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Letting in the Light: the Council for Art and Industry and Oliver Hill’s Pioneer Schools
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
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The British architect Oliver Hill (1887–1968) was an important and influential figure in the inter-war period. His ability to cross the boundaries of architectural style ensured career longevity and success, but invited a reputation as a half-hearted Modernist, lacking the rigour of his Modern Architectural Research (MARS) Group contemporaries. This view was acknowledged by the MARS chairman Wells Coates (1895–1958), in an early group memorandum of 1933, where he asserted that: ‘Certain people [including Oliver Hill] who are popularly and notoriously known as “modern” architects do not qualify in our sense.’ Unquestionably, there were two sides to Hill’s architecture, as he himself recognized in 1937: ‘Today, my love is divided between the new and the old.’
While the MARS Group stuck rigidly to the dogma of the Modern Movement, Hill’s understanding and application of Modernism developed throughout the 1930s. Hill’s Modern buildings chronicle his shifting concept of modernity, reflecting the numerous sub-movements and strands of Modernism in inter-war Britain rather than any halfheartedness in his approach. Commonly remembered for his glitzy early examples of ‘the new’, such as Joldwynds (1930–32) and the Midland Hotel in Morecambe (1932–33), Hill’s Modernism was initially based upon a use of glass and silvered surfaces that straddled Art Deco and the International Style. Yet opulence was gradually replaced by a social concern focused on children’s welfare, evident in a series of exhibits, unrealized projects and school buildings. Hill’s later inter-war Modernism also reflected a wider move toward local materials and construction techniques that acknowledged the peculiarity of English conditions. This article contextualizes Hill’s adoption of Modernism and explores his public work of the late 1930s that combined his fascination for the new with his respect for national tradition.
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References
Notes
1 Coates, Wells, ‘Memorandum of 1 March 1933’, cit. in Darling, Elizabeth, Re-forming Britain: Narratives of Modernity Before Reconstruction (London, 2007), p. 43 Google Scholar.
2 Royal Institute of British Architects Archives (RIBA), HiO /79 /2, Oliver Hill letter to Professor Abercrombie, 25 November 1937.
3 Curtis, William, Modem Architecture Since 1900, 3rd edn (London, 1996), pp. 12–13 Google Scholar.
4 Jeremy Gould refers to this as the ‘Third Movement of domestic Modernism in Britain’, running from 1936 to 1939; see Gould, Jeremy, Modern Houses in Britain, 1919–1939 (London, 1977), pp. 22–25 Google Scholar.
5 RIBA, HiO / 42/ 4, Oliver Hill letter to Charles Reilly, 14 October 1936.
6 Hill was also negotiating a project for St Marylebone Central Schools (1936–37). See RIBA, HiO/ 49 /3 for correspondence regarding the project: simple block plans show Hill considered the massing and relationship of classes, although there is no indication that his scheme progressed beyond this very early stage.
7 For discussion of an English Modernism, see, for example, Whyte, William, ‘The Englishness of English Architecture: Modernism and the Making of a National International Style, 1927–1957’, Journal of British Studies, 48 (April 2009), pp. 441–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 For Hill’s life and work, see Powers, Alan, Oliver Hill, Architect and Lover of Life (London, 1989)Google Scholar.
9 See Chapter One ‘Pursuing the Picturesque’ in Holland, Jessica , ‘An English Sensibility: The Architecture of Oliver Hill’ (doctoral thesis, University of Portsmouth, 2011)Google Scholar.
10 For accounts of the AA tours of 1929 and 1930, see ‘A.A. General Meeting, November 25th, 1929. The A.A. Excursion to Germany, 1929’, AA Journal, 45 (December 1929), pp. 207–32 Google Scholar; ‘A.A. General Meeting. Monday, 24th November. The A.A. Excursion to Sweden and Denmark, 1930’, AA Journal, 46 (December 1930), pp. 179–95 Google Scholar.
