Sir Basil Urwin Spence (1907-1976)

The architect Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) devised the layout for the redevelopment of George Square into a new campus for the Faculty of Arts in 1955, and headed the team responsible for the design of the Main Library building (completed 1967).

Beginnings

Spence was born in Mumbai, India, and, at the age of 12, was sent by his Orcadian parents to study at George Watson's College, Edinburgh. In 1925 he went to Edinburgh College of Art, originally to study sculpture, but rapidly changing course to architecture. Here he came under the key formative influences of: architectural historian John Summerson (1904-1992), architect and town-planner Sir Frank Charles Mears (1880-1953), who both lectured at ECA; Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864-1929), a college governor and examiner; and visiting lecturers Walter Gropius (1883-1969), founder of the Bauhaus school, and Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953), the Art Deco pioneer.

Early Career

Having been awarded the ECA certificate in architecture in 1929, Spence left Edinburgh to work in the London office of Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), another important influence, and prepared furniture and garden designs for Viceroy House in New Delhi. He returned to Edinburgh in 1930 to complete his architectural training, proceeding to win the Rowand Anderson medal (1930), the RIBA silver medal (1931); the Pugin prize (1933), and the Arthur Cates Prize for Town Planning (1933). In 1931 he obtained his diploma in architecture and joined Rowand Anderson, Balfour Paul, & Partners, rising to junior partner by 1935. For the rest of the 1930s he combined relatively baronial-style conservative work for this established Edinburgh practice with more modernist designs for private houses in collaboration with his college friend William Hardie Kininmonth (1904-1988). Acclaim for the letter led to a major independent commission for Spence to design the Le Corbusier-influenced Scottish pavilion at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in 1938, along with the ICI pavilion and a country cottage intended as a model for agricultural workers. When war broke out Spence joined the Royal Artillery, eventually bringing his talent for design and landscape composition to bear as an officer in their camouflage unit. Serving in Normandy, he witnessed the destruction of ancients and recorded in his diary his desire to build a church fit for his own times, should he survive the war.

the outbreak of the Second World War came at an inopportune time for Spence. He joined the Royal Artillery and rose to the position of major in the camouflage unit, where his talent for design and landscape composition were put to advantage. He later became a staff captain in intelligence. While on duty in Normandy he witnessed the destruction of ancient religious structures, and declared in his diary the ambition to build a church of his own time if he was lucky enough to survive (L. Campbell, To Build, xiv). Post-war years in Edinburgh With few commissions available and an embargo on construction except for wartime repairs, Spence found his former practice unable to re-employ him. The following lean years were spent undertaking house extensions, exhibition and furniture design (mainly for Morris & Co. in Glasgow), and in teaching part-time at Edinburgh College of Art. In 1946 the practice of Basil Spence & Partners was formed mainly out of assistants from Balfour Paul's office and bright students from the college. The new practice was engaged initially on designing exhibition pavilions such as the Enterprise Scotland Exhibition in Edinburgh (1946), the Scottish Industries Exhibition in Glasgow (1947), the Britain Can Make It Exhibition in London (1949), and various British industry fairs overseas. However, by the late 1940s the practice received several more substantial commissions in the area of local authority housing. The projects Spence undertook at Bannerfield, Selkirk (1948), Dunbar (1949), Sunbury-on-Thames and Feltham (1950), and Shepperton (1951), are marked by a subtle interlocking of courtyards and quasi-modern detailing of vernacular forms. Large concrete-framed metal windows, delicate steel balconies, and smooth wall surfaces counterbalanced by areas of rough textured stonework are a feature of the work. Spence's design for working-class housing was sufficiently regarded for him to receive the Festival of Britain award for housing in 1951.

