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Abstract
This article appraises the career of architect Ralph Erskine focusing on the context for his contribution to Swedish and British social housing and planning. Erskine's formative experience during the 1930s and his subsequent transnational career are utilized to explore the mutual influences of planning ideals across national boundaries. The Garden City ideal, Functionalism and the urban village concept are considered for their long-term contribution to his work. In addition, vernacular architecture and participatory planning are explored as influences on the evolution of his community architecture vision by the 1970s. Drawing on evidence from urban developments in Britain and Sweden, the discussion demonstrates that Erskine's cultural transfer of international planning ideals essentialized aspects of British and Swedish historical culture. The article concludes with a discussion of the 1970s and Erskine's role in the redevelopment of Byker in Newcastle upon Tyne. This process was hailed as a pioneer moment in the English community architecture movement. However, this study demonstrates that Erskine should be distinguished from the grassroots activism of the community architecture movement. Rather the discussion emphasizes that his participatory planning was underpinned by a structural tension between social engineering and democratic participation that was generated and reinforced by his transnational career.
Acknowledgements
The research for this article benefitted from collaboration with Katarina Friberg, Leverhulme Trust Visiting Fellow at Teesside University in 2009. I am grateful to John Griffiths for his generous insights on Ralph Erskine at Killingworth.
Notes
Wates and Knevitt, Community Architecture, 29. See also, Towers, Building Democracy.
Jencks, Modern Movements in Architecture, 377.
Amery, “Newcastle upon Tyne,” 362.
Goldsmith, “Social Housing,” 284.
On the theory of participatory architecture and planning, see Albrecht, “Towards a Theory of Participation,” 24. Albrecht credits Erskine, amongst others, with adhering to the democratic impulse of community design, in its ‘quest for equality’, as well as helping to secure public recognition for participation in planning and architecture.
Flint, “The Responsible Tenant,” 893–909.
Collymore, Architecture of Ralph Erskine, 1.
Anderson and Hilson, “Images of Sweden and Nordic Countries,” 224; Anderson, “Nordic Nostalgia and Nordic Light,” 229–46.
Egelius, Ralph Erskine, 21. Peter Hall attributes the architecture of ‘Georgian good taste’ in the Second Garden City to the influence of Louis de Soisson. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, 112.
Lisa Lindström, “Utvecklingen av Ekerö Centrum under 100 År,” Ekerö Tidning 1, 2010, 6–7. http://www.ekero.se/upload/Nyheter/dokument/ekero%20tidning%20nr%201%202010%20lagupplost.pdf; Collymore, Architecture of Ralph Erskine, 2.
Collymore, “Swedish or British,” 32; Cullen, “Byker,” 360–3; and Clapson, Invincible Green Suburbs, 30.
Egelius, Ralph Erskine, 21.
Erskine, “Architecture the Useful and Universal Art,” 10; and Erskine, “Democratic Architecture,” 1–18.
Findal, Nordisk Functionalism.
Mumford, The CIAM Discourse, 178.
Collymore, “Swedish or British,” 32; and Erskine, “Architecture the Useful and Universal Art,” 10.
Liese, Modern Swedish Design, 345.
Egelius, Ralph Erskine, 21.
Birchall, “Co-Partnership Housing and the Garden,” 329–58.
Erskine, “R. Erskine talks to AJ,” 417.
Erskine, “Architecture the Useful and Universal Art,” 10.
Charrington, “Co-ordinating Method and Art,” 310.
Marklund, “The Social Laboratory,” 264–85.
The success of the Stockholm Exhibition had special resonance in the Nordic region, such as in Iceland where the planning of Reykjavik during the 1930s and 1940s took indisputable inspiration from Swedish Functionalism; after the Second World War, the building of Icelandic high rise suburbs evoked Swedish fore-runners, notably Vällingby: Reynarsson, “The Planning of Reykjavik,” 58–9.
Mumford, CIAM Discourse, 166.
SOU, “Slutbetänkande avgivet av Bostadssociala utredningen,” 63.
Hall, “Planning History,” 153–79.
O'Hara, “Applied Socialism,” 10.
Hall, “Planning History,” 153–79.
Billing and Stigendal, Hegemonins decennier. Lärdomar från Malmö om den svenska modellen, 291–305.
Erskine “Architecture the Useful and Universal Art,” 10.
Waern et al., A Guide to Swedish Arhitecture, 144.
Hall, “Urban planning in Sweden,” 222, 230.
Ibid.
Clapson, “Invincible Green,” 4, 29–30; and Johnson “Origin of the Neighbourhood Unit,” 227–47.
Davies, “Norwegian Wood? Scandinavian Design,” 80–93.