11 Powers, Oliver Hill, p. 24.
12 ‘A.A. General Meeting, January 11th, 1932. The A.A. Excursion to Austria, 1931’, AA Journal, 47 (January 1932), pp. 207–24 Google Scholar (p. 221).
13 Hill, Oliver, ‘The Modern Movement’, Architectural Design & Construction, 1 (September 1931), pp. 461–63 Google Scholar (p. 461).
14 See RIBA ref. PA503 / 3 (1–6) for Rudderbar drawings. Hill’s final scheme is dated ‘January 1932’; thus the initial designs, with a rooftop bathroom, were probably undertaken the previous year.
15 Hill’s client, the Hon. Mrs Victor Bruce, was evidently very unhappy with his designs as she then commissioned Raymond McGrath to design an alternative ‘Rudderbar’ in 1932. McGrath’s design, with an integral ‘airplane garage’, likewise remained unexecuted; see McGrath, Raymond, Twentieth-Century Houses (London, 1934)Google Scholar, example 22.
16 See Overy, Paul, Light, Air and Openness: Modern Architecture Between the Wars (London, 2007), pp. 127–34 Google Scholar.
17 For discussion of open-air schools, see, for example, Gina Greene, ‘Nature, Architecture and National Regeneration in the French Écoles de Plein Air’, at http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wpcontent/ uploads/2009/o6/hid8greene-paper.pdf (accessed on 23 March 2011).
18 For discussion of the work produced by their four-year partnership and the projects attributed jointly to Lescaze and Howe, see Lanmon, Lorraine Welling, William Lescaze, Architect (London, 1987)Google Scholar, esp. chs 3 and 4.
19 The 820-acre Dartington Hall estate was bought by the Elmhirsts in 1925 following their marriage in the same year; for further discussion, see, for example, Bonham-Carter, Victor, Dartington Hall (London, 1958)Google Scholar.
20 Lanmon, William Lescaze, p. 69.
21 Curry, William Burnlee, ‘Modern Buildings for New Schools’, The Survey, 46 ,1 September 1931, pp. 496–98 Google Scholar (p. 497).
22 Ibid., p. 496.
23 Hussey, Christopher, ‘High Cross Hill, Dartington, Devon, The Residence of Mr. W.B. Curry’, Country Life, 73, 11 February 1933, pp. 144–49 Google Scholar.
24 Ibid., p. 147.
25 Cornforth, John describes Hill’s relationship with Christopher Hussey in two articles; see ‘Continuity and Progress: Christopher Hussey and Modern Architecture -I’, Country Life, 170, 22 October 1981, pp. 1366–68 Google Scholar; ‘Qualities of Generalship: Christopher Hussey and Modern Architecture - II’, Country Life, 170, 29 October 1981, pp. 1468–70 Google Scholar.
26 Lanmon, William Lescaze, p. 63.
27 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library (AAFAL), D&A Howe Box III, Oliver Hill letter to George Howe, 2 February 1955.
28 See Lanmon, William Lescaze, p. 89. For further comparison of Hill’s work at Frinton Park Estate with Lescaze’s Churston development, see also Holland, ‘An English Sensibility’, pp. 319–22.
29 Syracuse University Library (SUL), William Lescaze Papers Box 56 Folder ‘H’, Oliver Hill letter to William Lescaze, 1 February 1955.
30 Darling, Re-forming Britain, p. 51. See especially Darling’s ‘Chapter 2: A new landscape of health’ for a full discussion of London-based social reform through architecture of this period.
31 Urwin, Cathy and Hood-Williams, John (eds), Child Psychotherapy, War and the Normal Child: Selected Papers of Margaret Lowenfeld (London, 1988), pp. 39–40 Google Scholar.
32 RIBA HiO/ 48 / 2, British Council for Child Research Pamphlet ‘Children’s Village, Training School and Research Scheme’, pp. 3, 5.
33 New son, Elizabeth, ‘Abbatt, (Norah) Marjorie (1899–1991)’, Oxford New Dictionary of National Biography, at www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49549 (accessed on 9 February 2011)Google Scholar.
