The Child’s Eye: Architectural Expertise and Childhood Creativity in the Writings of Paul Ritter (1925–2010)

Abstract

This paper seeks to reveal how the concept of childhood creativity was woven into the fabric of architectural discourse in the mid twentieth century. It focuses on the architect-educator Paul Ritter (1925–2010), who taught at the Nottingham School of Architecture from 1945 till 1964 and was appointed as head of the City of Perth’s (Western Australia) newly formed Department of Planning in 1965. In his writings, Ritter combined emerging theories from diverse fields – psychoanalysis, educational theory, environmental education – in ways that were not purely theoretical, but rather that intended to be read as manifestoes for childhood creativity. This paper argues that a better understanding of select writings by Ritter and a comparison with educational reports produced by institutional reformers in the UK, sheds light on the educational climate of the late 1950s and 1960s and helps to uncover debates on how to train architects in a rapidly changing world.

Keywords:

• Paul Ritter
• childhood creativity
• architecture education
• institutional reform
• pedagogy
• Wilhelm Reich

Acknowledgements

This paper is the first part of a diptych study on the notions of architecture, childhood and civics in the work of Paul Ritter. Research for both articles was funded by the University of Queensland’s Centre for Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History and was part of the research project “Is Architecture Art? A history of concepts, categories and recent practices,” funded by the Australian Research Council, in partnership with Ghent University. I immensely benefited from the generous advice from John Macarthur, Susan Holden, Ashley Paine and Macarena de le Vega de la Leon and from the advice of Jean and Paul Ritter’s daughters Leonora and Erica Ritter. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Naomi Stead, “Child’s Play. On the Cultural Perception of Architecture as a Kind of Uber-Kindergarten,” Places Journal, April 2013, https://placesjournal.org/article/childs-play/ (accessed May 16, 2019).

2. H. Allen Brooks, Le Corbusier’s Formative Years: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 20; Marc Solitaire, “Le Corbusier et l’urbain: la rectification du damier froebelien,” in Ville et l’urbanisme après Le Corbusier: actes du Colloque (La Chaux-de-Fonds, France, 1993), 93–117; Jeanne S. Rubin, “The Froebel-Wright Kindergarten Connection: A New Perspective,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 48, no. 1 (1989): 24–37. The impact of Froebelian pedagogy on Bauhaus is discussed in: Frederick M. Logan, “Kindergarten and Bauhaus,” College Art Journal 10, no. 1 (1950): 36–43. For a wider discussion on childhood pedagogies and modernist architecture, see: Juliet Kinchin and Aidan O’Connor, Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2012), 20–21.

3. Kazys Varnelis, “The Education of the Innocent Eye,” Journal of Architectural Education 51, no. 4 (1998): 215.

4. John Ruskin quoted in: Varnelis, “The Education of the Innocent Eye,” 212.

5. Leonora Ritter, “The Philosophy of Paul Ritter (1925–2010)” (Unpublished manuscript, 2018).

6. Hans Coper and David Nichols, “Tactile Environments for Children in Postwar Britain and Australia,” in Designing Schools: Space, Place and Pedagogy, ed. Kate Darrian-Smith and Julie Willis (London: Routledge, 2016), 205–218.

7. Ritter, “The Philosophy of Paul Ritter,” 2.

8. Ritter was dismissed because he submitted a false medical certificate after an education committee had refused his application for leave of absence in order to undertake a lecture tour overseas. The doctor who wrote the Medical certificate backed Ritter’s successful appeal against the dismissal. He was reinstated, but when the School moved to the University and all lecturers had to reapply for their jobs, Ritter was not appointed. Correspondence with Leonora Ritter, 23.08.2019.

9. Again, he successfully appealed his dismissal. He received damages, but was not reinstated. Correspondence with Leonora Ritter, 23.08.2019.

10. Norman Aisbett, “Welcome Back Ritter,” Big Weekend, June 26, 1999, 1–2.

11. Newspaper article, no date, no title of the newspaper. State Library of Western Australia (WA), 9289A/8: 1969–1989 Collected evidence of architectural innovation – whole career. Articles, flyers.

12. Ibid.

13. Paul Ritter and Jean Ritter, A Fascinating Record. 25 Years 1953–1978. PEER Institute Perth (Kelmschott, WA: P.E.E.R. Institute, 1978), 28.

14. Paul Ritter, Educreation: Education for Creation, Growth and Change: The Concept, General Implications and Specific Applications to Schools of Architecture, Environmental Design or Ekistics (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966), 77–78.

