A Call to Order: The Rome Prize and Early Twentieth-Century British Architecture

SAHGB Publications Limited

A Call to Order: The Rome Prize and Early Twentieth-Century British ArchitectureAuthor(s): Louise CampbellSource: Architectural History, Vol. 32 (1989), pp. 131-151Published by: SAHGB Publications LimitedStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568565 .

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A call to order:

The Rome prize and early

twentieth-century British

architecture by LOUISE CAMPBELL

'.. it is of the greatest importance that a student should be able by prolonged study in the atmosphere of a great art centre, to gain a thorough knowledge of the principles underlying the work of the great masters, and by that means prepare himself for original work in the domain of art he has chosen.' The Commissioners for the 1851 Exhibition, I911 'Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life.' Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture 1923, trans. 1927

The Rome prize for architecture was established in 1912 as the last stage of a recent and systematic reform of British architectural education. It was supported by those who felt that British architecture reflected the individualism and haphazard character of articled

pupillage, and hoped to correct these tendencies by providing, as an alternative, full-time training leading to a professional qualification. The prize was visualized as the finale to the new system of architectural education, the summit of a 'ladder of prizes' for

design which led from the Tite Prize to the Soane Medallion and Victory Scholarship and culminated in the Rome Scholarship. The first Faculty of Architecture of the British School at Rome contained advocates of the new architectural education, and at first constituted a lively forum for discussing the purpose and direction of architectural training as well as of the Rome prize itself. But a considerable gulf soon developed between the Faculty and progressive ideas on architecture and its teaching. Within a decade of its creation, the Faculty began to use the Rome scholarship not simply to encourage systematic working methods, clarity of planning and good draughtsmanship but actually to discourage what it termed 'modern tendencies'. The scholarship gradually lost its status as the apex of progressive architectural education and by the I930s came to be regarded as highly reactionary. Since then, writers have tended to use the Rome scholarship as an indication of the backwardness of twentieth-century British architecture, contrasting the late establishment of the prize with the reaction against academic training which transformed inter-war European architecture. More recently, it has been suggested that the dwindling prestige accorded the Rome prize in



ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 32: I989

the inter-war years represented merely a temporary set-back for the otherwise trium- phant progress of the classical tradition in British architecture from the seventeenth century to the present day.2

However, the records of the British School reveal no consistent educational policy, but uncertainty and discord. The promoters of the Rome scholarship had reacted to the educational and professional crisis of the I89os by imposing discipline and continuity upon the teaching and practice of architecture; but before the proposed reforms could be fully implemented, the avant-garde disconcertingly espoused a new aesthetic. During the visit of the Italian Futurists to London in I912, Marinetti attacked the English attachment to Rome, Venice and Florence 'which we consider running sores on the face of the peninsula'3 and instead identified 'the new renascent Italy' with the commercial cities of Genoa, Turin and Milan. In I913, the philosopher T. E. Hulme further undermined the rationale of the Rome scholarship by attacking the humanistic tradition - which he unfavourably compared with modern, mechanical and geometric art - and suggested that it was 'the business of every honest man at the present moment to clean the world of these sloppy dregs of the Renaissance'.4

The impact of the Rome scholarship was also limited by the idiosyncratic character of the British architectural profession. A tendency dating from about the mid- nineteenth century to esteem the independent architect more highly than the architect in official employment conflicted sharply with the French concept of the Rome prize as preparing a student for a career in government service. The history of the Rome scholarship during the inter-war period highlights the difficulty of accommodating a new university-educated elite within a profession still largely geared to the demands of private practice. Rather than modifying attitudes towards public service, the scholarship at first seem to have helped to reinforce existing prejudices and exacerbated the divide between private practice and salaried employment. Under Reginald Blomfield, Chairman of the Faculty of Architecture from 1912, the prize was used to uphold the artistic skill and autonomy of the architect and to resist professional and stylistic change.

With a fresh crisis in the architectural profession around 1930 (triggered, like that of 1890, by economic depression)5 encouraging a more disciplined approach to the study of architecture and a renewal of interest in the classical tradition, the Rome prize once more came into its own. With old patterns of patronage and professional advancement - and even the future of private practice - seemingly under threat, the Rome scholarship came to be regarded as a useful prelude to a career in public service, although scholars did not embrace official employment until the I940s.

The contradiction between French principles of competitive architectural education and a system in which personal connections and social class shaped an architect's career dogged the reform of architectural education in Britain.6 Demands for educational change were accompanied by a maturing of professional consciousness. However, the reforms were stimulated more by the spirit of protectionism than by a new, broader conception of the architect's responsibilities. The systemization of architectural education, begun in 1892 with Banister Fletcher's full-time course at Kings College London, was closely connected with the attempt by RIBA to close the profession to unqualified outsiders. Blomfield, although opposed to the idea of statutory registration for which

I32



A CALL TO ORDER: THE ROME PRIZE

the RIBA had been pressing since 1890, was at the forefront of the reforms. The innovations of the I90os7 (three- to four-year courses at the Architectural Association, the Bartlett School of Architecture, at Birmingham and Liverpool, and evening courses run at some institutions for the benefit of articled pupils and assistants) served a dual

purpose: to prepare students for the RIBA's qualifying examination and to correct the

tendency to begin detailing a building without first establishing its proportions by means of sketch designs regarded as a common shortcoming among English students. Richard Phene Spiers (Master of the Royal Academy School of Architecture from 1870 to 1904) unfavourably contrasted articled pupillage with Continental practice: The first great failing in England is that the student coming straight from school is not prepared to make that use of the practical training to be had in the office which is universally assumed. He has little or no knowledge of either freehand or geometrical drawing, of physics, mechanics, or of any of the elements of architectural style; he flounders about, therefore, in the sometimes styleless design of the architect in whose office he may be placed, and acquires by the longest possible process a certain knowledge of a mixture of style and no style, second-hand; his powers of reasoning in design, as a rule, are not brought into play until his articles are terminated, and then want of time and absolute lack of training at once curtail his ideas and cramp his imagination. He has picked up an idea here and there in the office, and numerous details, but he finds himself unable to grasp the composition of a building of any size. In many cases he has never had an opportunity of visiting or studying any one of the buildings the drawings of which he has been continually at work on . . . He has, in fact, taken from three to five years to learn imperfectly what might have been learned in one or two if his mind had been previously trained to receive it.8