34 For a profile of the Abbatt’s business, see, for example, ‘Idealists in the Toyshop’, Observer, 2 December 1962.
35 RIBA, HiO/2/3, O. Campbell Jones letter to Oliver Hill, 24 July 1935.
36 RIBA, HiO / 2 / 3, Oliver Hill letter to Goodhart-Rendel, 2 December 1935.
37 Hill consulted Sir Leonard Hill regarding sunlight requirements and Sir Henry Gauvain, the Medical Superintendent at Lord Mayor Treloar Cripples’ Hospital and College, Alton. See RIBA, HiO /2 / 3, Oliver Hill letter to Sir Henry Gauvain, 8 July 1935 and Oliver Hill letter to Sir Edward Penton, 2 October 1935.
38 For discussion of the formation and aims of the DIA from a viewpoint centred on Frank Pick, see, for example, Saler, Michael T., The Avant-Garde in Interwar England (Oxford, 1999), pp. 72–82 Google Scholar.
39 Carrington, Noel, Industrial Design in Britain (London, 1976), p. 24 Google Scholar.
40 Ibid., p. 141.
41 Hill, ‘The Modern Movement’, p. 461.
42 Saler, The Avant-Garde in lnterwar England, p. 122.
43 Ibid., p. 123.
44 Nikolaus Pevsner cit. in Barman, Christian, The Man Who Built London Transport: A Biography of Frank Pick (Newton Abbott, Devon, 1979), p. 166 Google Scholar.
45 Saler, The Avant-Garde in Interwar England, p. 3.
46 Pevsner, Nikolaus, ‘Patient Progress: the Life Work of Frank Pick’, Architectural Review, 92 (August 1942), pp. 31–40 Google Scholar (p. 34).
47 Hill, Oliver, Fair Horizon: Buildings of To-Day (London, 1950), p. 123 Google Scholar.
48 RIBA, HiO /78/ 3, Oliver Hill letter to Ralph Glyn, 11 January 1937. For Hill’s involvement in the project, see also RIBA HiO /31 / 1.
49 RIBA, HiO / 31 /1, Oliver Hill letter to Ralph Glyn, 1 August 1935.
50 Council for Art & Industry, Education for the Consumer: Art in Elementary and Secondary School Education (London, 1935), p. 7 Google Scholar.
51 Ibid., p. 35.
52 Ibid., p. 36.
53 Ibid., p. 37.
54 Ibid.
55 Hill, Fair Horizon, p. 104.
56 Franklin, Geraint, ‘Inner-London Schools 1918–44: A Thematic Study’, English Heritage Research Department Report, 43 (2009), p. 11 Google Scholar.
57 Darling, Re-forming Britain, p. 159.
58 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 18 July 1935.
59 RIBA, HiO /42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 19 July 1935.
60 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 18 July 1935.
61 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Charles Reilly, 14 October 1936.
62 RIBA, HiO /42 / 4, E. M. Rich, L.C.C. Education Officer letter to Frank Pick, 2 January 1936. Hill was paid expenses and also charged for his office draughtsmen’s time spent on the project.
63 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 23 January 1936.
64 Ibid.
65 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 27 January 1936.
66 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 29 January 1936.
67 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 30 July 1935.
68 Ibid.
69 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 26 March 1936.
70 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 27 March 1936. However, several years later Pick revised his views, criticizing Le Corbusier’s phrase as a ‘wicked doctrine’; see Saler, The Avant-Garde in Interwar England, p. 116.
71 Richards, J. M., Modern Architecture (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1940), p. 123 Google Scholar.
72 RIBA, HiO / 42/ 4, Oliver Hill letter to M. Rosset, 25 June 1936.
73 ‘The Architects’ Journal Library of Planning: Junior Schools’, Architects’ Journal, 86, 30 December 1937, pp. 1095–98 Google Scholar (p. 1098). The AJ led the impetus for better schools, devoting an edition of the journal entirely to schools in 1936 and publishing a ‘Schools’ series to educate regarding good planning, facilities and equipment.
