BRITISH PATRONS OF MODERN DESIGN || A Model Patron: Bassett-Lowke, Mackintosh and Behrens

The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

A Model Patron: Bassett-Lowke, Mackintosh and BehrensAuthor(s): Louise CampbellSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, No. 10, BRITISHPATRONS OF MODERN DESIGN (1986), pp. 1-9Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809150 .

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A Model Patron: Bassett-Lowke, Mackintosh and Behrens

by Louise Campbell

aged him to steer the D.I. A. in the 1920s away from its craft orientation towards the acceptance of simpler designs and machine production. In 1916 Bassett-Lowke joined the Fabian Society, which had begun to recognise the aesthetic merits of machine-made goods and the possibility of refining popular taste by commissioning top quality designers to mass-produce consumer goods.5

Bassett-Lowke's connection with Mackintosh dates from 1916-1917. In March 1917 he married and bought a ter- raced house in Northampton; on the recommendation of a friend from Glasgow, Bassett-Lowke had contacted Mackintosh and commissioned him to remodel the building.

Fig. 1 . Mackintosh: 78 Derngate, Northampton, 1916-17. Garden elevation. The land falls away behind the house, producing an additional storey on this side. (Copyright Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Mackintosh Collection.)

Although Mackintosh kept structural alterations to the minimum, he stripped the house at 78 Derngate of much of its identity as an early nineteenth-century town house.

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Fig. 2. Mackintosh: 78 Derngate, Northampton, 1916-17. Entrance hall. (Copyright Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Mackintosh Collection.)

A rectangular bay was added to the front parlour window and the addition of an extension to the back of the house gave more room to the basement kitchen and to the dining room above it, whilst providing agreeable bal- conies for the bedrooms (fig I). The external proportions of the house were completely altered by these additions and by the acompanying changes in fenestration; inter- nally, too, the abolition of divisions between parlour and hall, the slight rounding of the window jambs and the emphatic horizontals of the decorative schemes devised for some of the rooms had the effect of modifying their proportions. The lounge-hall (dubbed 'distinctly futuris- tic in character' by Bassett-Lowke) was originally painted black, with a stencilled frieze of yellow triangles with grey, blue, purple, emerald, and vermilion accents (fig 2). A chequered black and white band linked the frieze with the floor (covered with a black and grey checked carpet), and the triangular motif was echoed in glass panels let into the dining room door and into the latticed screen separating the staircase from the lounge-hall.

Around 1919, the guest bedroom was decorated with a black and white vertically striped paper which gave the effect of a canopy hovering above and behind the twin beds; by means of broad bands of the same paper, running across the ceiling to a window curtained in a similar fabric, the room and its contents were pulled into drama- tically cohesive whole.

Bassett-Lowke was closely involved in the design and exe- cution of alterations to his house. For the dining room (fig 3), where Mackintosh devised a decorative scheme of papered walls beneath a deep white-painted frieze, divided by narrow strips of walnut, Bassett-Lowke set out his precise requirements as regards furniture and storage space, modified the dimensions of Mackintosh's designs,

and - at least for the door - specified the character of the design he wanted: 'severe and plain'.6 He himself designed a sideboard, dining table and chairs, and some white-painted wooden furniture for the balcony.

In 19 1 7 he sent Mackintosh details of a synthetic material called Erinoid, which was duly incorporated as inlay for clocks, a smoker's cabinet, and for a set of dining room furniture for Candida Cottage, the Bassett-Lowke's country retreat at Roade. Here again, Bassett-Lowke suggested the format for a service trolley and Mackintosh worked up his client's sketch.7

Despite the unusually active role that Bassett-Lowke played in the design of his domestic environment, he has been given little credit. By attributing the sizzling colour schemes at Derngate to the client's flawed perception of colour, writers have presented Bassett-Lowke's contribu- tion negatively. This approach also tends to minimise the real significance of Mackintosh's changed aesthetic. The Northampton designs are undoubtedly more dramatic than his Scottish work; but this is probably the result of moving from the restricted milieu of Glasgow to London and contact with designers like McKnight Kauffer.8