Spiers, an ex-student of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, advocated combining office-based

training with the intellectual rigour of the French system. He suggested that the

production of measured drawings would train students in observation and in the

techniques of working up an esquisse design to a rendu, with all its parts clearly delineated. This new emphasis upon precise drawing techniques as a means of both recording and reconstructing the appearance of the monuments of the past and of

visualizing architectural ideas formed the backbone of the new architectural education in Britain. In 1890, with the Royal Academy and RIBA requiring students to produce drawings of the classical orders, Spiers published The Orders of Architecture (an anthology of plates culled from various architectural text books) and deposited his own collection of architectural drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in order to make available good examples of draughtsmanship.

With a similar aim to Spiers, Reginald Blomfield published The Mistress Art in I908 and A History of French Architecture in I911. While he believed that students would benefit from exposure to the best examples of architectural draughtsmanship, he also felt that they should be directed to the study of a certain kind of architecture. Blomfield's lectures on the classical tradition, whilst Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy from 1907 to I9II were, he confessed, intended 'to divert students from the fashion for the picturesque and abundance of ornament prevalent at the time to a loftier conception of architecture as the art of ordonnance'.9

The new courses at British architectural schools were based upon the French model. In France, the progress of students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was regulated by a tiered examination system, for which students prepared in the atelier of their choice and by attendance at lectures. Passing into the Second Class entitled students to call themselves

t33



ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 32: 1989

'Eleve de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts (although they were in fact students of a patron and not of the school, and the bulk of their instruction took place outside the building). Within each class, students participated in a series of concours d'emulation in which sketch designs and finished projects were prepared within a time limit and submitted to a jury. (The help which they obtained from the atelier in the form of practical assistance from their contemporaries and of criticism from the patron, constituted the main element of their instruction). Thejuries which pronounced upon the submitted designs were held in private. Participation in one or two concours per year was necessary in order to remain registered, and points (valeurs) were awarded up to a maximum value which admitted students into the First Class. A greater variety of projects distinguished the concours of the First Class from those of the Second and a greater proficiency in planning and detailing the complexities of public buildings was expected of students. The apogee of this system was the Grand Prix, awarded by the Institut de France after a stiff three-part competition, generally won by students of the First Class, in which candidates were progressively eliminated on the evidence of their submissions. The prize, a scholarship to study for four to five years at the French Academy in Rome, assured the winner of a career in public service, with responsibility for one or more government buildings and the opportunity to establish an atelier and lecture at the Ecole. 0

In I909, Blomfield suggested that a final and advanced school of architecture be established along Beaux-Arts lines, under the auspices of the Royal Academy. Partici- pants in this advanced course would be eligible to compete for a scholarship to study at a proposed British Academy in Rome. Blomfield believed 'that the atelier without the final school, or the final school without the atelier, was a cart without the horse'.11 However, although this final school was never established, ateliers and the French system of organizing monthly studio concours to monitor the progress of senior students were introduced into Edwardian schools of architecture.

In I913, Arthur Davis founded the 'First London Atelier' in Wells Mews, an establishment kept entirely separate, as in France, from the patron's own office. The same year, under Robert Atkinson, the AA was transformed from 'a nice gentlemanly academy where a few young men were taught to design cottages and cowsheds'12 into one which emphasized the composition, planning and design of public buildings. An evening course was begun by Howard Robertson, a Beaux-Arts trained architect. Other former Beaux-Arts students teaching at the new schools of architecture included Hector Corfiato at the Bartlett and Eugene Bourdon at Glasgow. More significantly, the idea of day-time, full-time architectural education took root at the AA in I900 and at Liverpool University which began a degree course in I904. The RIBA offered its professional recognition to such courses by exempting graduates from its intermediate examination for associateship,13 and from I920 from the final examination. But Blomfield and Aston Webb continued to press for a purely academic accolade for outstanding students in the shape of a British Prix de Rome to augment the existing prizes for travel and study abroad, notably the Soane Medallion and the Tite Prize offered by the RIBA. Unlike these, the Rome scholarship offered the winner a period of residence in Italy as part of a community of graduate scholars, and thus confirmed the status of the new, university-trained architect. Interestingly, this scheme was supported not by the Royal Academy but by the RIBA.