74 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 17 March 1936.
75 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 16 March 1936; Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 18 March 1937.
76 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 22 March 1937.
77 For discussion of Holden’s work for LPTB, see, for example, Karol, Eitan, Charles Holden, Architect (Donington, [2007])Google Scholar.
78 Pevsner, ‘Patient Progress’, p. 33.
79 Saler, The Avant-Garde in Interwar England, pp. 116–17.
80 See P.M., , ‘Une École de Filles a Vanves, Par P. et M. Marme’, Art et Décoration, 66 (1937), pp. 2–8 Google Scholar. Frank Pick must have been in possession of the journal due to a lengthy article regarding the 1937 Paris Exhibition, including a write-up of the British Pavilion, designed by Oliver Hill under the leadership of Pick. For J. M. Campagne’s account of ‘Grand-Bretagne’, see pp. 222–24, which echoes popular opinion of Hill’s building: ‘As it is, quite disappointing as a whole, the British Pavilion is full of seductions, however, thanks to the perfect quality of most objects and products displayed’ (p. 224).
81 See also Gossaud, Antony, ‘Groupe Scolaire de Vanves: Paul et Marcel Marme, architectes’, La Construction Moderne, 1 November 1936, pp. 79–86 Google Scholar.
82 RIBA, HiO / 42 /4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 18 March 1937.
83 Ibid. Hill uses similar panels of alternating brickwork for Hill House in Hampstead, designed 1936–37, perhaps taking inspiration from the Marme brothers.
84 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 19 March 1937.
85 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 19 March 1937; RIBA, HiO/42/4 Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 22 March 1937.
86 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Cyril Carter, 23 March 1937.
87 RIBA, Hio / 42 / 4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed ReBuilding, 6 July 1936.
88 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Oliver Hill letter to Sir Edward Penton, 2 October 1935.
89 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 16 September 1935.
90 Hessian Hills was intended as an entirely steel and concrete building, but following an estimated cost of $100,000 underwent several re-designs; scheme eight was finally built. For earlier schemes for the building and further description, see Lanmon, William Lescaze, pp. 76–77.
91 McGrath, Raymond, Twentieth Century Houses (London, 1934), p. 118 Google Scholar.
92 Curry, ‘Modern Buildings’, p. 498.
93 Stern, Robert, George Howe: Toward a Modern Architecture (London and New Haven, 1975), p. 100 Google Scholar.
94 ‘Education: in Hessian Hills’, Time, 19 December 1932, at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,753511,00.html (accessed on 2 April 2010)Google Scholar.
95 The Associated Experimental Schools were a collective of seven schools in and around New York, established in 1934 to work together towards common educational aims. The schools were City and Country School, Cooperative School for Student Teachers, Harriet Johnson Nursery School, Little Red School House, Walden School, all of New York City; Hessian Hills School, Croton, New York; and Manumit School, Pawling, New York. Moos, Elizabeth, ‘Parent-School-Community Relationships at Hessian Hills School’, 69 Bank Street, 11 (March 1936), pp. 1–7 Google Scholar (pp. 6–7).
96 Elizabeth Moos cit. in Curry, ‘Modern Buildings’, p. 498.
97 ‘Education: in Hessian Hills’, 19 December 1932.
98 SUL, William Lescaze Papers Box 56 Folder ‘H’, Oliver Hill letter to William Lescaze, 1 February 1955.
99 Lanmon, William Lescaze, pp. 99–101.
100 Hill, Fair Horizon, p. 104.
101 Jekyll designed a number of gardens and planting schemes during the 1920s to accompany Hill’s architectural designs. For Hill’s opinion of Jekyll, see Hill, Oliver, ‘An Architect’s Debt to “Country Life’“, Country Life, 141, 12 January 1967, pp. 70–72 Google Scholar.