Nor is it likely that Viennese design provided the sole impetus for change in Mackintosh's approach. The pro- nounced chequered motif running through the house, notably in the fenestration, the black and white paving and decoration of the plant tubs on the garden front, and the squarely proportioned guest room furniture with its stencilled decorative border of blue and black checks upon a light oak ground, has been linked to the Wiener Werkstätte .9 But although, as we have seen, Bassett- Lowke liked severity, the furniture produced for him has only superficial similarities to Viennese work. He was

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Fig. 3. Derngate, Northampton, 1916-17. Dining table and chairs by Bassett-Lowke.

evidently conscious of cost, and had much of the furniture made at his own works; other pieces, although made under the supervision of a skilled German cabinet maker by internees at an Isle of Man prison camp (fig 4 ), do not approach the superbly crafted pieces made by Hoffman or Moser. The fact that the dining room furniture from Candida Cottage and the first set of guest room furniture from Derngate were soon copied for friends indicates that Bassett-Lowke was more concerned with the design of furniture than its uniqueness or the quality of its work- manship.

The interest in technology which prompted him to install electric light, a bathroom with American nickel-plated fittings, a kitchen with gas and electric appliances, and a heating system to supplement the open fires at Derngate, was accompanied by a belief that architecture and design were subject to a comparable process of improvement. Within three years of commissioning Mackintosh, Bassett-Lowke asked him to redesign the lounge-hall and guest bedroom. In 1924 he decided to build an entirely new house on the outskirts of Northampton, but had lost touch with Mackintosh who was living in France. 'I could not find any other architect with modern ideas in England, and when looking through a German publica- tion called Werkbund Jahrbuch of 1 9 1 3 I saw some work by Professor Dr Peter Behrens which I thought was very simple, straightforward and modern in its atmosphere. I obtained Dr Behrens' address from the German Consul and got in touch with him,' Bassett-Lowke recalled.10

Behrens, born like Mackintosh in 1868, by 1913 enjoyed a reputation as a designer of great versatility. The 1913 Werkbund Jahrbuch is titled 'Art in Industry and Com- merce' and illustrates the factories designed by Behrens for the AEG in Berlin, their showroom full of domestic

electrical appliances, a porcelain factory at Heningsdorf, a gasholder at Frankfurt, the Mannesmann headquarters at Dusseldorf, and a wallpaper showroom at Hagen. In 1924, Behrens was teaching at the Vienna Academy and running a private practice.

The first date upon the drawings he sent Bassett-Lowke is July 1925. However, undated preliminary sketches in the RIBA drawings collection show a modest two-storey villa with a flat roof, symmetrical elevations, and classical pilasters flanking a recessed bay on the garden front. Pencil annotations proposing modifications to the size of the windows and the height of the balcony railing are probably by Bassett-Lowke. We do not know exactly what brief Bassett-Lowke gave his architect, but the correspondent of the Architectural Review wrote that:

4 He was determined to incorporate into one building every modern aid to comfort and efficiency, to build a home which should express his idea of the spirit of the age, with the height limited to two storeys, and to include every room within the four surrounding walls, omitting the customary collection of odd out- buildings. Service was to have special consideration; there was to be a private room for the maids, and their bedroom was to be equipped with hot and cold running water.'11

Two bathrooms and a room large enough for dancing were also specified.

Interviews Bassett-Lowke gave journalists soon after the house was finished are more revealing: The Ideal Home's correspondent wrote of Bassett-Lowke's 'ideal that the modern man should have everything in his house con- structed since the year of his birth'.12 A local reporter quoted his opinions on the

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Fig. 4. Mackintosh : first set of furniture for guest room, Derngate. Made under the supervision of Otto Matt, Knockaloe Camp, Isle of Man, c. 19 1 7. (Courtesy Manx Museum.) An identical set was made for Sidney Horstmann and is now in the V. and A. The picture frame has not hitherto been recorded.