I34




In 191 , The Commissioners for the Exhibition of I85I were persuaded by Lord Esher to endow scholarships for architects, sculptors and mural painters to join the group of classicists, historians and archaeologists which had constituted the British School at Rome since I90o. One of the chief promoters of this extended school was Sir Rennell Rodd, Ambassador to Italy, who envisaged it as 'a great national and Imperial centre of culture where the students of the five nations should meet and exchange ideas, whence they should carry back to their respective homes and universities a touch of inspiration and enthusiasm acquired at the source . . . from which all modern civilis- ations were derived ... a training ground for the humanists of a new Renaissance'.14 Through Rodd's influence, the site of the British Pavilion at the International Exhibi- tion of Fine Arts held in Rome in I911 was donated by the city. Lutyens' design for the exhibition pavilion, based on the upper portion of the west front of St Paul's Cathedral, was adapted to the needs of the school and it was rebuilt in stone by the Commis- sioners. The Rome scholarship in architecture, open to British subjects of less than thirty, and tenable for three years, was advertised in the autumn of I912. With the help of the RIBA and of public subscriptions, two further scholarships in architecture were endowed: the Henry Jarvis Travelling Studentship (tenable for two years, offered by RIBA until I928)15 and the Bernard Webb Award (tenable for six months, offered biennially from 1923) for the historical and critical study of architecture. During 1912, Faculties of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture were established to administer the scholarships and monitor the progress of students. The Faculty of Architecture was composed of teachers at the main schools of architecture - Reilly from Liverpool, Lethaby from the Central School, Davis from the First Atelier, Blomfield from the Royal Academy, past and present presidents of the RIBA - Leonard Stokes, Ernest Newton, John Simpson, 16 Guy Dawber - plus the academicians Edwin Lutyens and Aston Webb. Members took it in turn to set the subject for each stage of the annual competition, and a sub-committee was appointed to assess the entries and to report on them.

The first Rome scholar in architecture, Charlton Bradshaw, was selected by means of an arduous competition proposed by the RIBA and adopted with minor amendments by the Faculty. The open qualifying stage was designed to eliminate those who were

insufficiently familiar with the language of classical architecture by means of a simple programme; candidates were allowed one month to submit 1/s-inch scale drawings with enough 1/2-inch scale details to thoroughly explain the design. Successful candidates, winners of Royal Academy travelling scholarships, award winners of RIBA or its allied societies in the colonies and students nominated by the Royal Academy, Royal College of Art, and the chief schools of architecture, then proceeded to the first competition which was intended to test their powers of composition with the production of plans, /16-inch scale drawings, 1/2-inch details and a perspective over a period of two months. No more than ten candidates selected from this stage went on to compete en loge for ten days, submitting a sketch design at the end of the first day which was covered with tracing paper and sealed down by a moderator. A general plan, a plan of the principal floor, 1/2-inch details of an important portion and a perspective were then required. This competition was criticizedl7 for prematurely exhausting candidates by demanding too many drawings at the first stage. In the 1914 competition, the open

I35




and first stages were combined; candidates were required to produce a similar range of drawings but allowed five months in which to do so.

The Faculty wished to influence the teaching of architecture, although less directly than in France, where the jury which awarded the Prix de Rome consisted of eight architects, who were elected life members of the Academie de Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France after many years of teaching at the Ecole. The prize frequently went to students from an atelier directed by a member of the jury. In England, with a less centralized system of architectural education and an Academy which had effectively relinquished control over standard of architecture training to the RIBA, it was hoped to administer the prize more fairly.

Although Blomfield remained chairman until 1942, membership of the Faculty of Architecture changed frequently, members whose own students were competing abstained from voting,18 and it was suggested that programmes be set and entries judged by different Faculty members 'unbiased by a pre-conceived idea of the solution of the problem'. 19 But because the Faculty consisted chiefly of educationalists, and because many former Rome scholars returned to teach at schools of architecture and were eventually elected to the Faculty, 20 it could not entirely avoid the closed character of its French counterpart. The Faculty was particularly worried that the first stage of the competition favoured candidates from schools like Liverpool (Fig. I) where students were taught to produce correctly shaded elevations, complaining 'it has resulted in a wholly unnecessary elaboration of drawing . . . the competition has become one of architectural draughtsmanship rather than one of design'.21

It was argued that a candidate's powers of design could best bejudged on the basis of an esquisse and therefore that both stages of the competition should be held en loge. (This would have the further advantage of discouraging 'showy draughtsmanship'). The Faculty invited thirteen heads of architectural schools to a conference in May 1922 to discuss the relationship between the scholarship and contemporary architectural education. The five who attended held widely divergent views ranging from Dickie (from Manchester School of Architecture) who believed that 'the competition should be the culmination of a School Course' to Beresford Pite (Royal College of Art), who felt that it should require working drawings. 'He would like to see the designs really expressive of modern constructions and materials irrespective of historical style. For a student with these ideas he did not see any hope of attaining success in the present scheme for the Rome scholarship.'22 He proposed modifying the competition rules accordingly, and suggested that scholars should be allowed to travel in the East. Addison (Leeds School of Architecture) and Reilly (Liverpool), occupying a more moderate position, felt that drawings submitted to the Faculty should be 'constructible' rather than working drawings. Although Reilly did not fault the existing system of competition, he agreed with the proposal floated by Robertson (Architectural Associa- tion) that students be allowed to study outside Rome. As a result of suggestions by Robertson, en loge sessions (lasting respectively twelve and thirty-six hours) designed to test compositional and planning skills were now introduced at each stage of the competition. Candidates were allowed a further period of thirty-one days to complete their Preliminary stage designs, and twelve weeks to produce their Final stage designs.

