Letting in the Light: the Council for Art and Industry and Oliver Hill’s Pioneer Schools

Abstract

The British architect Oliver Hill (1887–1968) was an important and influential figure in the inter-war period. His ability to cross the boundaries of architectural style ensured career longevity and success, but invited a reputation as a half-hearted Modernist, lacking the rigour of his Modern Architectural Research (MARS) Group contemporaries. This view was acknowledged by the MARS chairman Wells Coates (1895–1958), in an early group memorandum of 1933, where he asserted that: ‘Certain people [including Oliver Hill] who are popularly and notoriously known as “modern” architects do not qualify in our sense.’ Unquestionably, there were two sides to Hill’s architecture, as he himself recognized in 1937: ‘Today, my love is divided between the new and the old.’While the MARS Group stuck rigidly to the dogma of the Modern Movement, Hill’s understanding and application of Modernism developed throughout the 1930s. Hill’s Modern buildings chronicle his shifting concept of modernity, reflecting the numerous sub-movements and strands of Modernism in inter-war Britain rather than any halfheartedness in his approach. Commonly remembered for his glitzy early examples of ‘the new’, such as Joldwynds (1930–32) and the Midland Hotel in Morecambe (1932–33), Hill’s Modernism was initially based upon a use of glass and silvered surfaces that straddled Art Deco and the International Style. Yet opulence was gradually replaced by a social concern focused on children’s welfare, evident in a series of exhibits, unrealized projects and school buildings. Hill’s later inter-war Modernism also reflected a wider move toward local materials and construction techniques that acknowledged the peculiarity of English conditions. This article contextualizes Hill’s adoption of Modernism and explores his public work of the late 1930s that combined his fascination for the new with his respect for national tradition.