15. G. Gorman, “A.S. Neill’s Summerhill. A Different View of Curriculum and what it has to do with Children,” http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/articlesummerhill.html (accessed March 22, 2019).

16. James E. Strick, Wilhelm Reich, Biologist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 2.

17. Paul Ritter and Jean Ritter, The Free Family. A Creative Experiment in Self-Regulation for Children (London: Gollancz, 1959).

18. Amy F. Ogata, Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 135.

19. Ritter and Ritter, The Free Family, 211.

20. Ibid., 211.

21. Roy Kozlovsky, The Architectures of Childhood: Children, Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Postwar England (London: Routledge, 2016), 219–249.

22. Ibid., 221.

23. Tamar Zinguer, “Designing the Creative Child: Playthings and Places in Midcentury America,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75, no. 2 (2016): 231.

24. Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education & Other Essays (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929).

25. Ritter, Educreation, 19.

26. Ibid., 210.

27. Ibid., 329.

28. Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control. 3: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 89.

29. Paul Ritter, Educreation, 202.

30. Ibid., 268.

31. Ibid., 199.

32. As stated on the website of the school: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/engineering/departments/abe/about/history/index.aspx (accessed February 28, 2020).

33. Paul Ritter, “Architectural Education. A New Approach,” The Architect’s Journal (22 November 1956): 740.

34. Anon. and MacMorran, “Report by the Education Joint Committee on the Training and Qualification for Associate Membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects,” The Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 62, no. 4 (1955): 156–65. The committee was established in 1952.

35. Mark Crinson and Jules Lubbock, Architecture: Art or Profession? Three Hundred Years of Architectural Education in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 114.

36. This new modernist course was fully ratified at the 1958 Oxford conference on Architecture Education. Leslie Martin reported on this conference in: Leslie Martin, “Conference on Architecture Education Held at Magdalen College, Oxford, 11, 12 and 13 April,” The Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 65, no. 8 (1958): 279–282; Leslie Martin, “An Overall View of the Architect’s Training,” The Architect’s Journal 132, no. 3420 (1960): 658–659. See also: Crinson and Lubbock, Architecture: Art or Profession?, 137.

37. Crinson and Lubbock, Architecture: Art or Profession? 128.

38. Ritter, “Architectural Education.”

39. Anon., “Two Papers from the Ad Hoc Committee. With an Introduction by the Chairman, Richard H. Sheppard,” The Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 65, no. 3 (1958): 90.

40. Ritter, Educreation, 75.

41. Ibid.

42. These conferences were organised by the British Association of Students Architects (BASA) and the Australian Association of Students Architects (AASA). In 1968, Ritter for instance attended the student conference in Hobart on creativity. Byron Kinnaird and Barnaby Bennett, “Congress. Architecture Student Congresses in Australia, New Zealand and PNG from 1963–2011” (Unpublished manuscript, 2011), https://repository.architecture.com.au/download/archive/documents_and_files/events-and-awards/congress_booklet_june2011.pdf (accessed February 18, 2019).

43. Stuart King and Ceridwen Owen, “A Decade of Radical Pedagogy: Barry McNeill and Environmental Design in Tasmania, 1969–79,” Fabrications 28, no. 3 (2 September 2018): 309.

44. Elizabeth Musgrave, “What’s “out” . . . What’s “in” Revolution versus Evolution: John Dalton Architect as Pamphleteer,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 30, Open, ed. Alexandra Brown and Andrew Leach, vol. 2 (Gold Coast, QLD: SAHANZ, 2013), 466.

45. Peter Bycroft and Paul Memmott, Towards an Understanding of Architectural Education: A Student Report (Unpublished manuscript, St. Lucia: University of Queensland, 1971).

46. Beatriz Colomina, Ester Choi, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, and Anna-Maria Meister. “Radical Pedagogies,” The Architectural Review 232, no. 1388 (2012): 78–82, https://www.architectural-review.com/today/radical-pedagogies-in-architectural-education/8636066.article (accessed February 21, 2020).

Additional information

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Elke Couchez

In her work, Dr Elke Couchez explores the intersections between architecture, visual studies, intellectual history and pedagogy. She studied Fine Arts (Sint-Lucas Academy, Ghent) and Art History (KU Leuven) and defended her PhD “Gestures make Arguments. Performing Architectural Theory in the Studio and the Classroom 196x–199x” in June 2018 at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture. In 2018, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow on the project “Is Architecture Art?” at the University of Queensland’s Centre for Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History. As of October 2019, she teaches art and architecture history at UHasselt and works within the research group TRACE. Her work has been published in the journals Image&Narrative, Paedagogica Historica and  History of Intellectual Culture and in several magazines for contemporary art.