136




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I37

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In 1923, the Faculty resolved to circulate to the schools of architecture the assessors' comments on drawings made by candidates in the preliminary stage. 23 Links between the schools of architecture and the Rome prize were further strengthened by the restriction (in 1921) of the competition to 'students whose credentials of previous training have been approved'.24 Access to formal training and ultimately to the Rome prize was thus limited to those able to pay fees and, if necessary, maintain themselves while attending courses away from home. 25 Tenure of the Rome scholarship, although providing an annual stipend, board and lodging (until I925 only for single students) meant postponing professional practice and even marriage, something which many potential students were reluctant to do. In 1924, the RIBA reviewed its own scheme of prizes in relation to the Rome scholarship, adjusting their financial value and the age limit for competitors. The conditions for the Tite, Soane and Victory scholarship competitions now included two en loge sessions lasting twelve hours each and followed by a period in which candidates developed their designs.26

Meanwhile the format and function of the Rome scholarship was being debated by the Faculty. Members like Robertson andJohn Burnet felt that since the purpose of the prize was to recognize and reward ability in analysis and composition, it was unfair to demand the structural details or the sophisticated design skills which were expected of entries in competitions for public buildings. Moreover, they felt that a logical approach to materials was inherent in the efficient solution of the 'problem' posed by the competition programme. Although acknowledging that it frequently failed to produce very good results they opposed attempts to further shorten the competition. Candi- dates were repeatedly criticized for producing drawings which differed substantially from their esquisses, and for lacking a sense of scale. In 1924, 1928 and 193 5, the standard of work submitted in the final competition was considered too low to award the Rome

prize. Pressure from scholars and former scholars however obliged the Faculty to introduce

some minor reforms. After the 1922 conference, students were allowed to travel in the Mediterranean during the last stages of their scholarship. In response to the dilemma of the student anxious to enter practice, the scholarship was in 1924 shortened to two

years, renewable for a third. The same year the Faculty was asked to state whether candidates were expected to design 'in a specific style'27 and to clarify the syllabus they were supposed to follow. While in Rome, scholars were expected to spend their time

preparing imaginary 'restorations' of important monuments of the past in conjunction with archaeologists and historians (Figs 2 and 3). The general view of Praeneste by Charlton Bradshaw (the first Rome scholar, whose tenure, interrupted by the First World War, was resumed in I919), is an outstanding example of the genre, in which elaborate draughtsmanship was encouraged as appropriate to a work of the imagination. The Faculty was more critical of the measured drawings of classical or Renaissance

buildings, sent back annually by scholars. In 1920 (only the third year in which the prize was awarded), it complained that these drawings were too often based not upon first-hand observation but on secondary sources like Letarouilly. Of drawings submitted by P. D. Hepworth and Louis de Soissons (Fig. 4), Simpson commented: 'I strongly deprecate the waste of time in reproducing the work of others (small in scale and often inaccurate) in the form of large-scale coloured 'rendus' with projected shadows or background.

I38




Fig. 2 H. Charlton Bradshaw, Praeneste and its surroundings (restoration), 1919 (RIBA Drawings Collection)

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Fig. 3 S. Rowland Pierce, Tempio di Giove Olimpico in Agrigento (restoration), 1922

(whereabouts unknown)

I39




Fig. 4 L. de Soissons, Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, Genoa, c. 1920 (whereabouts unknown)

There is no need to go to Rome in order to execute such drawings, nor are they evidence of study, but merely of draughtsmanship. Students should be urged to concentrate on the best work only, and carefully plot it on the spot from their own measurements . . . For a single building conscientiously measured, a student will learn more than from many fictitious renderings from books or photographs ... The British School at Rome should not direct its energies to imitating French methods of representation but should endeavour to develop its own tradition.. .28

Architectural scholars were encouraged to enlist the help of mural painters and

sculptors in their restorations. Emile Jacot helped Minoprio by drawing the statue of Constantine (based on a colossal fragment in the Palazzo dei Conservatori) in a restoration of the Basilica of Constantine, and Rex Whistler painted the trees on the sections of Connell's reconstruction of the Villa of Tiberius on Capri,29 contributing to a much more attractive and convincing style of restoration drawing (Fig. 5).

From 1922, scholars were also permitted to collaborate on original design projects. This was to spawn a remarkable series of sculptural and mural decorations on buildings designed by former Rome scholars in the later I920S and 30s.30 Collaborative design projects executed in Rome were supposed to have 'some prototype or precedent in ancient or Renaissance architecture'31 and were carefully monitored.32 Non-traditional

building types and the use of new materials were particularly discouraged. In I930, Thornton White's design for a travel agency and bank, incorporating a painted frieze around the hall by the mural painter Sorrell (Fig. 6) was criticized for bearing no relation to the purpose for which the Rome scholarship had been founded. . . collaborative schemes submitted for the approval of the Faculty of Architecture must be such as to lend

140




themselves logically to traditional treatment, . .. in the execution of such schemes the Rome Scholars in Architecture are expected to display the knowledge they have acquired of the technique and scholarship of the art as a result of the careful study of the masterpieces of architecture in Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean basin. Scholars of the Faculty are also to be reminded that the School is not intended to provide for those who desire to acquaint themselves with phases of contemporary architecture which can be more suitably studied elsewhere . ..33

The following week, Wride's proposal to design 'A Civic Centre for Rome' was rejected in favour of'a simple subject which would le?ve him plenty of time to study the Classical and Renaissance architecture of Italy and elsewhere'.34 In June 193I the Faculty 'regretted to learn' that he had spent most of his time in Rome working on designs for a concrete church, and refused to pay the cost of transporting the model home. The elevations of Holford's submission, A Traveller's Club, were censured for failing to show 'evidence of the study of Italian architecture'.35 In 1933, Oakes' proposal to collaborate on 'A Small Country Inn with parlours (mural decoration) and hostelry' was turned down and he was advised to work instead on a small chapel for an Italian Villa and to concentrate upon a study of architectural technique.36

Fig. 5 A. Connell, The villa of Tiberius on the Island of Capri, plan of actual state, 1928 (whereabouts unknown)

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Fig. 6 L. Thornton White with A. E. Sorrell, A Hallfor a Travel Agency and Banking Company (collaborative scheme), 1930 (RIBA Drawings Collection)

142




Underlying these disciplinary measures lay the anxiety to defend the Rome scholar-

ship and the 'classical tradition' against what was perceived as the threatening incursion of modernism. This modernism, articulated in recent translations of texts by Le Corbusier and Bruno Taut37 assumed a new and alarming proximity inJanuary 1930 with the publication of the design for a house at Amersham by Amyas Connell, Rome scholar of I926 (Fig. 7). The house, 'High and Over', was commissioned by Bernard

Ashmole, Director of the British School from 1925 to 1928. The article,38 the first of a

series, was written by Howard Robertson, a former Faculty member; when the local

authority attempted to prevent the completion of the house to Connell's design, Professor Adshead - another Faculty member - gave evidence on behalf of the client.39 In 1931 and 1932, modern houses by George Checkley and Marshall Sisson, both former Henry Jarvis scholars, were completed at Cambridge. Checkley's house was for his own occupation; Sisson's was for a classical scholar encountered at the British School, the archaeologist A. W. Lawrence.

