42 C O N T E X T 1 2 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 1 Book reviews The Voysey of Wales Herbert Luck North: arts and crafts architecture for Wales AdamVoelker, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 2011, 136 pages, col ills, paperback, ISBN 978 1 871184 41 9, £14.95 postage free: www.rcahmw.gov.uk/HI/ ENG/Publications/Bookshop Beyond the architectural cognoscenti of North Wales, the name of Herbert Luck North is little known.Yet for IHBC members attending the Llandudno Annual School, there was an opportunity for a tour of some of his best buildings, guided by Adam Voelker, the author of this sympathetic monograph. In Betjeman’s eyes, North was to Wales what Voysey, the early Lutyens and Baillie Scott were to England, and what George Walton and Mackintosh were to Scotland; in other words, a standard bearer of the arts-andcrafts movement. Unlike those more celebrated architects, North never sought attention, and apart from a short period in London at the start of his career (including a year in Lutyens’ office), he lived a simple country existence at the remote seaside town of Llanfairfechen. His work consisted chiefly of small houses, many built on family-owned land, and ecclesiastical commissions. In his leisure time he organised church pageants and designed, together with his wife Ida, the programmes, costumes and scenery. He studied and wrote about the old cottages and churches of Snowdonia, which had a profound influence on his architecture. In adopting the ‘simple life’, North followed in the footsteps of CR Ashbee and the Cotswold craftsmen fraternity. Although he was never a socialist, his emphasis on tradition, function and economy came closer to William Morris’s principles than Morris’s own circle, who relied on wealthy patronage. The Close at Llanfairfechen, which was developed between 1923 and 1940, is his most remarkable achievement, an estate of 25 individually designed houses on a hillside above the town. The distinctive architecture is characterised by steeply sloping roofs that sweep down almost to the ground, white-painted rough-cast walls, and pointed arched doorways, a simple and subtle reference to the gothic spirit that stayed with North long after his mentor Lutyens had turned to classicism. The interiors too, especially North’s own house,Wern Isaf, have the same values of studied simplicity and craftsmanship that were the aim of the arts-and-crafts ideal. Adam Voelker, a conservation architect working in North Wales, sensitively captures both North’s nature and his work. In the final chapter, which deals with North’s legacy, shows how his achievements have particular relevance today. The book is beautifully designed and illustrated with original drawings from the RCAHMW records, with high-quality modern and historic photographs, and with plans drawn by Voelker himself. The book is also excellent value. Peter de Figueiredo, historic buildings consultant Beyond extremism Architecture’s Evil Empire? The triumph and tragedy of global modernism Miles Glendinning, Reaktion Books, 2010, 248 pp, paperback, ISBN 978 1 86189 756 5, £14.95 Architecture’s Evil Empire? is a racy polemic and structured indictment of an architectural world obsessed with vanity projects and ‘starchitects’ (the author’s preferred term), in which the word ‘icon’ has been debased from its original meaning of religious preciousness to that of vacuous coarseness: the ‘steroid-fuelled building of “gestural” architectural set pieces’. Glendinning, recently appointed professor of architectural conservation at the University of Edinburgh, writes both passionately and with the perspective and insight of an architectural historian. The book’s chapter titles – including ‘Architecture of Alienation’ and ‘Metaphor versus Meaning in Contemporary Architecture’ – provide an immediate clue to the author’s thesis, as do sub-headings – such as ‘Alienation in practice: movement without a cause’, ‘Communicating New Modernism: the celebration of emptiness’ and ‘Starchitects: all different, all the same?’. He identifies the roots of today’s cult-syndrome: from the implicit contradiction between the first (1920s to 1960s) age of modernism, with its collectivist vision of community and social progress, to the seminal role played by hero-architects such as Le Corbusier, with their unashamed self-promotion and reliance on visual imagery – the role model for today’s ‘starchitects’. Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House is identified as the first, metaphorladen ‘iconic’ building intended as a city marketing device, one which
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