BA Architecture Year 1: Cultural Context: A New Landscape of Health Book Review

JENNIFER WEBER

ARCHITECTURE

13.12.18

BOOK REVIEW

A NEW LANDSCAPE OF HEALTH, ELIZABETH DARLING

In the second chapter "A new landscape of health" from the book "Re-forming Britain: Narratives of Modernity before Reconstruction", author Elizabeth Darling starts off by describing the state of health of the people of Britain around 1890, showing that a large proportion of them lived in poverty and were severely weakened due to poor medical services, malnutrition, environmental pollution and many more. It was important to regenerate the people’s state and improve health in the whole country. Despite this, medics focused on bringing the people back to a stable, healthy state. Two different health centres are then presented in the text.

Among the “Finsbury Plan” there was the so-called “Peckham Experiment” which as included in the name took place in Peckham, South London and was introduced by two doctor-biologists Innes Hope Pearse and George Scott Williamson with the goal to observe and increase the health of worker-class families.

Darling also describes in the second chapter the execution of the experiment which was divided into two phases. Phase one, which lasted from 1926 to 1930 and could be described as a family club in a converted house attracted 112 families in three years, which for Pearse and Williamson was clear evidence of the demand for such a club. The doctors then initiated Phase two in which, after much thoughtful architectural planning, the Pioneer Health Centre was finally opened in 1935.

The author Dr Elizabeth Darling is currently a reader in Architectural History at the Oxford Brookes University. This book reflects her interest in inter-war modernism, social housing and gender. (Oxford Brookes University, 2018) She dissects the human mindset at this century. Her profession becomes visible in her writing style, since historians usually remain non-bias to the public. With the help of the given information she lays it bare for us to judge, criticise and more importantly learn from and build upon.

One topic the author Elizabeth Darling addresses in her book is the relevance of gender roles in the Peckham Center. Doctor Pearse and Williamson both attached great importance to developing gender roles in their experiment. (Page 62) They described the role of a mother as quoted: ‘The mother, primarily a physiological selective machine for the nutriment of the infant, becomes no less the medium

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through which the nutrition of the family in general is achieved‘ (Pearse and Williamson, 1931).

From the doctors' books it is clear that one of their main goals was to bring man and woman back to their specific gender role by making them engage more with feminine and masculine hobbies throughout their centre-experience. The doctors for example were aiming to inspire women to attend cooking lessons, knitting, needlework and dressmaking. Pearse and Williamson particularly influenced these choices with help of the architectural concept of the site as I quote: ‘Freedom, flexibility, and visibility were the chief characteristics of the building. Open planning made for multipurpose space and the free circulation of people and staff through the building, permitting the members free choice of activity and giving the staff opportunity to observe their behaviour.’ (Lewis and Brookes, 1983).

Another example can be found in a short film of the Pioneer Health Centre from the year 1947 called “The Centre”. The focus in the film lays on a newcomer family to the centre: Mr and Mrs Jones and their son Johnny. Throughout the film the audience can follow the child's development and the end result is just as the doctors wished: Johnny has changed from a so called “mommy-boy” to a courageous, independent and much more masculine boy. Mr and Mrs Jones also have made a clear development after a short period of time in the center. Both parents have become more inquisitive towards new experiences in the Peckham Health Centre such as the use of the equipment and engaging with other activities like dancing. At the end of the short film it is clearly shown how the family has become more active throughout their presence in the center. The family father was now spending some of his evenings with other member-fathers while the mother overcame her scepticism towards the experiment and finally allowed herself to get in touch with new - feminine - hobbies, such as knitting and cooking. (J.B. Holmes and Langton Gould-Marks, 1948) This behaviour confirms the fact that a person's environment has a certain influence on their actions, feelings and social activities.

