Saving a Century - Nikolaus Pevsner as a Conservationist
Jane Fawcett
When Lord Kennet, at Nikolaus' retiring party from the Chairmanship of the Victorian Society, gave the key-note speech, he said that not only had Nikolaus saved thousands of Victorian buildings, but that he had saved a century. By this he meant that, in making the case for a century when 'the public was not yet ready to take a serious interest in the Victorian Age in architecture and design,' (N.P. Victorian Society Annual Report) it was not enough to mount campaigns for important buildings, generally regarded as ugly and contemptible. It was also essential for Nikolaus to use his scholarship to quantify, evaluate, and authenticate those buildings, in order to convince the public that they were worth saving.
This involved not only setting up an organisation, the Victorian Society, to fight for these buildings, but also setting up Departments of Victorian Studies, and of nineteenth century architectural history. These would produce scholars who could categorise, document, research, and above all, grade the leading architects of the period and their best buildings, in order to provide convincing arguments with which to persuade the authorities that these buildings and structures were important, and worthy of serious attention.
One of Nikolaus' first actions, on becoming Chairman of the Victorian Society, was to launch a research project in order to provide the Government with a list of leading nineteenth century architects and their works. This enabled them to extend their lists of Buildings of Historic and Architectural Importance to include nineteenth century buildings, previously unprotected. The late Roger Dixon carried out this project.
Nikolaus said 'I am convinced that making known Victorian architects and Victorian buildings is second in importance only to securing the survival of the buildings themselves.' (1971, Victorian Society Annual Report). 'It was the challenge of the unrecognised period, the period people laughed at and refused to know. So the need for the historian was to discover and convert. Discoveries were lying ready to be made everywhere, because the kind of research which has gone on for ages for the earlier periods did not exist for the Victorian decades. That naturally tempts a historian.' (1967 The Listener) 'Certain buildings, and not all that few, must be preserved simply because they are aesthetically just as valuable as the best of the eighteenth century, or, for that matter, the Middle Ages; the churches by Bodley and Pearson, the houses by Webb, by Shaw, by Voysey…the Leeds town hall, some warehouses of Bristol and Bradford, office buildings in the Cinquecento and the Gothic styles in the City of London and the provincial cities.
Moreover, these cities themselves are Victorian monuments. It was that age that made them. It was in that age that they, and the whole of Britain, prospered more than at any age before or after. If we let the buildings of that age go, we destroy the visual record of the period of Britain's leadership in the civilised world. As that leadership was industrial as much as commercial, we ought also to think of industrial buildings, buildings made for industry and buildings made by industry, such as the great bridges…Surely there is no need for another word to explain why I spend more time on the Victorian Society than from the point of view of apportioning what time is left to me, I probably should.' (1967 Buildings Materials)
This systematic approach to a relatively unknown and despised period combined with his exceptional range and depth of scholarship enabled him to make the value judgements that eventually carried the day. They defeated the Government, the Crown Estates, several nationalised industries, and local government in their attempts to demolish the buildings which they owned, and over which they exerted complete control. He described the Foreign Office, threatened with demolition by several successive governments, as 'one of the finest government buildings in the world' and said to the Secretary of State, of the Government proposals for the comprehensive redevelopment of much of Whitehall and Parliament Square, 'overall planning often benefits from the retention of some individual buildings different in style and character. Sir Leslie Martin is not without appreciation of powerful buildings of the past.'
Of New Scotland Yard, by Norman Shaw, also threatened, he said 'Shaw's only major public building…To the river front (it) makes a contribution of the greatest importance', and of Whitehall Court, by Archer and Green. 'Here is exuberance, with no ghastly good taste, enough to make Chambord pale with envy.' Of J M Brydon's New Government Offices ' the system prevailing until 1960 in British Government architecture appears here for the first time'.
His passionate lament for the Euston arch, unnecessarily demolished in 1961 went 'the…arch, a Greek Doric Triumphal Arch on the grandest scale, was commissioned from Philip Hardwick. What made Hardwick go all out for the sublime in his Doric display ? The answer is pride in the achievement of the railway line. Here was something as grandiose of its kind as anything the Greeks ever accomplished. So it deserved the highest rhetoric available, and that was, in the 1830s, Doric.'
Of the Albert Dock, Liverpool, by Jesse Hartley and Philip Hardwick, 1841-45, 'It is unquestionably the climax of Liverpool Dock architecture…For sheer punch there is little in the early commercial architecture of Europe to emulate it... one of the finest examples anywhere in Europe of romantic architecture parlante, ie. expressing the strength of resistance to water and the bulk of ships. To pull it down would be a black disgrace.' We saved it, and the Tate Liverpool is our vindication. Of the Royal William Victualling Yard by Sir John Rennie, 1826-35, Devonport dockyard, still under threat, 'Perhaps the most impressive single architectural monument of Plymouth. It covers 14 acres, six of which were recovered from the sea.'
Of St George's Hall, Liverpool, by Elmes, 1841 and Cockerell, 1856, 'The brief for a concert hall and assize courts was complex. The way Elmes fulfilled it is superb. Thanks to the challenge he produced the free-est Neo-Georgian building in England, and one of the finest in the world.' His ability to make such sweeping statements went unchallenged, since the breadth of his architectural knowledge was unique. After his Outline of European Architecture had appeared, no one could doubt that when he made statements like 'one of the twelve best churches of its date in Europe' (All Saints, Bingley, by Norman Shaw, blown up) he knew that it was true.
The Victorian Society, and indeed the whole of the nineteenth century was privileged to have the support of such a monumental fighter. Sir Denys Lasdun said of him that 'the real monument is that not only did he make architecture enter the stream of public consciousness, but he elevated architecture to the point where it was discussed with the other arts, and this is a terrific achievement.' It not only saved a century, but in addition enabled him to create The Buildings of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland Series, but also a monumental output of books, lectures and articles at the same time. It was a prodigious undertaking.
