No more giants: J. M. Richards, modernism and The Architectural Review

By Jessica Kelly

Architecture is more than buildings and architects. It also involves photographers, writers, advertisers and broadcasters, as well as the people who finance and live in the buildings. Using the career of the critic J. M. Richards as a lens, this book takes a new perspective on modern architecture. Richards served as editor of The Architectural Review from 1937 to 1971, during which time he consistently argued that modernism was integrally linked to vernacular architecture, not through style but through the principle of being an anonymous expression of a time and public spirit. Exploring the continuities in Richards’s ideas throughout his career disrupts the existing canon of architectural history, which has focused on abrupt changes linked to individual ‘pioneers’, encouraging us to think again about who is studied in architectural history and how they are researched.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jan 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526143778

Book preview

No more giants

ffirs01-fig-5001.jpgffirs02-fig-5001.jpg

general editors

Elizabeth Currie,

Sally-Anne Huxtable

and

James Ryan

founding editor

Paul Greenhalgh

To buy or to find out more about the books currently available in this series, please go to: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/studies-in-design-and-material-culture/

No more giants

J.M. Richards, modernism and The Architectural Review

Jessica Kelly

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Jessica Kelly 2022

The right of Jessica Kelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material, and the publisher will be pleased to be informed of any errors and omissions for correction in future editions.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 4375 4 hardback

First published 2022

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover image:

Gordon Cullen, Rendering of the army exhibition, The Architectural Review (October, 1943) © Gordon Cullen Estate. Image courtesy of The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture.

Typeset

by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd

Make no more giants, God! But elevate the race at once.

Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 1835

Contents

List of plates

List of figures

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Introduction

1 Critical connections: Jim Richards's network, 1924–38

2 What is wrong with architecture? The Architectural Press, the profession and the architectural public

3 ‘Cranks and laymen’: propaganda for modern architecture, 1935–41

4 The Castles on the Ground: reconstruction, public participation and the future of modernism, 1941–51

5 Stocktaking: the contesting voices of architectural criticism, 1951–61

6 ‘Life is right, the architect is wrong’: public participation and architectural criticism, 1962–73

Postscript

Bibliography

Index

Plates

1 J.M. Richards's relational network. Diagram by Amy Etherington

2 London locations in Richards's personal and professional life. Map by Amy Etherington

3 Houses in Sussex. Map by Amy Etherington

4 Painting of Jim Richards by Peggy Angus, 1947. Courtesy of Victoria and Richard Gibson

5 Photograph from Peggy Angus's Furlongs Journal, featuring Jim Richards, Eric Ravilious, Helen Binyon and Peggy Angus. Courtesy of Victoria and Richard Gibson

6 Eric Ravilious, Interior at Furlongs, 1939. Private collection on loan to the Towner Collection. Image Towner Eastbourne

7 Mantelpiece at Furlongs, featuring found objects, paintings and a Staffordshire figurine. Photograph from Peggy Angus's Furlongs Journals, courtesy of Victoria and Richard Gibson

8 Dresser at Furlongs, featuring handmade craft objects, Staffordshire figurines and royal memorabilia. Photograph from Peggy Angus's Furlongs Journals, courtesy of Victoria and Richard Gibson

9 Gerald Heard, ‘The Dartington Experiment’, The Architectural Review, April 1934, 119–21, photography by Dell and Wainwright. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

10 J.M. Richards, An Introduction to Modern Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1940).

11 ‘Destruction and Reconstruction’, The Architectural Review Special Issue, July 1941. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

12 Coastal Command by Hilary St George Sanders, published by Ministry of Information, 1942, edited by J.M. Richards. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

13 Front Line by C.R. Leslie, published by Ministry of Information, 1942, edited by J.M. Richards. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

14 The Architectural Review, July 1951. Featuring Peggy Angus's tile designs for the Lansbury Lawrence Primary School, built as part of the Live Architecture Exhibition. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University. © Gordon Cullen Estate

15 Alison and Peter Smithson, Urban Re-Identification Grid, 19, with photographs by Nigel Henderson. Copyright Smithson Family Collection, Courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art modern

16 ‘Stocktaking 1’, The Architectural Review, February 1960, 93. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

17 Manplan 1: ‘Frustration’, The Architectural Review, September 1969, photograph by Patrick Ward. RIBA Collections

Figures

0.1 CIAM Conference, 1947, Bridgwater, Somerset: group photograph of the participants on a visit to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. RIBA Collections

1.1 Interior at Charleston Farmhouse. Clive Bell's study. Alamy

1.2 J.M. Richards, ‘Black and White: an Introductory Study of a National Design Idiom’, The Architectural Review, November 1937, 165–75. Featuring photographs from Richards's and Piper's driving trip to Devon and Cornwall. RIBA Collections.