Blomfield found it difficult to reconcile the appearance of these houses with the classical tradition in which their designers and clients had been educated. During the

I930s, he published various attacks upon the exponents of modern architecture,

accusing them of turning their backs on the past, of viewing architecture solely in terms of function and building accordingly. 40 He contrasted this approach with the benefits which he believed that the study of classical architecture could confer: a rich store of

Fig. 7 A. Connell, House at Amershamfor Bernard Ashmole ('High and Over'), 1929 (Architect and Building News, 3January 1930)

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ideas and images encouraging a mature and well-informed approach to design problems. The significance Blomfield attached to the classical tradition reveals the desire of the Edwardian educationist to offer student architects a humanistic education. Critical of the limits which pupillage or a narrowly vocational course of training placed on the imagination of the student, Blomfield regarded the integration of architecture into the university syllabus as a means of simultaneously broadening students' horizons and of

elevating the profession. During the inter-war period, he continued to advocate a broad, classically based education, and now defended this ideal against what he regarded as a new and dangerous set of ideas: 'Fifty years ago it was the fashion to say that the only way to become an architect was to work with one's own hands; now it is the fashion to say, leave it all to the engineer'.41 This may help to explain Blomfield's

apparent reluctance to see Rome scholars tackling new design problems. For Blomfield, expertise in classical architecture was the distinguishing mark of the new kind ot architect, educated to university level. Blomfield disliked modern architecture because it represented to him a blurring of distinctions between architect and engineer which threatened to detract from the newly established status of architecture as an art, the domain of the highly trained professional. Perhaps he also disliked it because it did not sufficiently emphasize the distinctions between different types of buildings. Abandoning the use of classical architecture for public buildings and monuments meant that the skills of Rome scholars, trained to specialize in this genre, might become redundant and their work harder to distinguish from that of their contemporaries.

Interestingly, Connell, Ashmole and Robertson went to some lengths to point out the connections between modern and classical architecture.42 They did so partly in order to refute Blomfield's accusations of ignorance and iconoclasm and the narrow terms in which he chose to define the classical tradition and partly to mitigate opposition to the design of'High and Over'. In fact, the debate surrounding 'High and Over'43 reflects the exaggerated polarity between 'traditional' and 'modern' which had

developed by I930. Basil Ward's subsequent recollection of holding 'modern views which we had in our mood of pragmatism suppressed while producing classical designs to meet the requirements of the Faculty of the British School at Rome'44 by represent- ing 'modern' and 'classical' design as mutually exclusive tends to perpetuate this

polarity. In practice, Connell's design, audaciously combining elaborate landscaping and a Mannerist-derived Y-shaped plan with machine-like imagery and finishes, located the house firmly within a tradition while conveying his own impatience with academic detailing, and his desire to associate with engineers rather than with the

sculptors and mural painters of the British School at Rome. Finding that their references to classical precedent were either dismissed or ignored, architects like Connell were easily provoked into making extreme statements about function and

contemporaneity - statements which further served to inflame Blomfield's prejudices. It is more difficult to determine the significance of the classical tradition for scholars

who visited Rome later in the decade. In a paper delivered at the RIBA in 1937, Sheppard Fidler suggested, in terms which must have gratified Blomfield that the training in accuracy, precision, clear and logical thinking which is involved in the research subjects carried out must help to produce master-craftsmen with ideals of perfection in design and the right use of materials.45

I44




Referring in passing to contemporary Italian architecture, he applauded 'the rightness of preserving and developing a national style of architecture'.46 On the same occasion, Holford, although commenting on the uneven quality of contemporary Italian architecture, also paid tribute to the Italian capacity to reconcile new with old buildings.47 Interestingly, neither chose to comment upon the ideological dimension of Mussolini's

building programme. In 1935, the imposition of economic sanctions by the League of Nations - including Britain - in response to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia had

produced sufficient tension in the Mediterranean to close the British School for the academic year. After the Italian victory and the abandonment of sanctions, the School

re-opened in the autumn of 1936. Philip Hirst, arriving from Liverpool as Rome scholar, was greatly impressed by the buildings of Mussolini's new Rome;48 his enthusiasm for the Foro Italico, the via della Conciliazione and the new towns of the Pontine marshes is reflected in a design for a new British School at Rome (Fig. 8) which he produced as a second-year project in collaboration with the painter Laurence Norris and the sculptor Garth Williams. In 1937, the year of Chamberlain's 'gentleman's agreement' with Mussolini, hopes were publicly expressed that the School might serve as a 'cultural embassy' and help repair damaged Anglo-Italian relations.49 However, dwindling applications for the scholarship between I936 and I93950 suggest student distaste for the ideology of neo-classical architecture in Italy and elsewhere, as well as growing dissatisfaction with a system of architectural education based upon concours.