The building has been particularly designed to work as an instrument of health in itself, as well as a microcosm of modern society. When analysing the conception of the rooms one can clearly see that they don't just simply exist in that place but are there to adjust to the members of the center and fulfil a certain effect. ‘In plan and form the building needed to attract or infect people with the desire to use it. Very simply, it needed to be a magnet for health. It should then be a beacon, emanating the possibility of a new life.’ (Page 59) as Elizabeth Darling said and later in the chapter quoted: ‘It is essentially a building designed to be furnished with people and with their actions.’ (Page 62). So the Peckham Health Centre was genuinely designed for its members to develop their health, drive their self-motivation and for them simply to enjoy the environment. The doctors and the engineer Owen Williams CULTURAL CONTEXT

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together successfully achieved to create a building which cooperates and works only in connection with its people - as a union. Or as Robert Furneaux Jordan beautifully described: ‘If the architect is to understand modern man, the biological organism for whom he must build, then he must understand him biologically. Thus ‘Peckham’ is not merely interesting as a building; research done at ‘Peckham’ can make a vital contribution to architecture. It can give the architect much of his data.

But ‘Peckham’ has done more; it has underlined the too often forgotten truism that architecture without people is meaningless.’ (1949) When thinking about architecture, one usually just thinks about the construction itself, which of course deserves a lot of focus. But one often doesn’t lay enough focus on the fact that a architectural construction does not fulfil its desired effect without the presence of its people. Often we take such things for granted and completely forget about the actual aim of a building, which is to create an adjusted environment for the people inside of it.

To conclude, even though the Peckham experiment seems morally wrong, today it opens up a myriad of vistas for us in the 21st century to explore, solve and create.

‘Community medicine specialists and other reformers often view the Peckham Health Centre experiment with uncritical nostalgia. The philosophy of the Centre's founders was rooted in biological premises about the nature of regeneration of race and nation that would find little favour today. Political and social implications of this Family-centred utopian experiment are reevaluated.’ (Lewis and Brookes, 1983) I believe that Elizabeth Darling covers the topic of the Pioneer Health Center very well. She summarises all the available information about the Peckham Experiment pretty clear and her factual and formal writing style makes the book easy for the reader to understand. However, I firmly believe that if the author would have included more quotations from the original books by Innes H. Pearse and George S. Williamson as well as a personal opinion at the end of the second chapter, the reader of the text could have had more original sources to reference back to. About the topic of the Peckham Experiment itself, I believe that at its time it was a successfully executed project, changing the thinking about health and building up a connection to architecture . Doctor Innes H. Pearse and George S. Williamson were certainly not the only ones in the past to think about the relationship between architecture and health. The well-known "Wellcome Collection" near Central London deals, despite other medical-related information, also with this topic in a current exhibition called "Living with Buildings". Various works by personalities such as Andreas Gursky, Rachel Whiteread and Martha Rosler, as well as the architecture of Goldfinger, Lubetkin and Aalto can be found in this exhibition. (Wellcome Collection, 2018). If someone finds interest in either architecture or health in general and likes

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to broaden their knowledge, it is recommended to look not only at Elizabeth Darlings book but also engage with the Wellcome Collections exhibition.

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Reference List:

Oxford Brookes University (2018) Staff Profiles (Online) Available at https:// www.brookes.ac.uk/templates/pages/staff.aspx?wid=academicstaff&op=full&uid=p0074982 (Last accessed 14.12.18)

Pearse and Williamson (1931) The Case for Action, London: Faber

Lewis and Brookes (1983) The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society Vol. 61, No. 2 (Spring, 1983), pp. 307-350 (Online) Available at https:// www.milbank.org/quarterly/articles/a-reassessment-of-the-work-of-the-peckhamhealth-centre-1926-1951/ (Last accessed 13.12.18)

J.B. Holmes and Langton Gould-Marks (1948) BFI Player, The Centre (Online) Available at https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-centre-1947-online (Last accessed 13.12.18)

Jordan (1949), The Bulletin of the Pioneer Health Centre, Peckham (Online) Available at https://www.sochealth.co.uk/1949/09/21/peckham/ (Last accessed 14.12.18)

Wellcome Collection (2018), Living with Buildings (Online) Available at https:// wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/Wk4sPSQAACcANwrX (Last accessed 14.12.18)

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