'growing desire for houses that have been planned, designed and laid out by men of today rather than those who lived ages ago and, therefore, knew noth- ing of the needs and conditions of the present time.'13

Since Behrens never actually visited Northampton,14 the practical realisation of the house was left to Bassett- Lowke and his builder, Henry Green. The layout had to accomodate both Bassett-Lowke's ideas on domestic improvements and the furniture designed by Mackintosh from Derngate. Behrens was responsible only for the exterior and the design of the hall, the lounge and the dining room. The plans submitted for approval to the local authorities in February 1925 appear to have been drawn up by either Bassett-Lowke15 or Green (fig 5), and are for a house planned about a central axis running from front door to the south-facing loggia with reception room and living rooms to the west, domestic offices and a maid's sitting room to the east and back stairs down to a fuel store, laundry and larder. Details of the construction of 11 -inch cavity brick walls and the elevations of the house were passed, apparently without difficulty, on March 9th.16

The house as built differs markedly from the preliminary sketches and from the drawings submitted to the planning department. The elevations are simpler and spatially less complex than originally proposed. All that remains of the classical articulation of the garden front is a hood mould capping a rectangular recessed balcony bay and a slight fluting of the jambs of the recess. The entrance front is dominated by a staircase window of triangular profile,

rising almost to the roof parapet and crowned by four metal fins. The concrete canopy over the door has a raised right-angular projection at each end and five thick fins on the underside. A further row of ornamental metal fins was set into a narrow roof parapet. These details, and the pylons topped by horned electric lanterns flanking the entrance, do not appear on Bassett-Lowke's application to build. Moreover, the drawings he submitted to the planners show a more uniform arrangement of panes in the staircase window, in the front door, and in the two tall windows flanking the lounge fireplace ('west elevation') - details which were crucial to the character of the house as built. That character is individual and romantic and as such at odds with what Bassett-Lowke claimed had attracted him to Behrens' work. Behrens' final drawing of the house emphasises its sheer facade, pierced by a cas- cade of small-paned glass and crowned by a spiky silhouette (fig 6). The dominant verticals of the composition are accentuated by the horns of the entrance canopy and the pylons. These pylons (depicted by Behrens as much taller than they really are) guarding and lighting the entrance, the foliage which framed the house, and the random patterning of the crazy paving do not look like the illustrations in the 1913 Werkbund Jahrbuch , nor like the work of an architect who in 1918 advocated the industrialisation of building techniques.

Behrens had in fact succumbed to the currently fashion- able architectural expressionism, borrowing from the work and ideas of a radical faction inside the Werkbund. His adoption of elements from the work of Taut and Gropius - and in particular the evocation of crystalline

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Fig. 5. Plans for house submitted to Northampton Borough Engineer, February 1925. (Courtesy Northampton Planning Dept.) For some reason the name of the owner has been cut off.

Fig. 6. Behrens: perspective of entrance front of 'New Ways', Northampton, 1925. (Copyright RIBA Drawings Collection.)

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Fig. 7. Behrens: plan and elevation of dining room, 'New Ways', Northampton, September 1925. (Copyright RIBA Drawings Collection.) The sideboard which also appears in photographs of the room may be the one made to Bassett-Lowke's design for the Derngate dining room.

forms - indicates his sympathy for a younger generation disturbed by the wartime applications of industry.17 In his work of the early 1920s, Behrens made reference to natural forms and historical precedent in place of the clean-cut vocabulary he had formulated for modern industry before the war. The Bassett-Lowke house is thus part of a phase which includes the IG Farben headquarters, the German Mirror Manufacturers Pavilion at Cologne, and the Pavilion of Religious Art at the Munich Gewerbeschau.