1.3 Page from John Piper, ‘The Nautical Style’, The Architectural Review, January 1938, with photographs of Trinity House buoys. RIBA Collections.

1.4 Page from John Piper, ‘The Nautical Style’, The Architectural Review, January 1938, with illustrations showing the evolution of the design of the Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Plymouth. RIBA Collections.

1.5 J.M. Richards, ‘Black and White: an Introductory Study of a National Design Idiom’, The Architectural Review, November 1937, 174. RIBA Collections.

1.6 Peggy Angus's house, Furlongs, near Firle, East Sussex. Photograph by Edwin Smith, RIBA Collections

1.7 Enid Marx, Wally Dogs from Six Linocuts, Judd Street Gallery, 1960 (set produced between 1936 and 1970). Courtesy of Pallant House Gallery (The Breuning-Eve Gift of Enid Marx Prints, 2007)

1.8 Interior of Penthouse, Highpoint Two, North Hill, Highgate, London, designed and lived in by Berthold Lubetkin, c. 1938. RIBA Collections.

2.1 The Architectural Press offices, 9–13 Queen Anne's Gate, London. RIBA Collections

2.2 Dawnay and Sons Ltd, Announcement ‘Public Appreciation of Architects’, The Architectural Review, March 1921, x–xi.

2.3 The Architectural Review Supplement, May 1926, which included sections: Craftsmanship, Views and Reviews and A London Diary. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

2.4 The Architectural Review Supplement, ‘A Craftsman's Portfolio, 1 – Hall Lights’, May 1926, 252–5. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

2.5 Arthur Trystan Edwards, ‘What the Building Said, I – Overheard in Regent Street’, The Architectural Review, June 1926, 294–5. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

2.6 The Shell Guide to Cornwall, 1934, written by John Betjeman, published by the Architectural Press. Courtesy of the Shell Heritage Art Collection

2.7 David Pleydell-Bouverie, ‘Modern Interior Lighting Practice’, The Architectural Review, April 1932, 110. RIBA Collections

2.8 ‘A Transformation’, Letter from Wilhelmina Palmer, The Architectural Review, February 1932, 83.

3.1 The Isokon Penguin Donkey featured in the Bulletin of Standard Designs, The Architectural Review, January 1940. Pritchard Papers, University of East Anglia

3.2 The MARS Exhibition Model Living Room. May 1926. RIBA Collections.

3.3 C.H. Reilly, ‘Criticism Column’, The Architectural Review, March 1935, 113. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.4 J.M. Richards, ‘Towards a Rational Aesthetic: an Examination of the Characteristics of Modern Design with Particular Reference to the Influence of the Machine’, The Architectural Review, December 1935, 211. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.5 J.M. Richards, ‘Towards a Rational Aesthetic: an Examination of the Characteristics of Modern Design with Particular Reference to the Influence of the Machine’, The Architectural Review, December 1935, 212–13. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.6 C.H. Reilly, ‘Street by Street: a Critical Tour of Famous Thoroughfares 1. The Strand (Northside)’, The Architectural Review, January 1936, 35. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.7 C .H. Reilly, ‘Street by Street: a Critical Tour of Famous Thoroughfares 1. The Strand (Northside)’, The Architectural Review, January 1936, 36–7. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.8 James MacQuedy, ‘Criticism Column’, The Architectural Review, March 1941, 51. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

3.9 Peter F.R. Donner, ‘Treasure Hunt: Critical Notes’, The Architectural Review, January 1943, 47. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

4.1 Front Line by C.R. Leslie, published by Ministry of Information, 1942, edited by J.M. Richards. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

4.2 The Bride of Denmark, 9–13 Queen Anne's Gate, London. RIBA Collections

4.3 Living Room, Show House, Live Architecture Exhibition, Poplar 1951, photograph. The National Archives

5.1 Outrage, Special Issue of The Architectural Review, June 1955. Edited by Ian Nairn. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

5.2 Counter Attack, The Architectural Review, December 1956, Edited by Ian Nairn. Image courtesy of the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University

