C O N T E X T 1 1 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 47 Nice, modern and British Powell and Moya: twentieth century architects Kenneth Powell, RIBA Publishing, 2009, 160 pages, colour and b&w ills, paperback, ISBN 978 1 8594639 3 1, £20 Powell and Moya made a dramatic entrance on the architectural scene with their unexpected success in the Churchill Gardens housing competition in 1946. Only in their mid twenties, they gained further kudos with the winning design for the Skylon at the Festival of Britain, which brilliantly reflected the post-war mood. Over the ensuing 40 years their practice developed a reputation for humane and contextual modernism. This slim monograph is one of a planned series that assesses the contribution of post-war British architects who have been unjustly ignored. The series so far also includes Aldington, Craig and Collinge, written by Alan Powers, McMorran and Whitby by Edward Dennison, and Ryder andYates by Rutter Carroll. Ken Powell’s sympathetic analysis of Powell and Moya shows how much can be expected from the series if it continues. For, while the quality of Powell and Moya’s work has always been recognised, and many of their buildings have already been listed, their reputation has been eclipsed by so-called star architects in recent years. Indeed as early as 1974 Reyner Banham, the promoter of the new brutalism, characterised their work as ‘Nice, modern and British’, adding that it was of the sort that ‘you didn’t notice’, in contrast with that, say, of Lasdun, Stirling or Rogers.Yet, the way in which Powell and Moya were able to introduce modernist buildings into sensitive historic locations at Oxbridge, while enhancing their overall settings, deserves careful study today. As Ken Powell remarks, these buildings are now as much a part of the Cambridge and Oxford scene as their medieval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian neighbours. The book is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, with separate chapters on housing, public buildings, educational projects and hospitals. This makes for a slightly dislocated analysis of the practice and its overall development, but allows the socially-focused nature of their work to shine through. Ken Powell has drawn on family sources to explain how two such different individuals were able to work together in such a productive manner, a fact that is given particular poignancy by the collapse of the practice after both principals retired. A comprehensive list of works is included at the end of the book, together with obituaries by JohnWinter of Moya (1994) and by Elain Harwood of Powell (2003), both published in The Independent. The evocative photographs date mostly from the time the buildings were erected, and come either from the RIBA Library or the Powell and Moya archive. Unfortunately, the printing does not do justice the quality of the original images, either in colour or black and white. It is also strange that a book that is presumably aimed at architects and architectural historians contains just one plan, the ground floor addition to Brazenose College, Oxford, which is mostly garden. That said, the incisive text makes up for shortcomings in production, and explains why the architecture of Powell and Moya is relevant today. Peter de Figueiredo, historic buildings consultant Pluralists among the charters The Venice Charter Revisited: modernism, conservation and tradition in the 21st century Edited by Matthew Hardy; foreword by the Prince ofWales, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, 814pp, ISBN 968 1 8471868 8 1, £44.99 Fundamentalism, wherever it occurs, is a recipe for intolerance and confrontation. John Betjeman, writing in 1933, coincidentally the year of the modernist Charte d’Athènes, asserted: ‘Every style of architecture lies open to our choice, and there is no prima facie reason why one should be preferred to another’. In 2005, however, the UNESCO Vienna Memorandum, seduced by a limited definition of the word contemporary, insisted that ‘contemporary architecture and preservation of the historic urban landscape should avoid all forms of pseudo-historical design, as they constitute a denial of both the historical and the contemporary alike.’ International conservation manifestos, charters and associated documents are a minefield of inconsistencies and contradictions. The 1982 ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) GDR Declaration of Dresden, for example, champions the spiritual and symbolic values implicit in the faithful reconstruction of monuments destroyed by war. That approach continues to be practised in cities across Germany and, most recently, in the rebuilding of Vilnius castle, even after extended lapses in time and interim structures on their sites. Further, the 1999 ICOMOS Cultural Tourism Charter interprets authenticity in new developments to embrace the recognition of local architectural styles, vernacular traditions, and the use of local materials. Notwithstanding these later instruments, it is the 1964 Venice Charter that is the founding doctrinal document of ICOMOS and the fundamental reference for conservation policy for today’s 193 member states of UNESCO. The focus of TheVenice Charter Revisited is the insistence in Article 9 of the 1964 charter that new work blishing.com powell & Moya kenneth powell 20 th Century Architects cts , e, a’s as ntury lish ry k e n n e t h p ow e l l Powell &Moya 10/03/2009 13:31:28
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