only the idea of political transparency, but is used to reflect the school’s site context of the community around it, which again can be argued as another reminder to the students, that education helps to improve their community. Foster also extends this idea of community by transforming the typical schools corridor –seen as gloomy pathways en route to class – into a single safe and well lit ‘street’, where classrooms neighbour one another – similar to terraced houses – open enough encourage social interaction and self-police against bullying. These manifestations of a safe and ‘democratic [education] space’ – in support of cohesion and the wider community – are very profound in the educationalist theory of progressivism, as identified in the characteristics set out by theorist such as Neville Bennett (1976). Such design features not only support Progressivist educational theory but they also support some of New Labour’s social democratic policies emphasising the widening of education facilities to the wider community. Blair himself declared this during his speech upon the opening of CCA:

10 Hill, Dave. The Third Way in Britain: New Labour’s neo-liberal education policy. Northhampton: University of Northampton, 2001. Web. <http:// www.ieps.org.uk/PDFs/ newlaboursneoliberal. pdf>, pg 4 11 Foster & Partners: Capital City Academy, Brent, London, Architecture Today November 2, 2004 p83.

12 Blair, Tony. “’Building Schools for the Future’.” Capital City Acadmey opening. Labour Party. UK, London. 12 Febuary 2004. Speech.

13 Hill, Dave. The Third Way in Britain: New Labour’s neo-liberal education policy. Northhampton: University of Northampton, 2001. Web. <http:// www.ieps.org.uk/PDFs/ newlaboursneoliberal. pdf>, pg 4

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Capital City Academy, an extension of the community.

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...we are celebrating a stunning new generation in school design. Not just new classrooms. But state-of-the-art ICT, whiteboards, sports facilities, community facilities, public space, facilities for out-of-hours activities. All built around the needs of students, teachers, and the wider community.14

14 Blair, Tony. “’Building Schools for the Future’.” Capital City Acadmey opening. Labour Party. UK, London. 12 Febuary 2004. Speech.

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Conclusion

Cheshunt & Essendon and Bexley & Capital City, are two sets of schools chosen for their significance in establishing two different school programmes which would aim to set a precedent for British school design. While Old Labour reacted to a physical need of destroyed schools, New Labour were responding to a cultural need of failing schools. So yes clearly two different resorts were needed. The constructs also showed the parties ideological shift in a series of ways. Firstly, their use of architects – Old Labour using public architects; New Labour using private – gives some representation of their differing ideological principles. Not to say that both didn’t use the other overall, but for what designs and ideals initiated these school programmes, the differing sets of values are shown. The programmes also differed as the academies clearly gave support to the conservative idea of privatisation and hierachilisation, while the primary schools, were used to support the agenda of the forthcoming comprehensive schools. However the academies also gave support to the core of New Labour’s neo-liberalist ideology, the Third Way, which is the idea of deviating away from old Labour’s left and right-winged politics, to borrow the most efficient parts of the two, creating a new hybrid of politics. By encouraging PPP’s and PFI’s, New Labour were keen to blur the line of privatisation and public ownership. Blair certify’s this in his speech at CCA

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These new forms of academy sponsorship are of immense value, and I want to encourage them strongly. They break down old barriers which have bedevilled education for too long. And they inject new energy, commitment, and entrepreneurial zeal in support of our state schools. In many ways Foster’s designs also tried to reflect this by using the characteristics of the office typology to create a new school typology; alongside changing the relationship between, the selective school and community to blur this boundary between public and private space. They’re reported failures as school designs15, could also be an ironic representation of New Labour’s failings towards the end of their three terms.

15 Heathcoat-Amory , Edward. “Scandal of Blair’s £31m flagship school: A leaking roof, broken designer toilets and a useless computer system Read more: http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-1320350/ Scandal-Blairs-31-million-flagship-school-Aleaking-roof-broken-designer-toilets-uselesssystem.html

However the design of the academies, like the schools clearly encourages the educational ideology of Progressivism. The academies budgets even gives Foster’s more of a platform to express the ideals found in the work of the Herts architects, than any sort of traditionalist principles. Although arguably not a good one, the academy designs are clearly a development on modernist design as exercised by the architects at Herts, showing evidence for modernism’s roots in a socialist agenda. Ultimately what is clear is that architecture is it’s own political system governed by it’s own policies of space. Politics is only a platform for architects to express their own principles and ideology, and if the politicians feel it achieves their aims, they endorse and promote the construct which is clear of both of these projects.

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Aslin, C.H. Primary School’s , Architect’s Journal, May 20, 1948,

Bibliography

Bennett, N. Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress (Winter, 1976), American Educational Research Association Blair, Tony. “’Building Schools for the Future’.” Capital City Acadmey opening. Labour Party. UK, London. 12 Febuary 2004. Speech. Blair, T. (1996, 1 October). Party Conference Speech. Speech presented at the Labour Party Conference, Blackpool, UK. Dunlop, Alan. “Alan Dunlop: Capital City Academy.” Architect’s Journal. (2009): n. page. Web. 09 Mar. 2014. <http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/ home/open-house-2009/alan-dunlop-capital-city-academy/5207826.article>. Gillard. D, (2011) Education in England: a brief history www.educationengland.org.uk/history Foster & Partners, Catalogue: Foster & Partners (2005), Prestel Verlag, London pg.6, 20, 108 & 109 Harrison, Molly. The Educational Background , Architect’s Journal, May 20, 1948, pg 456-7 Hill, Dave. The Third Way in Britain: New Labour’s neo-liberal education policy. Northhampton: University of Northampton, 2001. Web. <http://www. ieps.org.uk/PDFs/newlaboursneoliberal.pdf>. Heathcoat-Amory , Edward. “Scandal of Blair’s £31m flagship school: A leaking roof, broken designer toilets and a useless computer system (2010) : n. page. Web. 11 Mar. 2014 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320350/Scandal-Blairs-31-millionflagship-school-A-leaking-roof-broken-designer-toilets-useless-> Saint, Andrew. Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987), Yale University Press, New Haven and London , 35 - 214 Tomilinson, G. Foreword by the Minister of Education, George Tomlinson, Architect’s Journal, May 20, 1948,

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Illustrations

Illustrations are sourced from the following source: 001 www.arthitectural.com/foster-partners-capital-city-academy/ 002 https://shop.labour.org.uk/products/labour-for-the-future-historic-labourposter-from-the-1945-general-election-campaign-609x907mm-282/ http:// 003 - 006 (Scanned) Architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Journal, May 20, 1947, 007 - 008(Scanned) Saint, Andrew. Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987), Yale University Press, New Haven and London 009 - 012 (Scanned) Saint, Andrew. Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School Buildings in Post-War England (1987), Yale University Press, New Haven and London 013 - 015, 017 - 024 http://www.fosterandpartners.com/ 016 http://www.newhamfilmoffice.co.uk/

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Labour Government & The Architecture of Education is an analytic essay which looks at specific school buildings under the Labour Governments of 1945 - 51 and 1997 - 2011, which were built to initiate and drive education policy. It uses these buildings to identify the differing ideologies of both governments, and asks if anything had really changed. Many will say both governments, were the same and may consider them to be a bit like the layout of this book - all in the centre.

University of Westminster - Masters of Architecture, RIBA Part 2 - Architecture & the Built Environment