5.3 Photograph of installation view of Parallel of Life and Art exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1953. Nigel Henderson, © Nigel Henderson Estate. Photo: © Tate.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the people who knew Jim Richards who agreed to talk to me for my research and who helped me locate the somewhat elusive and scattered sources. Colin Amery was the first person I spoke to and he put me in touch with Lady Susan Lasdun, whose generosity with her own research material as well as her memories of Richards were invaluable. Nicholas Taylor had the most detailed memories of working with Richards and his stories really enlivened Jim for me. Victoria Gibson and her husband Richard Gibson agreed to speak to me about her father and shared a wealth of correspondence, photographs and unpublished manuscripts. This book would not have been possible without them. Their generosity with their memories, family histories and hospitality, shaped this project and I am very grateful.

This book has been supported by the internal research fund at the University for the Creative Arts and by the publication grant of the Design History Society. Some of the research was supported by the Getty Foundation for a research trip to their archive in Los Angeles.

For their help with locating and photographing spreads of The Architectural Review and other obscure images, thank you to Jonathan Makepeace at the RIBA and Claire Isherwood at the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, as well as teams of archivists and librarians who have assisted in the complicated task of researching this book. Thank you to Amy Etherington who made the original illustrations for the maps of Richards's network and the sites in London and Sussex. Thank you to the current editorial staff of The Architectural Review for giving permission to reproduce images of the magazine in this book.

Thank you to Elizabeth Darling for her feedback on early drafts of this book and for her continued generosity and support. I have been lucky to be the recipient of guidance, support and encouragement from Harriet Aitkinson, Dana Arnold, Chiara Barbieri, Louise Campbell, Barry Curtis, Erdem Erten, Suzanne Ewing, Alistair Fair, Janina Gosseye, Susie Harries, David Heathcote, Zoe Hendon, Eleanor Herring, Claire Jamieson, Grace Lees Maffei, Anne Massey, Margaret Outen, Stephen Parnell, Diana Periton, Alan Powers, Neal Shasore, Naomi Stead, Deborah Sugg Ryan, Igea Troiani, Deborah Van Der Plaat.

My colleagues at the University for the Creative Arts have supported me throughout this book project: thank you to Liz Baxter, Sian Bennett, Adrian Bland, Mark Brill, Victoria Kelley, Tom Northey, Artun Ozguner, Anne Reimers and Catharine Slade-Brooking.

To my friends, who are always there, through everything, thank you to Sophie Bodoh, Katie Darian, Hazel Davies, Jenny Garlick, Theresa Halliday, Kay Johnson, Teleri Lloyd Jones and Barbi Sido. To my Feminist Book Group sisters, in solidarity.

Finally, to my family, without whom nothing would be possible and to whom I owe everything, thank you, Tom Kelly, Janette Kelly, Joe Kelly, Becci Connolly and Mike Wagg. And to Mike, I think you are wonderful, thank you for everything.

Abbreviations

AA – Architectural Association

AIA – Artists International Association

AJ – The Architects’ Journal

AR – The Architectural Review

BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation

CIAM – Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne

DIA– Design and Industries Association

ICA – Institute of Contemporary Arts

MARS – Modern Architecture Research Group

RIBA – Royal Institute of British Architects

RFAC – Royal Fine Art Commission

Introduction

A building should not be a monument to its architect. This idea echoed through James Maude Richards's work during his forty-year career as an editor, critic, author and broadcaster. He believed that architects should be anonymous experts, producing buildings for the service and improvement of people's lives. He understood his job as a journalist to be persuading architects to work in this way and cultivating a public that would appreciate architects’ services. His approach to architecture was summed up in an obituary of Richards, known as Jim to his friends, written by the architect Denys Lasdun, in which he paraphrases Robert Browning: ‘Jim would have applauded Robert Browning's words, No more great men, dear god, just raise the general level.’ ¹ These words described Richards's belief that architecture was about more than the taste and artistic expression of great architects; architecture was a ‘significant social activity’, which could shape society.² He was preoccupied with how modern architecture could fulfil this purpose of ‘raising the general level’ of building and avoid simply aggrandising individual architects. This book is about how Richards's ideas contributed to modern architecture.