The exhibition work drew Spence to the attention of the organizers of the Festival of Britain (1951), who commissioned him to design the Sea and Ships Pavilion, Skylark Restaurant, Nelson Pier, and the heavy industries stand. Spence was the only architect from outside the close circle of London designers to be given work on any scale at the festival. The designs he developed from his office at 40 Moray Place, Edinburgh, using angled steel columns and curved roofs, signalled the emergence of an architect who had more than a Scottish outlook. Success at Coventry Cathedral Soon after the Festival of Britain had opened Spence learned, in August 1951, that he had won the competition to rebuild the cathedral at Coventry which had been reduced to a shell by incendiary bombs in 1940. The competition attracted over 100 entries, and followed the abandonment in 1947 of the rather conservative proposals for a new cathedral to designs by Giles Gilbert Scott. The brief called for retention of the existing tower and chapels beneath the nave, but Spence went further and retained the ruins of the whole. Several other architects had adopted a similar approach, but none produced a composition which was so balanced or so attentive to historic detail. Few others addressed the wider environs in a fashion which created an attractive sequence of pedestrian routes and semi-enclosed urban spaces which stitched the cathedral into the city fabric. Spence was also alone in exaggerating the perspective of the new nave by bringing the columns subtly together so that they enhanced the drama of the progression to the altar.

The design at Coventry was typical of Spence: the new cathedral was placed at right angles to the ruins of the old, whose column spacing rhythms and buttressed perimeter influenced the spirit of new arrangement. The burnt-out structure symbolized ‘Faith, Courage, and Sacrifice’, while the new building represented the ‘Resurrection’ (Spence and Snoek, 3). Old and new buildings, mirroring the Old and New testaments, were linked by a grand conception which Lewis Mumford applauded for its fusion of continuity and creativity. Spence had a rare ability to absorb the essence of place and make it a vital element of a new design. The right-angled realignment at Coventry allowed Spence to exploit the former nave as an open-air narthex to the new, setting a double-height porch in the space between the two structures. The new cathedral was long and majestic, with sawtooth-shaped walls and two nearly free-standing circular structures: the Chapel of Unity to the west and Chapel of Industry to the east, providing vertical articulation. The tall slot-like windows set in massive stone mullions, the circular drums projecting onto surrounding lawns, and the gaunt fire-damaged shell of the former cathedral made for a powerful composition which Spence exploited with understandable enthusiasm in several presentation perspectives. The best views were those which allowed the old tower and spire to act as a counterpoint to the chapels, giving the whole composition a repose which few other designs could match.

Success at Coventry and his presidency of the RIBA from 1958 to 1960 threw Spence into public prominence. He was much engaged in public speaking in support of his cathedral design, both defending its principles and helping to raise money for the construction. He contributed to articles in newspapers and magazines, appeared on radio and television, and travelled to Canada and the USA to gain support for the project from wealthy benefactors. The flair Spence displayed in drawing was matched by an equal facility for public speaking. He talked in terms the general public would understand, making modern architecture seem attractive and understandable. In this he helped pave the way for a wider acceptance of the principles of modern architecture. His ‘fantastic fluency with words, draftsmanship and architecture’ (The Guardian, 20 Nov 1976) prepared post-war Britain for the wider adoption among clients and individuals of the discipline of modernity. The resolution of traditional values and progressive spirit at Coventry marks a high point for twentieth-century architecture in Britain. Lewis Mumford, who accompanied Spence around the building in 1961, observed that it ‘vibrates longer and with deeper resonance than many other works of modern architecture’ (New Yorker, 10 March 1962).

By the time Coventry Cathedral was consecrated by the queen in 1962, Basil Spence had become a household name. His cathedral, though orthodox in plan and structurally more theatrical than essential for the needs of gravity, had a modern spirit and one which was distinctly British in character. This owed much to the works of art which were incorporated into the building: a fine tapestry by Graham Sutherland, stained glass by John Piper, and sculpture by Jacob Epstein and Elisabeth Frink both celebrated and brought to public attention modern British art. Spence's training at Edinburgh College of Art provided a basis for commissioning artists of like mind and at Coventry the partnership between architect, craftsman, and artist allowed each to flourish in the manner of the medieval cathedral.