For Bassett-Lowke, too, the war produced a conflict between private belief and attitude towards business. He was a pacifist who profited from war work, and a cosmo- politan businessman who was obliged to sever trade links with Germany and later, deliberately concealed from pur- chasers the fact that Bassett-Lowke model trains were partly made in Germany.18 He was presumably sensitive to the changed orientation of German post-war architecture, for despite his admiration for Behrens' 'simple, straightforward, and modern' pre-war designs, Bassett- Lowke was prepared to countenance the highly individual house design elaborated for him during the summer of 1925.

Inside the house, despite Bassett-Lowke's practical con- tributions - central heating, the design of the kitchen and bathrooms, the electrically-operated hall clock - the way that decoration is used as a way of modelling space is Behrens'. In the front hall, colour is used chiefly for archi- traves and mouldings; a severe, geometrically patterned floor of black, white and grey tiles, flush panelled doors with an asymmetrical border, recessed mirrors framed in

black and vermilion, a tiled piscina set into the wall, and a stepped stair balustrade edged in black demarcate the boundaries of the room. A laylight set into the flat roof illuminates the elaborate relief pattern of the plaster ceiling. A more exotic note is provided by the ceiling light in the form of a shooting star, and the radiator grilles, pierced with an oriental pattern to match the chairs brought from the hall at Derngate.

Behrens' design for the beige dining room (fig 7), with its low picture rail, veneered walnut doors and pilasters, and its boxy wall lights, looks like a re- working of that at Derngate, and was presumably designed to accommodate the table, chairs and sideboard made to Bassett-Lowke's own specifications for that house. And in this rather severe room the relation between Mackintosh and Vien- nese design seems to have come full circle: Behrens, working in Vienna in 1925, sympathetically re-cast a design of 1916-1917 which itself may have drawn upon early twentieth-century Viennese models.19

The main features of the lounge (fig 8) were executed to Behrens' designs, but the furniture came from various different sources.20 The ceiling was covered with a plasterwork design of squares and rectangles which spilt over onto the west wall, forming horizontal ledges above the fireplace. A pair of German-made stained glass windows of geometric design were placed on either side of the fireplace and the remaining areas of wall above the oak-panelled dado were framed with thin strips of wood.21

The ceiling light was a rectangular glass box suspended by round bars forming an appropriate centrepiece from

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Fig. 8. 'New Ways': lounge, 1926. The sideboard and corner table by Mackintosh come from Candida Cottage. (Copyright Hunterian Art Gallery . . .)

which the ridges of the ceiling design appeared to eman- ate. In his study, Bassett-Lowke attempted at first to re- create some of Mackintosh's work at Derngate, using a stencil which was made for the lounge hall during the early 1920s to replace the original all-black scheme, some of the furniture and the electric candelabra, modified to give an indirect light (illustrated in the Architectural Review , 1926). However, the walls are subsequently covered with a more up-to-date repeat patterned geometric paper and the furniture painted a lighter colour (fig 9). Upstairs, the guest bedroom contained the black and blue stencilled oak furniture from Derngate, but a French chintz was used for the curtains and a silver and white striped paper for the walls. The main bedroom also contained Mackintosh-designed sycamore furniture from the previous house. No record survives of the maids' rooms, although the kitchen appears well-fitted and enjoyed splendid views over garden and park.

Bassett-Lowke's house is described in the contemporary press as being ultra-modern in its appointments and design. That he had firm ideas is clear from his part in the design process. Yet the house itself reveals a somewhat eclectic taste: the modernism of the gadgets is offset by their often elaborate forms (especially that of the light fittings),22 Egyptian wall-hangings and travel posters contrast with the geometric severity of the hall, and the plainness of the exterior is modified by the bright blue front door and the inscription incised upon the cornice capping the V-window: 1926, the year the house was completed.

Fig. 9. 'New Ways': study, as re-decorated, c. 1930. Sofa, chairs, light fitting and clock by Mackintosh come from Derngate. (Copyright Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Mackintosh Collection.)