The late I93os brought changes at two leading schools of architecture. At the AA, students who had been encouraged from I93 5 (by E. A. Rowse) to work on projects in groups, rebelled against the reimposition of the old Beaux-Arts system under Goodhart-Rendel and Billery, the new Principal. They considered that the rules regarding the isolated production of an esquisse and its development to a rendu which penalized any alteration to the original design led architects to regard themselves as artists, encouraged individualism and discouraged collaboration.51 They believed that a more analytical approach and more team-work were appropriate to the increasing complexity of modern building projects. At Liverpool, Professor Budden's lecture course on the Theory of Architecture, dealing with specific programmes became a series concerned with modern housing and public buildings such as schools and hospitals.52 Here, according to Gropius, from about 1933 research work was under- taken by groups of five to seven students who worked together on projects.53

In 1937, as in I930,54 the Faculty of Architecture of the British School at Rome responded to criticism by modifying the rules of the competition. The number and size of drawings required in the final stage were reduced, and perspectives abolished. 55 But, as before, these reforms were followed by a more stringent administration of the scholarship. In July 1939, A. E. Richardson (Professor at the Bartlett School), complained of the difficulty he was experiencing in holding senior students to 'traditional studies'. 'He suggested that the low standard of design which, as the Rome scholarship showed, existed at present in the architectural schools of Great Britain was largely due to a lack of understanding on the part of students of the work of the past', and proposed circulating to the schools and to the RIBA 'a memo conveying . .. the hope that more attention would be paid by students to the teaching of traditional architecture'.56

I45



146 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 32: 1989

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Fig. 8 P. Hirst, Projectfor a school of art, architecture and archaeology (collaborative scheme), 1937 (whereabouts unknown)




During periods of rapid change it is perhaps natural for people to advocate a return to a strict canon or standard of excellence like classicism. However, in order to justify such a call to order, it becomes necessary to question the validity of the reigning orthodoxy. Similar arguments fuelled the reform of Edwardian schools of architecture. Victorian architecture - and in particular the Gothic Revival - was characterized as hopelessly eccentric and individualistic, a chaotic but mercifully brief departure from the neo- classical tradition in Britain. During the discussion which followed the 1937 RIBA soiree, Blomfield attempted to do something comparable by claiming that modernism ('the steel box manner') represented a brief aberration from this tradition, and claimed that what he called 'more normal methods' were returning on the Continent and in the Soviet Union57 - allegations which Ashmole described as 'very misleading'. Present

day supporters of the classical revival have adopted a similar rhetoric. In I982 an exhibition of work by Rome Scholars in Architecture claimed to illustrate 'the much misunderstood theme of the classical tradition running right through British Architec- ture'.58 Although including a photograph of'High and Over', the exhibition gave no indication of the educational and ideological debates and differences which lay behind the examples of virtuoso draughtsmanship on display.

It is worth recalling, however, that for a generation of inter-war architectural students, the tardy introduction of Beaux-Arts training in Britain and the establishment of the Rome prize, fatally delayed by the First World War, appears to have functioned less as an affirmation of the enduring value and applicability of the classical tradition than as a disciplinary measure and a bulwark against change. One of the long-term effects of the Rome scholarship was to prolong into the I92os and 3os the

working methods and professional attitudes which had crystallized during the Edwar- dian period. With their expectations shaped by an educational system which trained them to participate as independent architects in competitions for public buildings, and

conspicuously successful in this field,59 Rome scholars were reluctant to work as salaried employees of a municipality or local authority60 and often unprepared to

design with non-traditional building techniques in mind.

Although a re-writing of twentieth-century architectural history to show the classicizing tendencies of the inter-war period is to be welcomed, we should not under-estimate the strength of the opposition to classical architecture provoked by the Rome prize and the way it was administered. Nor, as we are increasingly urged to inter modern architecture and celebrate the reinstatement of the classical tradition, should we forget that during the I930s (as in the I98os), advocacy of this tradition frequently went hand-in-hand with strenuously anti-modern sentiments.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am greatly indebted to Anthony James, formerly Honorary Secretary of the British School at Rome, for his help in the preparation of this article, and to the British School for permission to reproduce Figs 2-6 and 8.

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ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 32: I989

APPENDIX

THE ROME SCHOLARSHIP I913-39: COMPETITION SUBJECTS AND PRIZE WINNERS

RS = Rome scholarship JS = Jarvis scholarship

1913

Open Qualifying Exam: A private mausoleum on a rocky islet in a lake.

First Competition: A modern technical university. Final Competition: A city centre or modern forum surrounded

by important public buildings. H. CHARLTON BRADSHAW (RS) L. DE SOISSONS (JS)

1914

(Open and First Stages combined) Open Competition An art gallery, situated in the public park of an important provincial town.

Final Competition: A British School at Rome.

P. HEPWORTH (RS) E. CORMIER (JS)

1915

Open Competition: A Courts ofJustice fronting a river.

Final Competition (deferred to 1920): Houses of Parliament for a British colony. F. O. LAWRENCE (RS)

1921

Open Competition: A National Pantheon.

Final Competition: A Town Church.

S. R. PIERCE (RS) E. W. ARMSTRONG (JS)

1922

(Open stage replaced by Preliminary) Preliminary Competition: A lake side restaurant in a public park. Final Competition: A home for a Royal Academy. S. WELSH (RS) G. CHECKLEY (JS)

1923

Preliminary Competition: A Bridge. Final Competition: A recreation centre for a seaside town.

R. A. CORDINGLEY (RS) E. WILLIAMS (JS)

1924

Preliminary Competition: A memorial lecture theatre ... in ... a

Military College. Final Competition: A Public School Chapel. M. SISSON (JS)

1925

Preliminary Competition: A monument and commemorative gateway to a... town ...

Final Competition: A permanent British Pavilion of Fine and Industrial Art in an international exhibition.

