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Balliol’s modernist venture |oSWyn MuRRAy (EMERITUS FELLOW)
When in 1991 the College decided to build new accommodation on Jowett Walk we knew we wanted a set of buildings that would enhance the area without disturbing existing traditions. We visited every new student block in the south of England, rapidly discovering that, although almost any architect can put up stunning prestige buildings, very few know how to create user-friendly student blocks that do not resemble motels; we drew up a list of suitable names, and to help them we wrote a detailed brief of what we wished to see inside the accommodation, leaving the outside to them. Plans were submitted in a competition, and MJP Architects, the firm of Richard MacCormac, was chosen by a majority vote of the Fellows: I could have predicted the result, since much of our brief was written after visiting his buildings for Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge. Richard was already President of the RIBA and the most distinguished architect in the tradition of fusing modernism with classical forms, deeply influenced by Sir John Soane and by Lutyens, whose Castle Drogo became a source of inspiration for Jowett Walk. He had built for Worcester, Wadham and St John’s in Oxford, the
to keep the public rooms Ruskin Library at Lancaster and separate from the the amazing Cable and Wireless accommodation and satisfy Building in Coventry; in the future security needs with a single lay his election to the Royal gateway, and to claim that each Academy, his plan for Cambridge successive tower would be a new University Science Area and his building exempt from VAT, not an Piranesi masterpiece of practical extension. Hand-made bricks and architecture, Southwark specially designed stone concrete Underground station. lintels kept the price down. We soon discovered how Thanks to a brilliant site skilful Richard was in the use of architect, Jeremy Estop (now space. His design for the Jowett senior partner in MJP), and our Walk Buildings squeezed initially dedicated local builders Benfield 65 rooms and a theatre on to and Loxley, the building was two tennis courts. He also surely a first in Oxford, being provided a master plan for a twenty years finished below budget and on potential total of 180 rooms, of later Jowett time. It is still recognised as which a further 47 were built in 2005. So economical was he with walk is still one setting a new standard for of the most student accommodation, with full space that telephone booths and en-suite facilities and communal bathrooms had to be replaced by elegant new kitchen-dining rooms on each individual shower pods and buildings in floor. I remember asking Richard computer points. We passed the oxford. what it would look like a century city planning stage without from now: like all architects he opposition, and with praise from refused to reply, but 20 years the various conservation groups, later it is still one of the most elegant new the police and fire services. The plan was buildings in Oxford, and certainly the most exceptionally ingenious – octagonal distinguished building put up by Balliol in the staircase towers borrowed from the Tudor20th century. We were very fortunate to Gothic tradition of Cambridge gave each choose such an imaginative, modest and room multiple views; the entrances to the sympathetic architect for our venture four-storey towers were on the first floor, into modernism. and this elevated walkway allowed us both ian taylor
recalling the building of Jowett walk, to mark the death of sir richard maccormac (1938–2014), its designer.
Jowett Walk, photographed on completion of the second stage of the project in 2005.
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