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With a similarly propagandistic aim, Bassett-Lowke christened the house 'New Ways'; he considered his taste to be 'futurist' in the sense that he believed that architecture and design should change as fast as technology. The house was evidently intended as a show-place for the ideas of its owner on domestic comfort, on architecture and decoration.

'It is hard to believe that the young married couple of 1750 were prepared to content themselves with the fashions of 100 years ago.'

Bassett-Lowke is reported to have said to a visitor:23 The bride, if a woman of fashion and spirit, would probably pay a visit to St Martin's Lane and there buy some of the modern things then being made by Mr Chippendale. The astonishing thing is that after 70 years (sic) we are still going to Mr Chippendale rather than the modern men of our time . . . New wine is never safe in old bottles, and to hide a wireless set in a Queen Anne cabinet must strike the thoughtful person as incongruous. '. . . Life . . . becomes increasingly complex and in modern furnishing the wise ones are providing themselves with a contrast, with bright colours and something refreshing and different to their daily surround- ings. Continual copying means gradual decay. Hence the virtue of launching out on entirely new lines such as I have attempted.'

In January 1928 Bassett-Lowke showed a party from the D.I. A. around his house, hoping to impress upon them the importance of commissioning progressive design. No doubt he also communicated his ideas, as Fabian social- ist and as DIA member, on the ultimate outcome of the marriage of modern technology and aesthetics to journalists, for they emerge in garbled form from contemporary articles on the house.24 The use of broad areas of contrast- ing colour and geometrical motifs anticipated a period when craftsmanship would be considered ultimately of less importance than the overall concept, and the use of mechanical processes would enhance its qualities and render good design accessible to greater numbers of people.

'New Ways' was to be of considerable importance for the subsequent history of the modern movement in England. It directly inspired the design of houses at Silver End industrial village by Tait and MacManus;25 it also suggested that the industrial patron could prove sym- pathetic to modern design. A competition organised by the Architectural Review in 1930 to design an apartment for 'Lord Benbow' features as the client a Clydeside ship- builder of advanced tastes, clearly modelled upon Bassett- Lowke. Bassett-Lowke's example encouraged architects of the 1930s to regard industrialists as allies and natural patrons: clear-sighted, free of antiquarian prejudice, and thus open to new ideas. Some individuals and firms were persuaded of the connection between modern design and new technology and unwittingly underwrote a good deal of experimental building in the 1930s.

But Bassett-Lowke's patronage was of a different and more informed kind. Trained (like the client of Silver End) as an architect, he combined a trained eye, shrewd business sense, an interest in technology, and command of a tame workforce. The results of his patronage were uniquely personalised buildings which were not con- ceived and built by the architect alone, but subject to

continuous control and modification by the client.

By 1930 Bassett-Lowke's business was suffering from the effects of the slump, and increased competition from Hornby's. Bassett-Lowke did not extend his patronage to commission factory buildings or housing for his em- ployees. Nor, despite his awareness of architectural developments in the late 1920s and 1930s,26 did he commission a third house; he continued his activities as designer-cum-patron on a reduced scale in the shape of model railway stations, advertising material, and a delightful series of greeting cards (fig 10).

He continued to live at 'New Ways' until his death in 1953. The house and its fittings have survived the subsequent changes of owner and have been recently and sensi- tively restored. The furniture has unfortunately been dispersed between the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow (which owns the Mackintosh drawings for the Derngate and Candida Cottage furniture), Northampton Museum (which does not usually display it), Brighton Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and private collections. 78 Derngate, its interior intact (despite the V. and A.'s attempt to buy the carved newel post and staircase screen lent to the 1968 Mackintosh centennial exhibition), survives as part of the Northampton School for Girls.

Fig. 10. Greetings card for Mr and Mrs Bassett-Lowke, 1928. Designer unknown. (Private collection.)

The photographs of Derngate and ' New Ways' were taken by Bassett-Lowke.