The combination of success in the Coventry Cathedral competition and the praise surrounding the Festival of Britain buildings led Spence to open an office in Buckingham Street, London, in 1951, followed by a larger undertaking at 48–52 Queen Anne Street a year later. Although the firm of Basil Spence & Partners existed throughout, an Edinburgh practice known as Spence, Glover, and Ferguson was formed in 1958 and a London practice known subsequently as Spence, Bonnington, and Collins two years later. In addition, from 1964 Spence maintained a small select office known as Sir Basil Spence OM RA, which worked from rooms above his London home in Canonbury Place. The various Spence offices employed a degree of design independence and were seen at the time as important stopping-off points for young architects passing through the architecture schools of London or Edinburgh. Many of the partners developed designs on their own account, notably Andrew Renton with Thorn House in London (1959), Hardie Glover with Glasgow airport (1962), and John Bonnington with the Sunderland civic centre (1970). A great deal of design output was generated in the offices under the direction of partners but Spence maintained control over quality by requiring key projects to be sent to Canonbury Place before submission to clients. In total, the various Spence offices in London and Edinburgh produced 160 major buildings and master plans over a forty-year period. Public commissions in the 1960s After Coventry Cathedral Spence was much in demand. He was appointed to design at least a dozen churches in England (of which at least three were in Coventry) and a further group in Scotland. These develop the earlier theme: an orthodox if irregular plan punctuated by shafts of light designed to focus upon the pulpit, free-standing bell-towers, integration of church architecture and liturgical art, and a rugged materiality of construction. Mortonhall crematorium outside Edinburgh, with its irregularly coursed sandstone, severe angularity, and twists in plan, is among the best. Some were favourably reviewed in architectural journals, others ignored for their aping of traditional configuration when modern churches were increasingly in the round.

Spence benefited considerably from the expansion of higher education in the UK following the Robbins report of 1963. He was appointed to master-plan the new University of Sussex and provide the framework for the expansion of many others: Southampton, Nottingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Durham, and Exeter. The Spence offices in London and Edinburgh also provided designs for a variety of faculty buildings, including the libraries at Sussex University (1962), Edinburgh University (1964), and Heriot-Watt University (1970). The projects in which Spence took a personal interest—for example, Falmer House, Sussex University (1962), and St Aidan's College, Durham (1963)—display characteristic visual power and bold construction. Structure was something Spence approached with the eye not of an engineer but of a sculptor. Huge oversailing segmental arched roofs, walls of rough brick or stone, and massive double-height columns gave these buildings a primitive quality which owed an increasing debt to Le Corbusier. His expansion of Queens' College, Cambridge, in mellow red brick built upon a pilotis was, in 1959, the first building in the modernist style along the Backs.

In parallel with the expansion of university provision, Spence received many commissions from public bodies. These included central-area redevelopment schemes in Newcastle, Sunderland, Hampstead, and Chelsea and work on the development of Basildon New Town. From these master plans grew much subsequent work: the Swiss Cottage Library and public baths (1960–62); the new public library in Newcastle (1969); the civic centre, Sunderland (1970); Kensington town hall (1974), and many lesser works. He also designed the Knightsbridge barracks overlooking Hyde Park (1967–70), as a muscular thirty-storey tower block. It was much criticized at the time, but Spence said ‘I did not want this to be a mimsy-pimsy building. It is for soldiers. On horses. In armour’ (private information).

Spence was also much involved in housing projects, and won a Saltire award for harbourside housing in Dunbar, Scotland, and in more heroic spirit for the now demolished Gorbals tower blocks in Glasgow. In the 1960s he was the most sought-after architect for public buildings in the UK, and where he could not provide detailed design services he acted as ‘consultant’, especially on overseas commissions. In this capacity he advised the New Zealand government on the design of the new parliament building in Wellington, the United Nations on its new offices in Geneva, and the trustees of the Kennedy memorial. He was involved in the design of the Riverstaete Building in Amsterdam, and new banks and airports from Greece to Iraq. The reports Spence furnished in his capacity as consultant were invariably supported by perspective sketches full of mood and drama, and pregnant with architectural possibility.

