The situation of housing should be established within a wider conversation of the condition of British Architecture. One could assess the conditions found in British architecture as divided, forming distinctive views on what society should value. As David Chipperfield assesses, the 1980s were a turbulent period in architectural history; “it was a confusing time and there was a big vacuum.”33 The ideals of the modern movement were beginning to be questioned by critical regionalism and its rejection of placeless modernism, which was unable to emotionally or socially respond to a particular place. This vacuum left the profession in Britain divided and without direction. Disengagement with the conditions of everyday architecture such as housing and a focus on landmark, attention-grabbing buildings, left a void in architectural development. This niche was reserved for an emerging group of young British architects that Jay Merrick calls “the new materialist,”34 a group that included Sergison Bates architects. Historically, Britain has been a difficult place for the young architect. Our architectural culture seems divided; one strand valuing an iconic image of architecture that is often, “site less and emerging from an elusive global condition,”35 and the other part rooted in a falsified sense of tradition generated by a reactionary approach in our planning systems. Both of these create a hostile environment for the emerging architect who lacks political favours needed to be included in the elusive grouping of the star-architect but yet seeks innovation through experimentation thus cannot be associated with a stifling conservatism. This grouping of architects, whose heroes include the Smithsons and artists of the 1950s and 1960s, acknowledge history’s place in the search for innovation; understanding that the modernist quest for newness, is as Adam Caruso says, “hopeless and pathetic.”36 Instead, they choose to engage with tradition, finding a relevant place for history within present day architectural discourse.
33
Gregory, Rob ‘RIBA Gold Medal winner David Chipperfield on style wars on the English condition’,
Architectural Review, 229, 1369, (March 2011), p.25-26
34
Jay Merrick, ‘The New Materialists’, Independent on Sunday, 19 February 2006, p.4
35
Caruso, Adam, ‘Cover Versions’, in The Feeling of Things, (Hove: Roundhouse Distributor, 2009)
p.12 36 32
Jay Merrick, ‘The New Materialists’, Independent on Sunday, 19 February 2006, p.4