Modernism in the Suburbs: A Critical Study of the Architecture and Design of Kenneth Wood Associates,1955-1984

1984年，查尔斯王子在庆祝英国皇家建筑师学会成立150周年的晚会上向700位嘉宾发表了讲话。他对现代建筑的批评引发了重大的专业和公众辩论。理查德•罗杰斯（Richard Rogers）为伦敦切尔西军营（Chelsea Barracks）设计的方案引发的愤怒，以及英国遗产组织（English Heritage）最近提出的列出上世纪60年代和70年代建筑地标（包括米尔顿凯恩斯（Milton Keynes）购物中心）的建议，使这场辩论在今天仍在继续。随着建筑师，评论家和社区继续努力解决“现代”建筑的社会和美学价值，并且这种努力继续告知生产和拆除的环境，以及我们生活，工作和社交的环境，坚持在一系列社会和地理环境中调查我们与现代建筑设计的历史关系似乎很重要。本研究参照Kenneth Wood Associates的工作来考虑这种关系。肯尼斯·伍德在伦敦摄政街理工学院接受培训，并于1955年在萨里建立了一家私人诊所。Wood的实践作品包括私人住宅、小型住宅方案、教堂、办公室、学校和娱乐建筑，尽管受到当代作家和专业同事（如J.M. Richards和Michael Manser）的好评，但在战后英国建筑设计的历史记录中却没有出现。该研究探讨了为什么这种成功的建筑和设计实践的工作被建筑和设计历史学家所忽视的原因，并考虑了它的重要遗产。该研究的一个特别关注的问题是检查地理位置在决定对肯尼斯伍德协会工作的关键和历史反应方面所起的作用。20世纪50年代中期战时建筑限制的取消为新获得资格的建筑师建立私人事务所创造了重要机会，伍德是当时在郊区开始职业生涯的许多受过现代主义训练的建筑师之一。这些建筑师的作品在战后现代主义建筑的发展和传播中发挥了重要作用，但与他们的大都市同行相比，他们的作品仍然没有得到充分的记录。从投机性发展的角度来看，郊区通常被认为是建筑千篇一律和模仿的地方，与城市更进步的关注背道而驰。然而，单个建筑的例子似乎经常挑战这种观点，并建议更仔细地检查成功的郊区公司的工作，例如Wood的工作，可能有助于开辟新的视角，了解二战后现代建筑产生的不同背景和条件，以及对现代建筑设计的态度。

In 1984 Prince Charles addressed 700 guests at a gala evening celebrating the 150th anniversary of The Royal Institute of British Architects. His criticism of modern architecture stimulated significant professional and public debate. That debate continues today, re-invigorated by the furore over Richard Rogers' scheme for London's Chelsea Barracks and recent recommendations by English Heritage to list architectural landmarks of the 1960s and 1970s, including Milton Keynes shopping centre. As architects, critics and communities continue to grapple with the social and aesthetic value of 'modern' architecture, and that grappling continues to inform the environments that are produced and demolished, and in which we live, work and socialise, it seems important to persist in investigating our historical relationship with modern architectural design in a range of social and geographical settings. This study considers that relationship with reference to the work of Kenneth Wood Associates. Kenneth Wood trained at London's Regent Street Polytechnic and established a private practice in Surrey in 1955. The work of Wood's practice, which includes private houses, small housing schemes, churches, offices, schools and recreational buildings, although critically appreciated by contemporary writers and professional colleagues, such as J.M. Richards and Michael Manser, is absent from the historical record of English architectural design of the postwar period. The research explores the reasons why the work of this successful architectural and design practice has been overlooked by architectural and design historians and considers its critical legacy. A particular concern of the research is to examine the role that geographical location has played in determining critical and historical responses to the work of Kenneth Wood Associates. The removal of wartime building restrictions in the mid-1950s created significant opportunities for newly qualified architects to establish private practices and Wood is one of many modernist-trained architects who embarked on careers in the suburbs at that time. The work of these architects, who played an important role in the development and dissemination of architectural modernism in the postwar period, remains significantly less well-documented than that of their metropolitan peers. Viewed through the lens of speculative development the suburbs have often been represented as sites of architectural uniformity and imitation, removed from the more progressive concerns of the city. Yet the example of individual buildings often appears to challenge that view and suggests that closer examination of the work of successful suburban firms, such as Wood's, may be helpful in opening up new perspectives on the diverse contexts and conditions in which modern architecture was produced after the Second World War, and in which attitudes to modern architectural design were shaped.