Among the avalanche of work two projects in particular required close attention. The first was the Rome embassy for the British government, commissioned in 1960 and opened a decade later. The site stood alongside Michelangelo's Porta Pia, the structural proportions of which Spence adopted for his design. Spence had always been fascinated by the play of light on walls and in the Rome embassy manipulated sunlight and shadows to give the building the presence needed to stand alongside its distinguished neighbour. As with Coventry Cathedral a close examination of context provided the basis for a design which, though modern in materials and construction, added subtly to the wider composition. As with the cathedral, the Rome embassy was seen in some architectural circles as too traditional and picturesque and hence out of step with the growing brutalism of modern architecture. The other project of note from this period was the British pavilion designed by Spence for Expo '67 in Montreal. Here a composition of pyramids, platforms, and towers (largely devoid of structural logic) provided exhibition space in which British goods (including the Mini) and works of art (including sculpture by Henry Moore) could be displayed. The basic form, a huge fractured crystal surrounded by an extensive moat, allowed light to penetrate in triangular shafts, providing that touch of panache necessary in exhibition pavilions. Awards at home and abroad tainted by growing criticism By the early 1970s Spence was highly regarded by the general public and professional peers, though architectural critics led by the Architectural Review were becoming more vocal. His rise to eminence had been swift and he received an unprecedented number of public and professional awards. Knighted in 1960, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1962 and received honorary awards from the French Academy, the American Institute of Architects, and the Rome Academy, as well as the Royal Academy in London, and doctorates from many universities. Spence rose to the highest professional office in the UK, by becoming president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1958–60), and was given the title Royal Designer for Industry in 1960. Inevitably over a career of forty years Spence could not always adapt to changing fashions or client demand. His image also became tarnished by a reputation for a scale of architectural ambition that often exceeded his clients' budgets (the nickname Sir Basil-Expense was coined following cost overruns at Sussex University). Some critics dismissed his buildings as over-theatrical and lacking in technological substance. Of his British pavilion at Expo '67 the Architectural Review said it ‘looked like a shape designed for its own sake, with the means of construction decided afterwards’ (Architectural Review, August 1967, 157).

The criticism cut deep: Spence sought refuge in his wife, Joan, and their two children, Milton and Gillian. Joan, who had earlier given Spence resolution in the face of criticism over the design for Coventry Cathedral, again supported her husband in the later years. But increasingly they withdrew to the holiday homes he had designed overlooking the river at Beaulieu in Hampshire and in Majorca and Malta. Here he painted, designed buildings for admiring clients, sailed, and entertained surrounded by works of art. An appraisal Basil Spence brought flair to the colourless world of post-war British architecture. His bow-ties, dapper suits, ready smile, and talent for publicity helped revitalize the profession in the 1950s. Largely uninterested in the technology of building construction, suspicious of system building and even at times of functionalism itself, he was supremely an architect of the senses. The visual world was Spence's main concern: how things looked was no less important than how well they performed their task. If the aesthetics of architecture ran deep in the Spence consciousness, they found particular expression in the handling of light, in geometrical composition, and in the relationship between buildings and landscape. In this he shared affinity with other artists of his age—the sculptor Henry Moore and the painters Graham Sutherland, Victor Pasmore, and John Piper. Spence was the most painterly in outlook of mid-twentieth-century British architects. The eye was the dominant sense and when doubt arose he trusted his visual judgement. The large formal perspective drawing was prepared by Spence not just to win over clients and committees but also to confirm to himself the validity of his initial vision. He died at Yaxley Hall, near Eye, Suffolk, on 19 November 1976, and was buried at St Mary's Church, Thornham Parva, Eye, Suffolk.

After a period of disfavour Spence's reputation began to revive in the 1990s and many of his buildings, savaged at the time, are now listed. The protected structures include some of his more controversial projects: Swiss Cottage Library, Knightsbridge barracks, Coventry Cathedral, Mortonhall crematorium, and most of Sussex University.

Brian W. Edwards

Brian W. Edwards, ‘Spence, Sir Basil Urwin (1907–1976)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2012 accessed 27 Feb 2015