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References 1 Bayley, S., 'Patrons of the Modern Movement', Architectural Design , 49, Nos. 1 0- 1 1 , p. 90. 2 No architect is acknowledged in The Ideal Home magazine articles on Derngate (August/September 1920) and Candida Cottage (October 1 920). 3 Further biographical details may be found m Dictionary of National Biography, ; 1951-60; p. 73. Obituary notice in the Northampton Independent , October 23rd, 1953; R. Fuller, The Bassett-Lowke Story (New Cavendish Books, 1 984). 4 Bing came to England as a refugee from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and production shifted to Northampton. 5 See Clutton-Brock, A., The Arts of Use' (Fabian Society Pamphlet, 1915), quoted by I. Britain, Fabianism and Culture (C.U.P. 1982). 6 Bassett-Lowke to Mackintosh, letter of January 14th, 1917, Hunterian Art College, Glasgow. The Mackintosh designs, Bassett-Lowke's suggestions, and the furniture and decorative schemes which resulted are catalogued in R. Billcliffe's indis- pensable Charles Rennie Mackintosh: the Complete Furni- ture, Furniture Drawings, and Interior Designs (Lutterworth Press, 1974). 7 See Rutherford, J. M., The Candida Cottage Furniture', Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. 8 See Reekie, P., ' Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Chelsea Years, 191 5-1 923 ' Hunterian Art Gallery Exhibition Cata- logue, 1978-9. 9 Notably by Howarth, T., Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement (RKP 1977). A more balanced view is contained in R. Billcliffe and P. Vergo, 'C. R. Mackintosh and the Austrian Art Revival', Burlington Magazine , November 1977.

10 Bnei Outline, typescript, August 22nd, 1939, Mackintosh Collection, Hunterian Art Gallery, p. 2. 11 'New Ways', by Silhouette, Architectural Review , November 1926, p. 125. 12 'Something New!', The Ideal Home, January 1927, p. 20.

13 'Northampton's Most Original House', Northampton Inde- pendent, July 24th, 1926, p. 17. 14 The Ideal Home , loc. cit., says that the work was carried out to Behrens' direction 'by correspondence.' 15 The Northampton Independent states that 'the plan is the work of Mr and Mrs Bassett-Lowke', loc. cit., p. 1 5. 16 Information from Northampton Planning Department. 17 See Boyd White, Iain, 'The End of an Avant-Garde; the Example of Expressionist Architecture', Art History , 3, No. 1 (March 1980), pp. 102-113. 18 Although the Board of Trade ruled that the country of origin had to be stamped on imported goods, Bassett-Lowke sold German goods away from their boxes. Fuller op. cit., p. 32. 19 Howarth suggests that the Derngate dining room lanterns were modelled on designs by Josef Urban illustrated in The Studio in 1906.

20 i he sideboard came Irom Candida Cottage, the carpet from Atélier Primavera in Paris, and the fireplace from the Bir- mingham Guild (also DIA members). According to the Northampton Independent , Cave & Sons of Northampton made other furniture.

21 A design in the RIBA drawings collection shows a different arrangement of wall panels and a different colour scheme.

22 Electric light and central heating were installed by his father's firm, Lowke & Sons.

23 Northampton Independent , loc. sic., p. 1 5. 24 The Ideal Home refers to the lounge as 'an excellent example of the modern conception of the communal apartment', loc. cit., p. 26. 25 See MacManus, F., 'Recollection of My Early Architectural Years', RIBA drawings collection, p. 4. 26 He contributed an article on the Weissenhof Siedlung to the DIA Journal in December 1927 ('A Wonderful Experiment at Stuttgart') and to The Ideal Home in May 1928 ('The Architectural Trend') and on Dutch architecture in November 1928 ('Expression in Brick'). In 1931 he helped organise a competition for a new civic centre in Northampton which was won by J. C. Prestwick & Sons.

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BRITISH PATRONS OF MODERN DESIGN || A Model Patron: Bassett-Lowke, Mackintosh and Behrens

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