O'Hara, “Applied Socialism”, 10.
Schaffer, New Town Story, 269. Civic architecture was noticeably influenced by Scandinavian design such as Newcastle Civic Centre. Constructed after 1958 it owes a debt to both Stockholm and Oslo Town Halls. Faulkner, “Architecture in Newcastle,” 243.
Benwell Community Development Project, Slums on the Drawing Board, 4.
Erskine, “Editorial. Lakeshore Housing,” 1016.
John Ardill, “A Special Report by John Ardill,” The Guardian, March 4, 1970, 4.
Schaffer, New Town Story, 230.
Tyne and Wear Archive Service (TWAS), UD.LO/A/2/25, Killingworth Township, Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Housing Committee, April 28, 1964, 28.
Ibid, 29.
Lahti, “The Helsinki suburbs of Tapiola,” 158.
TWAS, UD.LO/A/2/27, Killingworth Township, Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Housing Committee, May 9, 1966, 7.
Ardill, “A Special Report,” 4.
Erskine, “Editorial. Lakeshore Housing,” 1018.
Lyall, British Architecture, 72.
“Editorial. Lakeshore Housing,” 1016.
“Editorial. Lakeshore Housing,” 1016.
TWAS, UD.LO/A/1/40, Killingworth Township, Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Housing Committee, June 2, 1969.
Ardill, “A Special Report,” 4.
Erskine, “Editorial. Lakeshore Housing,” 1018.
Gazzard, “Killingworth-Half Way to Completion,” 19.
“The Likely Lads fact file,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/content/articles/2006/04/12/hollywood_on_tyne_likely_lads_feature.shtml
Usherwood, Beach and Morris, Public Sculpture, 221.
Clapson, Social History of Milton Keynes.
The Times, May 17, 1973, 2.
Lyall, British Architecture, 76. As a student of English town planning during the 1930s, it remains important to recall that Erskine had probably also embraced the route idea of adjusting the urban environment to produce beneficial social changes. Meller, Patrick Geddes, 156–200.
Hulltin, “Tre Gånger Erskine,” 37.
Malpass, “Professionalism in Architecture,” 188; and “Editorial. Byker,” 3–11.
Collymore, “Swedish or British,” 32.
Malpass, Professionalism in Architecture,” 188.
Lyall, British Architecture, 76.
Sjöström, “Byker förebild eller undantags miljö?” 4.
McGuirk, “Back to Byker,” 45.
Wates and Knevitt, Community Architecture, 2. The community architecture movement was established in the context of state legislation promoting participation in planning following the findings of the 1969 Skeffington Committee (Skeffington Committee, People and Planning, HMSO, 1969). However, Peter Shapely's discussion reveals that local government used such measures primarily to ease the path of planning, an approach that left less scope for meaningful participation. This had the effect of further alienating tenants and ironically legislation mobilized in response to Skeffington highlighted further the democratic deficit in local housing policy. Shapely, “Planning, Housing and Participation,” 75–90.
Wates and Knevitt, Community Architecture, 112–11.
Erskine, “Byker,” 346.
Bryan, “Ralph Erskine at Stockholm University,” 80.
Bryan, “Ralph Erskine,” 80.
McGovern, “Ralph Erskine (Skiing) architect,” 249. Erskine's unselfconscious reference to social engineering is perhaps explained also by his background, first as a student of the English town planning movement, and then as a practicing architect in Sweden at a time when sociologists including Gunnar Myrdal, exerted a major influence over town planning. Mumford, CIAM Discourse, 166.
Lyall, British Architecture, 77.
Collymore, “Swedish or British,” 32.
Erskine, “Byker,” 4.
Ibid.
Dennis, “Popularity of the Neighbourhood Community Idea,” 74–92.
Strömberg, “Politicization of the Housing Market,” 237–71.
Goldsmith, “Social Housing,” 201.
By the 1970s, this trajectory was temporarily reversed as housing co-operatives came to be seen as central in tackling inner-city decay. Malpass, Housing Associations and Policy, 133.
Flemström and Ronnby, Fallet Rosengård. En studie, 8.
Billing, Olsson, and Stigendal, “Local Politics,” 297; and Goldsmith, ‘Social Housing’, 201.
Christiansen, “Denmark,” 19.
Wates and Knevitt, Community Architecture, 31.
Erskine, “Tankar efter Mullvaden,” 27.
Harvey, “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism,” 3–17; and Brenner, “Restructuring, Rescaling and Urban,” 67–68.
Espagne and Werner, “Transfers”; and Miller, “Comparative and cross-national history,” 115.
McGuirk, “Back to Byker,” 45.
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