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Robinson College, Cambridge, and the Twilight of a Collegiate Modernism, 1974–81

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Otto Saumarez Smith
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Extract

In 1974, Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein, of the leading Glasgow practice of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia (GKC), were announced as the winners of the competition to design the new Robinson College, Cambridge, which had been endowed by the businessman David Robinson. The first (and principal) phase of their design was completed in 1981. Robinson remains the most recently created college in Cambridge, which had seen a flurry of new foundations since the mid-1950s, including Churchill College, Clare Hall, Darwin College, Fitzwilliam College, New Hall, and Wolfson (originally University) College. In addition, Robinson was the last major project by its architects, who had assumed the creative lead at GKC in the early 1950s and were subsequently responsible for a series of significant religious and institutional buildings in both Scotland and England. The firm was wound up in 1987, a move that has been described as ‘a tragedy for Glasgow and for Scottish architecture’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 55 , 2012 , pp. 369 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. 2012

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References

Notes

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18 Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art Archives (hereafter ‘GSA’), GKC/COCAM/1/2, letter to Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, 23 May 1974.

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52 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.1, Leslie Martin’s initial proposal.

53 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.6, Casson Condor and Partner’s initial proposal.

54 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.6, note by Linnett.

55 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.9, Eric Lyons, Cunningham and Partner’s initial proposal, with note by Linnett.

56 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.2, Terry Farrell/Nicholas Grimshaw’s initial proposal.

57 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.4.7, MacCormac Jamieson Architect’s initial proposal.

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85 RCA, Linnett Papers 2.5, letter from Swanage Brick & Tile Company, 5 April 1976.

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87 See, for example, GSA, GKC/COCAM/1/19, minutes of meeting, 7 July 1977.

88 GSA, GKC / COCAM /1 /19, minutes of meeting with the architects at Robinson College, 24 June 1977.

89 Daily Telegraph, 1 August 1980.

90 Author’s interview with Isi Metzstein, 18 January 2011.

91 Interview with Metzstein, 18 January 2011. A version of this story also appears in Spalding, Frances, John Piper Myfanwy Piper, Lives in Art (London, 2009), p. 454 Google Scholar. However, Andy MacMillan reports that the anecdote is an exaggeration (author’s interview with Andy MacMillan, 18 February 2012).

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121 Oxford, Wadham College Archives, 82/B/61, New Library Proposal, 1973.

122 Oxford, Wadham College Archives, 82/11/1, Development Plan, 1966.

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124 Ibid.

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131 Cambridge, Downing College Archives, DGCB/M/1/12, Governing Body Minutes, 27 November 1964, p. 334.

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