G. A. BUTLING (RS) C. A. MINOPRIO (JS)

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A CALL TO ORDER: THE ROME PRIZE I49

I926 Preliminary Competition: A memorial hall to ... Lord Nelson.

Final Competition: A Royal Naval College. A. D. CONNELL (RS) B. WARD (SPECIAL SCHOLAR) H. THEARLE (JS)

I927

Preliminary Competition: The grand staircase of a foreign office.

Final Competition: An Empire Centre in a capital city. R. P. CUMMINGS (RS) H. THORNLEY DYER (JS)

I928

Preliminary Competition: A cemetery chapel. Final Competition: A railway terminus for a seaside resort.

L. W. THORNTON WHITE (JS)

I929

Preliminary Competition: A dining hall for a public school.

Final Competition: A memorial to a composer.

j. B. WRIDE (RS)

I930

(Preliminary stage abolished). A Museum of Archaeology. W. G. HOLFORD (RS)

I93I A Town Hall.

C. ST. C.R. OAKES (RS)

1932 A School of Architecture to form part of a new university, situated on the outskirts of a

provincial city. R. P. S. HUBBARD (RS)

I933 A Road House (or entertainment centre). A. G. SHEPPARD FIDLER (RS)

I934 A Building for a permanent exhibition of art in industry. F. A. C. MAUNDER (RS)

I935 A double Library and lecture halls for a

university. NO AWARD

I936 A Centre of international justice. P. E. D. HIRST (RS) H. BENNETT (SPECIAL SCHOLAR)

1937 A Zoological garden. W. T. C. WALKER (RS)

I938 A Play-park on the shore of a lake.

A. B. WYLIE (RS)

I939 A National Aeronautical Club.

R. COWAN (RS)

Drawings by holders of the Rome and Jarvis scholarships may be consulted at the RIBA Drawings Collection together with photographs of other, vanished drawings and brief bio- graphical notes.




NOTES

I 'It is a curious sidelight on English architecture that so late in the day, more than two centuries after France and long after nearly every other nation of importance including America, we should have been founding a School at Rome . .. and at the time too when the whole basis of classical art was beginning to be challenged'. Charles Reilly, Scaffolding in the Sky (1938), p. 136. 2 See the contributions to The Classical Tradition in British Architecture: Rome Scholars in Architecture 1912-1982 (Building Centre Exhibition, 1982). 3 Speech to the Lyceum Club, March 1912, quoted R. Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (I960), p. I24. 4 'The New Age', 25 December 1912, quoted W. C. Wees, Vorticism and the English Avant Garde (1972), p. 82.

5 Barrington Kaye points out that 1890, like 1931, marked the bottom of a slump in the building industry. '. . .in as much as all professional arguments relate ultimately to unemployment, professional activity is a concomitant of economic depression.' The Development of the Architectural Profession in Britain (1960), p. 125. 6 The issue was interestingly analysed in terms of economic policies (Protectionism versus the 'principles of Free Trade'), and individual motivation (a 'high ideal' versus a 'speculative scramble for employment') as well as architectural results in William White's paper read to the RIBA in 1884 'A Brief Review of the Education and Position of Architects in France since the year 1671', quoted by R. MacLeod Style and Society: Architectural ideology in Britain 1835-1914 (I971), pp. iio-I8. 7 For details see: F. Jenkins, Architect and Patron (1961), B. Kaye, loc. cit. and A. Powers, 'Edwardian Architectural Education: a study of three schools of architecture', AA Files No. 5, January I984. 8 'The French Diplome d'Architecture and the German system of architectural education', RIBA Transactions xxxIv (1884), p. 124. 9 R. Blomfield, Memoirs of an Architect (1932), p. II5. 0o R. Chafee, 'The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts', in The Architecture of Ecole des Beaux-

Arts, ed. A. Drexler (I975). 11 R. Blomfield, Memoirs. .., pp. I36-37. 12 C. Reilly, Representative British Architects of the Present Day (I93I), p. 35. 13 Kaye, op. cit. (n. 5), p. I58. 14 'Sir Rennell Rodd on the British School at Rome', RIBAJournal, 26 November 190o, p. 6I. I5 From 1928 the RIBA guaranteed the sum required for the Rome Scholarship and thejarvis Studentship lapsed. I6 Simpson undertook a feasibility study for the RIBA in I909. 17 F. Billerey, 'The British Prix de Rome', letter to the editor, RIBAJournal, 31 May 1913, pp. 524-25. I8 Meeting of 4 December 1912, Minute Book of the Faculty of Architecture, British School at Rome. I9 Meeting of I6 February 1927. 20 Eleven out of twenty Rome scholars between I913 and 1939 - H. Charlton Bradshaw (1913), S. Rowland Pierce (I92I), S. Welsh (1922), R. A. Cordingley (1923), G. A. Butling (1925), R. P. Cummings (1927), W. G. Holford (1930), C. St.C.R. Oakes (I933), H. Bennett (1936), W. T. C. Walker (I937), R. Cowan (I939) - and seven out of eleven Jarvis scholars between 1913 and 1928 - L. de Soissons (1913), G. Checkley (1922), E. Williams (I923), M. Sisson (1924), H. Thearle (1926), B. Ward (1926), L. Thornton White (1928) - made careers partly or entirely in teaching. During the same period, eleven former Rome orJarvis scholars were elected to the Faculty of Architecture. 21 Report of 2I March 1921. 22 Conference of 2 May 1922. 23 Meeting of 13 February I923. The sub-committee responsible forjudging the preliminary competition in 1924 complained of a disappointing standard of work, and suggested that the students should be set three four-hour sketch exercises once a month 'that they may acquire method in the production of sketches, and the "habit of reading programmes". . .'. This report was to be circulated to the schools of architecture. (Report of 15 February I924). 24 Meeting of 31 May 1921. 25 The RIBA only introduced maintenance scholarships in 1927 (see C. R. Knight 'Architectural Education in the British Empire', RIBAJournal, 22 November 1937, p. 63). However, grants were available to ex-servicemen. 26 See the 'Report of the RIBA conference on Prizes', Board of Architectural Education Committee Minutes (1924-26). 27 Meeting of 13 April 1924. 28 Report of 7 May 1920. 29 A. Minoprio 'Recollections of Rome. I' and J. Blake 'Recollections of Rome. 3' in The Classical Tradition in British Architecture (1982), pp. I, 21. 30 For example, Charlton Bradshaw's war memorials at Cambrai, at Ploegsteert and the Guards' Memorial in St James' Park for which Charles Jagger and Gilbert Ledward produced sculpture; and Pierce's Norwich Town Hall with bronze doors by James Woodford. Other examples are cited by Minoprio, loc. cit.; A. Powers 'The Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting 19I2-I980' in British Artists in Italy 1920-1980 (Canterbury College of Art, 1985) and B. Read and P. Skipwith Sculpture in Britain between the wars (Fine Art Society, 1986).