Having trained as an architect in the late 1920s, he began his career in journalism as an assistant editor at The Architect's Journal (AJ) in 1933, moving in 1935 to The Architectural Review (AR), where he worked until his retirement in 1971.³ After the Second World War he became architectural correspondent for The Times newspaper and a regular broadcaster on BBC radio.⁴ His career mapped the changing relationship between the media, the architectural profession and public audiences over these decades. In particular, his work traced the evolution of how critics and architects defined public audiences and how they responded to public tastes and opinions. But amongst these changes, Richards's ideas about anonymity and public engagement with architecture remained constant. In 1937 he wrote that the personality of individual architects should be culturally irrelevant and in 1973 he was imploring architects to resist the lure of ‘the brass plaque’ and their ‘eagerness for self-expression’, to exchange arrogance for humility.

⁵

This book explores the continuities in Richards's ideas that accompanied the changes in architecture throughout the five decades of his career, up to his retirement from the AR.

⁶

This consistency disrupts existing historical narratives that focus on the abrupt changes in modern architecture after the Second World War. Richards consistently argued that modernism was integrally linked to vernacular architecture, not through style but through the principle of being an anonymous expression of a time and public spirit.⁷ Vernacular was not a compromise or a retreat from modernism; from Richards's perspective it was a defining characteristic of his approach to modernism and journalism. This exploration of the source of his ideas and how they developed offers a fresh perspective on the history of modern architecture.

Although he played a central role in modern architecture, Richards is a peripheral figure in most histories of modernism. His career has been overlooked because architectural history has focused on buildings and architects. Exploring a history of architecture through the work of an editor and critic requires an expanded definition of architecture. Architecture is more than buildings and architects; it includes the channels of mediation, the photographers, writers, advertisers and broadcasters, as well as the people who commissioned architects, who financed projects and lived in and around buildings. No More Giants explores architectural media as a part of architecture. It approaches magazines, books, exhibitions and radio and television broadcasts as things shaped by the interests, agendas and motivations of the people producing them. This book considers how Jim Richards's approach to journalism and his ideas about vernacular and anonymity constituted modernism in architecture.

Biography

Focused on Jim Richards's career and his writing, this book explores some of the details of his personal life, his homes and the entanglements of his personal and professional networks. But it is not a conventional biography, it does not aim to chart his life from birth to grave, nor does it seek to promote Richards as a ‘giant’ of modern architecture.⁸ Instead it uses the details of Richards's life and work to explore the definition and history of modernism in architecture. It argues that he was representative of a particular cultural moment and of an approach to architectural journalism and modernism.⁹ Studying architecture through the work of an editor and critic reveals new perspectives on who and what constituted modern architecture.

Existing accounts have described Richards as ‘journey-man’, particularly in contrast to the creativity and flair of his boss, the chairman and owner of the Architectural Press, Hubert de Cronin Hastings.¹⁰ Carolyn Trant, in her book about the life and work of Peggy Angus (Richards's first wife), described him as ‘by temperament, a commentator rather than a man of action’.¹¹ While this may appear to make Richards an unlikely subject of historical research, his focus on mediating the work of others is what makes him worthy of study. I think of Richards as being like a civil servant of architectural culture. He worked diligently, often anonymously, behind the scenes to produce the magazine. Both the AJ and the AR were published by the Architectural Press. His career also included working for several organisations and on committees that were instrumental in architecture and culture in the mid-twentieth century; from the Modern Architecture Research group (MARS) and the Georgian Group to the architecture committee of the Festival of Britain, the Royal Fine Art Commission, the Council for Industrial Design and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). This committee work was characteristic of a culture in which architects were experts, guiding cultural decisions.

cintro-fig-0001.jpg

Figure 0.1

CIAM Conference, 1947, Bridgwater, Somerset: group photograph of the participants on a visit to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. The group includes Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Erno Goldfinger, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Wells Coates, Monica Pidgeon. Jim Richards is standing on the back row, eleventh from the right.

This photograph of Richards at a meeting of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1947 captures his position within the world of modern architecture: he was in the background but at the centre (Figure 0.1). He did not seek the limelight but he did work to steer and direct cultural debate and decision making. Understanding the content of his work, but also his place within the networks of architectural culture, reveals overlooked details about the history of modern architecture. The aim of Richards's journalism was to cultivate public audiences and to promote the services of the architectural profession. Even his books had the same intention of mediating between the profession and the public.

¹²

He was focused on members of the public and their relationship with architecture and design. This approach was representative of a period in architectural publishing; it was the product of his political influences, the demands for publicity and the changing market for architecture. His focus on public audiences for architecture and an interest in vernaculars were integral to the definition of modernism amongst these organisations.

