Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 Liverpool Circa 1900
- 2 Early Influences and Experience
- 3 Designs on Monumentalism
- 4 Cultural Enterprises
- 5 The Chair of Civic Design
- 6 Early Architectural Work: 1904–1914
- 7 Journalism and Other Writing
- 8 Moves Towards Modernism
- 9 Later Architectural Work: 1918–1939
- 10 The Reilly Plan
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section
8 - Moves Towards Modernism
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 Liverpool Circa 1900
- 2 Early Influences and Experience
- 3 Designs on Monumentalism
- 4 Cultural Enterprises
- 5 The Chair of Civic Design
- 6 Early Architectural Work: 1904–1914
- 7 Journalism and Other Writing
- 8 Moves Towards Modernism
- 9 Later Architectural Work: 1918–1939
- 10 The Reilly Plan
- Conclusion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
The development of Modernism in Britain has been presented, depending on the writer's outlook, as either constituting the importation of an alien European style, inappropriate for the true national style, or as the rehabilitating and revitalizing element of a decadent British design philosophy. Writers such as Nikolaus Pevsner in Pioneers of Modern Design, first published in 1936, and The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design of 1968, suggested that Britain's influence in the development of twentieth-century architecture lay primarily in the work of William Morris and the proto-Modernist phase pre-1900. It then became dormant from the turn of the century until the arrival of European emigrés in the early 1930s. Pevsner claimed that
England's activity in the preparation of the Modern Movement came to an end immediately after Morris's death. The initiative now passed to the Continent and the United States, and, after a short intermediate period, Germany became the centre of progress. English writers have not failed to acknowledge this fact: but hardly anybody has tried to explain it. One reason may be this: so long as the new style had been a matter which in practice concerned only the wealthier class, England could foot the bill. As soon as the problem began to embrace the people as a whole, other nations took the lead…
Pevsner goes on to construct a theory which suggests that the work of Gropius, Morris and Ruskin forms a neat historical unit. Outside this unit, whole design philosophies such as Art Nouveau, as well as the developments of entire countries such as England, could be discounted. For Pevsner,
Gropius regards himself as a follower of Ruskin and Morris, of van de Velde and of the Werkbund. So our circle is complete. The history of artistic theory between 1890 and the First World War proves the assertion… that the phase between Morris and Gropius is an historical unit. Morris laid the foundation of the modern style: with Gropius its character was ultimately determined.
Such a theory of nationalistic determinism suited Pevsner's own agenda well. However, subsequent writers have taken a rather more pluralistic approach, which attempts to address the variety of expressions of proto-Modernism and Modernism during Pevsner's ‘lost period’.
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- Marketing ModernismsThe Architecture and Influence of Charles Reilly, pp. 139 - 161Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001