I50




31 Meeting of 27 October 1922. 32 From 1924, a Faculty member visited Rome annually to supervise the work of the architects. On the basis of his reports, those of the School Director and drawings sent from Rome, students were advised on their work and decisions taken whether to renew scholarships. 33 Meeting of I2June I930. 34 Meeting of I6 June I930. 35 Meeting of o July I93I. 36 Meeting of i6 February 1934. The French Academie exerted a comparably restrictive influence upon the Grand Prix between the wars. In 1937, student discontent prompted the Minister of Education to include four outsiders on the jury selecting the winners. See D. D. Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture (I980), pp. 70-90. 37 Towards a New Architecture (1927) and Modern Architecture (1929). 38 'An Experiment with Time: A House at Amersham', ABN 3 January I930. See also 'Amoenitas' Part I, ABN, 26 January I93 I, and Part II, 3 July I93 I.

39 See 'The First Round', ABN, 29 November 1929. 40 See especially Modernismus (1934) and 'Is Modern Architecture on the Right Track?', RIBAJournal, 26July I933. R. Fellows, Sir Reginald Blomfield: An Edwardian Architect (1985) provides a useful discussion of Blomfield's critical stance. 41 'Is Modern Architecture on the Right Track?' RIBAJournal, 1933. 42 See 'The First Round', loc. cit., and comments after papers read at the RIBA on 'The British School at Rome', RIBAJournal, Io April 1937, p. 548. 43 See C. Hussey, 'High and Over, Amersham', Country Life, 19 September 193I and letter from Clive Lambert to editor, Io October 93 I.

44 B. Ward 'Connell, Ward and Lucas', Planning and Architecture (1967) ed. D. Sharp, p. 78. 45 'The British School at Rome' RIBAJournal, 1937, p. 535. 46 Ibid., p. 536. 47 Ibid., p. 542. 48 P. Hirst, 'Recollections of Rome', The Classical Tradition in British Architecture, pp. I2-I7. 49 'The British School at Rome', RIBAJournal, 1937, p. 544. 50 Compared with 5I applications in 1933, and 63 in I935, there were only 24 in 1938 and 26 in I939. 51 A. Cox, 'The Training of an Architect', open letter to Goodhart-Rendel, Focus No. I, summer 1938, p. 26. 52 Letter from Gordon Stephenson to author, 15 August I980. 53 Gropius, 'Architects in the Making'. Speech at opening of exhibition of work by students from Liverpool School of Architecture. Designfor Today, May 1936, p. 200. 54 In 1930, the competition was modified to require of candidates a folio of imaginative designs, measured drawings and sketches from which ten candidates would be selected to compete en loge; in 1933, this stage was reduced from 36 to 15 hours; contemporary building types featured in the competitions of I928, I933 and 1939 (see Appendix). 55 Meeting of I July I937. 56 Meeting of 18 July I939. 57 'The British School at Rome', RIBAJournal, 1937, p. 546. 58 E. D. Mills, 'Introduction', The Classical Tradition in British Architecture, p. 3. 59 P. D. Hepworth, Rome scholar of 1914, designed the municipal buildings at Walthamstow (I932) and Trowbridge; S. Welsh, Rome scholar of 1920, won a competition to design a church at Lower Shiregreen, Sheffield (1932); S. R. Pierce, Rome scholar of 192I, won the competitions to design town halls at Norwich (1932), Slough (I934) and Hertford (1936); R. A. Cordingley, Rome scholar of 1923 won the competition to design Farnham Council Offices (1936) with Maclntyre; A. Connell, Rome scholar of I926, was placed third in the competition to design Hertford County Council buildings (1936) with B. Ward and H. T. Dyer, special scholar and Jarvis students of I926 and 1927, and second in the competition for Newport Civic Centre the same year. E. W. Armstrong, Jarvis student of 921 (resigning after five months!) designed the Art Gallery at Christchurch, New Zealand (1929) and was commended in the competition to design the RIBA headquarters (1932); C. A. Minoprio, Jarvis student of I925, won the competition for the layout of Ramsgate front (1929) and was placed second, with Spenceley, in the competition for a new hospital at Llandudno (I936). H. Thearle, Jarvis student of I926, won the competition for Birkenhead Art Gallery, with L. G. Hannaford. 60 Before I939, only Edwin Williams, F. A. C. Maunder, Louis de Soissons and E. W. Armstrong worked on a regular basis for local authorities, and the latter two only in a consulting capacity.

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A Call to Order: The Rome Prize and Early Twentieth-Century British Architecture

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