This is not the full story of Richards's life nor is it a comprehensive history of modern architecture; it tells a story of modern architecture through Richards's work in media and details of his life while he was editor of the AR. Richards provides a lens on the wider context of modern architecture. Rather than treating him as a hero protagonist, this book traces his place within intersecting networks. For instance, his marriage to the artist Peggy Angus and his friendships with artists Eric Ravilious and John Piper were particularly formative and offer a vital context for understanding his approach to architecture. Looking at his work in relation to that of his colleagues such as Nikolaus Pevsner, Hubert de Cronin Hastings, Philip Morton Shand, Reyner Banham, Ian Nairn and many other critics and architects shows how as part of this network Richards contributed to the meaning and character of modernism.

Pierre Bourdieu's writing on the ‘biography illusion’ and Michael Freeden's work on the ‘individualist fallacy’ were helpful in thinking of biography as something more than an isolated story of a unique individual.¹³ Both suggest that the actions and ideas of an individual person are dependent upon the wider system of associations and relations. As Bourdieu wrote:

Trying to understand a life as a unique and self-sufficient series of successive events with no links other than their association with a ‘subject’ […] is nearly as absurd as trying to make sense out of a subway route without taking into account the network structure, that is the matrix of objective relations between the different stations.

¹⁴

The matrix of relations between Richards's friends and colleagues reveals the complexity of architecture and the web of entanglements that constituted modernism.¹⁵ This book explores what we can learn about modern architecture through the writing and career of an editor and critic.

Behind the scenes: a view from elsewhere in architectural history

Looking at modern architecture through the lens of Richards's career as an editor, author, broadcaster and committee member disrupts the existing canon of architectural history, which has focused on individual ‘pioneers’ or geniuses.¹⁶ It is an effort to rethink who is studied in architectural history and how they are researched.

A canon is a collection of what is deemed to be the best and most significant examples of a cultural practice.¹⁷ For instance, the canon of modern architecture consists of the work of architects such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. It is inherently selective and based on a particular worldview, but its legitimacy rests on the appearance of inevitability and universal value. Critiques of the canon are often based on arguing for the recognition of the people and work that have been excluded. For instance the work of women. However, in her feminist rethinking of art history, Griselda Pollock argued that these efforts to insert ‘different’ examples into the canon often reinforce the binary of the ‘norm’ and the ‘other’.¹⁸ Pollock uses the work of Teresa de Lauretis to argue that the opposition between inside and outside of the canon can be displaced by what de Lauretis calls ‘a view from elsewhere’.

¹⁹

A view from elsewhere is defined as ‘the blind spots … the spaces in the margins … the chinks and cracks’ in the dominant worldview that constructs canons.²⁰ It is the things that were always there, but which were overlooked and ignored, which remain ‘unrepresented’.²¹ Pollock described her own ‘re-visioning’ of art history as a process of rediscovering that which was concealed by the canon. This study of Richards's career offers a view from elsewhere in architectural history. It is a ‘re-visioning’ of the history of modern architecture. His career reveals the networks of people and places involved in architecture, which have been obscured by the myth of the individual genius architect.

Although this book is focused on Richards's career and writing, it situates them within a web of entangled lives and influence. Looking behind the scenes at Peggy Angus's cottage Furlongs, or in the Architecture Press offices at Queen Anne's Gate, gives a perspective on networks of people, places and ideas. It does not raise Richards up as a giant in the history of architecture but considers his career in the context of his personal and professional relationships – as well as in the broader contexts of the rise of publicity in architecture and changing media cultures, such as the rise of television.

Even when the media are the object of study, the work of editors is difficult to access. Myles Wright, editor of the AJ, said of de Cronin Hastings that ‘no man of such influence has ever been so invisible and unrecorded’.²² Much of Richards's work and influence was also invisible. His role as a nexus, a connection point within a network, was integral to his work as an editor. Reyner Banham described Richards as the ‘Great Insider’ because he knew ‘absolutely everybody’.²³ But how can we access this work that went on behind the scenes? The printed pages of the magazine are the result of this work, but the intangible networking, influencing and connecting people were not documented in written records and are thus rendered invisible. This difficulty was confounded by the loss of the administrative archive of the Architectural Press for the years before 1978. Peter Davey, who was editor of the AR from 1980 to 2005, wrote to Richards in 1984 confirming that the archive and all of Richards's professional papers were lost. Davey's letter survives in the private papers of Victoria Gibson, Richards's daughter.