102 Gertrude Jekyll, 1926, cit. in Stephens, Chris, ‘Modernism and Tradition in English Sculpture 1929–39’, in British Modern: Architecture and Design in the 1930s, ed. Charlton, Susannah, Harwood, Elain and Powers, Alan (London, 2007), pp. 41–50 Google Scholar (p. 48).
102 ‘The Craft Rooms were to be arranged on a similar principle to the Classrooms and the Modelling Rooms intended for messier work with clay and sand. Sinks were to be provided to all Craft and Modelling Rooms. RIBA, HiO/ 42 / 4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed Re-Building, 6 July 1936.
104 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Charles Reilly, 19 October 1936.
105 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed Re-Building, 6 July 1936.
106 A local Headmaster, Mr White, writes to Hill, ‘most of our children are drawn from very poor homes’. RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4 H, White letter to Oliver Hill, 7 February 1936.
107 Hill, Fair Horizon, p. 105.
108 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed ReBuilding, 6 July 1936.
109 Ibid.
110 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Notes taken 6 February 1936 (L.G. School).
111 ‘Giving Them What They Want’, Building, 12 (March 1937), p. 89 Google Scholar.
112 RIBA, HiO/42/4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed Re Building, 6 July 1936.
113 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 25 March 1936.
114 Darling, Elizabeth, ‘Kensal House: The Housing Consultant and the Housed’, in British Modern, ed. Charlton, , Harwood, and Powers, , pp. 107-16 Google Scholar (pp. 111–12).
115 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 23 April 1936.
116 Two folders of apparently comprehensive correspondence regarding this project are held by the RIBA, HiO/42/4.
117 RIBA, HiO/42/4, L.C.C. School, Lyndhurst Grove, Camberwell, Architect’s Report on Proposed ReBuilding, 6 July 1936.
118 For recent coverage of Martin Elsaesser, see, for example, Elsaesser, Thomas, Gräwe, Christina, Schilling, Jörg and Schmal, Peter Cachola (eds), Martin Elsaesser und das Neue Frankfurt (Tübingen, Germany, 2009)Google Scholar.
119 Henderson, Susan R., ‘“New Buildings Create New People”: The Pavilion Schools of Weimar Frankfurt as a Model of Pedagogical Reform’, Design Issues, 13 (Spring 1997), pp. 27–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 29).
120 ‘A.A. General Meeting, November 25th, 1929. The A.A. Excursion to Germany, 1929’, pp. 220–21.
121 Elsaesser et al. (eds), Martin Elsaesser, p. 121.
122 CAI, Education for the Consumer, p. 37.
123 ‘A.A. General Meeting, November 25th, 1929. The A.A. Excursion to Germany, 1929’, p. 221.
124 Henderson, ‘“New Buildings Create New People”, p. 33.
125 RIBA, HiO/42/4, see ‘Notes Taken 6th February 1936 (L.G. School)’ and correspondence 20 January to 10 February 1936 from Oliver Hill to teachers Miss Wild from Popham Road Junior School in Islington and Mr White, Headmaster of St Michael’s School, E8.
126 ‘Giving Them What They Want’, p. 89.
127 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Miss Wild, 20 January 1936.
128 Author in conversation with Howard Rose, 27 February 2010. For Howard and his sister Diane Cawsey’s recollections of a childhood at Valewood Farm (1944–49), see Holland, ‘An English Sensibility’, Appendix D.
129 Private collection consulted by author, 4 November 2009.
130 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Frank Pick letter to Oliver Hill, 30 August 1937.
131 RIBA, HiO / 42 / 4, Oliver Hill letter to Frank Pick, 23 December 1937.
132 L.C.C. architect E. P. Wheeler wrote to the Hendon Corporation for information; see Franklin, ‘InnerLondon Schools’, p. 33.
133 RIBA, HiO/42/4, Undated newspaper cutting, ‘Wonder School. Equipped for Cinema and Wireless’.
134 The school, now Three Lane Ends First School, was Grade II listed in October 1980.
135 Alderman Hyman’s comments were made during the opening ceremony of the new Springfield Infants’ School in Earby (1939); see ‘Equal Chance for All’, Craven Herald, 26 May 1939.