²⁴

The loss of the administrative documents and records of the magazine makes it almost impossible to trace the day-to-day workings of the magazines. The only records of the history of the magazine are in letters scattered across the archives of former staff members and contributors to the magazine and in Richards's memoirs and in oral histories.²⁵ In the 1970s the architectural historian Brian Hanson conducted interviews with the staff of the Architectural Press and compiled a timeline of the history of the publishing house on a collection of index cards. A facsimile of the Hanson index cards was in the possession of Lady Susan Lasdun, who in 1996 conducted her own research into the history of the AR.²⁶ I was able to consult Lady Lasdun's copy of the index cards and recordings of her interviews, in my research. This source, a written record of an oral history, is characteristic of the plethora of different and sometimes hybrid sorts of sources involved in researching Richards's career.

The multitude of sources in this research ranged from conversations with people, published writing, photographs, drawings, written descriptions and oral accounts to interior spaces, letters, radio broadcasts, minutes from meetings, television programmes and exhibitions. There is a focus on language in this book, because it is the constant medium in Richards's different types of work from an editor and author to a broadcaster and committee member. His work always involved words whether they were published or unpublished, spoken or written. Through his language it is possible to trace the continuity in his ideas throughout his career, as graphic and photographic styles changed. I do explore instances in the AR and elsewhere, where visual and textual languages intersected to communicate meaning to the audience. I also explore how the material culture that decorated the spaces where Richards's lived and worked related to his writing. I use a combination of texts, objects and images to access his ideas about modernism and architecture.

This work of tracing the ideas threaded through Richards's work and life was based on the concept of discourses, which offered a methodological tool to make sense of the diversity of sources.²⁷ A discourse is commonly defined as a spoken or written communication. However, Michel Foucault used the term to describe ways of constituting knowledge. Foucault defined discourses as groups of ‘statements’.²⁸ A statement could include anything from images, objects, spaces, thoughts, values, behaviour and identities. Knowledge or meaning was produced as discourses ordered and positioned statements in particular configurations. He used the analogy of how a sentence relates to a text to explain how discourses constituted meaning.²⁹ A sentence exists independently of a text, so too a statement exists outside of a discourse. However, a text creates a meaning by ordering sentences in a particular way. Similarly, a discourse creates meaning by ordering statements in relation to one another. Discourses, in this sense, were a way of finding the ‘unities, totalities, series relations’ between the different sources in order to understand their meaning.

³⁰

I approached the sources in this research as statements, given meaning by their relationship to each other. I understood my research as the act of piecing together statements in order to understand the configuration that gave them meaning. For example, by exploring the interior decoration of Peggy Angus's cottage, in relation to Richards's published writing about suburban architecture and minutes from meetings of MARS; I could understand modernism as a discourse that united these different statements.

This methodology is the basis of a ‘view from elsewhere’ in architectural history. It constructs a history of modernism through configurations of otherwise disparate source material from writing, editing and public exhibitions to private interior spaces and private correspondence and photographs. As such, it demonstrates the different stories that are revealed when we look beyond (or behind) architects and buildings. This is part of a broader historiographical shift in architectural history, in which the discipline has begun to look beyond style as the principal source for understanding architecture. This study of Richards's career builds on histories that have explored a definition of modernism beyond style and buildings.

Modernism beyond style

Modern architecture, the modern movement and modernism are labels that refer to a category of buildings and architects, commonly defined by a combination of stylistic traits and design principles. However, in this book, the terms modernism and modern architecture are not capitalised because they are not used as labels that refer to the work of particular architects or a particular stylistic category of building. As I have explained, this book looks at architecture beyond buildings and architects. I use modernism to describe a sensibility within the broader field of architecture, of which Richards's work and career were a part.

Conventionally, the label modernism is attached to buildings designed with flat roofs, white walls, horizontal windows and concrete, steel frame construction, which were first built in Europe. Modern architects also followed particular principles such as honesty to materials, form follows function, as well as ideas about the social functions of buildings.³¹ Adherents to modernism in the 1930s were adamant that style alone did not define their approach, they insisted that modern architecture challenged existing assumptions about what buildings were for and what they could do, as well as what they should look like. Yet even this definition, which included design principles and not just stylistic traits, was still reliant on buildings. Sarah Williams Goldhagen described this as the ‘stylistic paradigm’, meaning a way of talking about architecture that was