136 See, for example, Denis Clarke Hall, ‘School Design in the 1930s’, in British Modern, ed. Charlton, Harwood and Powers, pp. 71–78.
137 The words Licht, Luft und Oeffnung (Light, Air and Openness) were used by Sigfried Giedion on the front cover of his seminal text Befreites Wohnen (Liberated Living) of 1929. Giedion used the duplicated phrase in collage with a photograph of a couple enjoying the Tight, air and openness’ of the sun balcony of their modem apartment. More recently, the phrase has been used by Overy’s study of the same name. See Overy, Light, Air and Openness, pp. 9–11.
138 ‘Infants’ School at Castleford, Yorkshire’, Architectural Review, 90 (December 1941), pp. 159–61 Google Scholar (p. 159).
139 RIBA, HiO / 79 / 1, ‘Whitwood Mere Infants School’, Manuscript dated 17 February 1939, issued to architectural press by Oliver Hill.
140 Ibid.
141 ‘School at Castleford, Yorkshire. Designed by Oliver Hill’, Architects’ Journal, 26, 18 December 1941, pp. 398–402 Google Scholar (p. 399).
142 RIBA, HiO / 79 / i, ‘Whitwood Mere Infants School. West Riding of Yorkshire’, Undated manuscript issued to architectural press by Oliver Hill.
143 Hussey, Christopher, ‘The School-Building Programme’, Country Life, 94, 13 August 1943, pp. 288–89 Google Scholar (p. 289).
144 ‘Infants’ School at Castleford, Yorkshire’, p. 161. Notably, Koornong School, near Melbourne in Australia (1939), designed by Australian architect Best Overend and Austrian émigré Friedrich Janeba, also makes use of yellow ‘blackboards’ and blue chalk. See, for example, Goad, Philip, ‘“A chrome yellow blackboard with blue chalk”: New Education and the New Architecture: Modernism at Koornong School’, History of Education, 39 (November 2010), pp. 731–48 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
145 RIBA, HiO / 79 / 1, ‘Whitwood Mere Infants School. West Riding of Yorkshire’, Undated manuscript issued to architectural press by Oliver Hill.
146 Hill, Fair Horizon, pp. 7–8.
147 H. G. Schenk discusses the idea of aeronautic neo-romanticism, promoted by the writings of French pilot Antoine Saint-Exupery; see The Mind of the European Romantics (Oxford, 1979), p. 164 Google Scholar.
148 Hill and Lewis collaborated on several competition entries during the inter-war period, including designs for the RIBA Headquarters in London, the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill and Norwich Town Hall. Known as ‘OFF’ (Oliver’s faithful friend), Wamsley Lewis was personally and professionally linked to Oliver Hill for over forty years. Author in conversation with Simon Verity, 15 September 2008.
149 RIBA, HiO / 79 / 6, Council of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Methley Proposed Senior School, Report by Architect, ‘FINAL’ Draft, November 1938.
150 RIBA, HiO / 79 / 6, Methley New Senior Council School, Notes of interview at the Board of Education, 5 November 1937.
151 Ibid. Ernest Wamsley Lewis’ Harcourt School also includes provision of a drying room under the main stair of the senior school, fitted with hot water pipes for children to store and dry their clothes. Author site visit, July 2009.
152 RIBA, HiO/79/6, Council of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Methley Proposed Senior School, Report by Architect, ‘FINAL’ Draft, November 1938.
153 CAI, Education for the Consumer, p. 35.
154 Hill returned to designing school buildings after the war, but failed to reignite the impetus of his interwar work with his publication Fair Horizon: Buildings of To-Day (London, 1950)Google Scholar, and speculative schemes for the prestigious Festival of Britain (1951). His Newbury Park Bus and Underground Station, commissioned by Frank Pick and designed in 1937 but completed post-war, was perhaps the pinnacle of Hill’s post-war Modernism.