52 C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 to write,’ Pevsner admitted. ‘On the other hand, those who want something a little more cataloguey and are fervently interested in mouldings and such-like details, may find my descriptions more to their liking.’ Nairn’s talent was seen at its best in Nairn’s London, recently republished. In that book he wanted to record ‘what has moved me, between Uxbridge and Dagenham’. His introduction set the scene: ‘All the attributes of the capital have piled on this shallow basin of gravel like rugby players in a scrum, kicking and elbowing each other out of the way’; and he went on from there. Darley and McKie note the unevenness of Nairn’s work, probably inevitable in one so much of whose writing was fuelled by alcohol.They point to the presence in some of his journalism of a ‘casual, conversational way of writing which too often spills over into a kind of blokey jocularity, unsettling to read today.’The origin of Nairn’s depression remains unknown, apart from his having been born in Bedford, a fact that he found so depressing that he pretended to be a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Each section of this excellent biography is accompanied by a ‘preamble’ by one of eight writers who knew, worked with or were inspired by Nairn.These interruptions to the narrative did not work for me. I found myself wishing that their uneven contributors could have been edited and woven into the story that Darley and McKie tell so well. Rob Cowan, editor of Context The nameless legion Bleak Houses: disappointment and failure in architecture Timothy Brittain-Catlin, MIT Press, 2014, 182 pages, 33 black and white illustrations, hardback, ISBN 978 0 262026 69 7, £17.95 Human beings fail to achieve their true potential in so many ways.The artist William Orpen, born in County Dublin in 1878, was possibly the most gifted draughtsman the British Isles has ever produced. A star scholar at the Slade, his early career glowed with promise. But he made two errors, fatal for his ultimate reputation.The first, one of temperament, was to resolutely turn his back on modernism at the very moment when Picasso and Braque were tearing up the rule book. The second, less culpable, was to become a war artist for the British shortly before the violent breach of his homeland from the UK in 1921. Haunted by what he had witnessed in France, he began to drink himself into an early grave. His later career, a production line of portraits for the wealthy, proved a commercial rather than artistic success and English art historians have overlooked him. Some in Ireland who might have championed his memory still regard him as a turncoat. But at least Orpen had command of his brush and canvas, and had the means to do what he chose with them. Just imagine how heavily stacked the odds can be against architects. To get their visions built at all, they need to find clients.They then have to seduce those clients with a business-like manner, tolerable administrative skills and technical competence, for few have ever been entranced by design vision. Today, there are planning officers to convince and planning committees to impress.The scheme has to survive the vagaries of the development cycle (and these days, the design-and-build process) to be translated into brick, stone and slate, or concrete, glass and steel. This is hardly the end of the story. Will any discerning eye actually notice the new masterpiece? Is it constructed in a place that influential critics ever visit, so be published? As the years pass, will it be treated kindly by later owners and users? Or will it be horribly altered, or dominated by an unsympathetic extension or a hideous new neighbour? The unlucky architect may actually live to see it torn down in the surge of the next speculative frenzy. Architects face formidable hurdles to immortality. Brittain-Catlin’s poignant and meticulously compiledBleak Houses rings like a tocsin bell for any aspirant who seeks a lasting place in architectural history.The doors that open on to obscurity and oblivion are frequent, countless and several. Persons of genius may have difficult personalities and can hopelessly alienate clients, staff or reviewers. Some with famous fathers feel an oppressive, dead weight of expectation on their shoulders. Conversely, others are outshone by their more successful offspring. In architecture, of course, merely to be born a woman has been an automatic and often crippling disadvantage, especially in the 19th century. A few can find themselves in impossible political situations, like the pioneer modernists who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In far less extreme circumstances, architects can be excluded by an influential clique manipulating commissions, or they may cling to a fading star of architectural fashion, or become suddenly eclipsed by a blinding new comet, proclaimed by its followers with messianic zeal.The explosion of the gothic revival was one such moment, the rise of modernism a century later, another. Each claimed talented victims, lamented in the pages of Bleak Houses. Brittain-Catlin is at his best exploring the architectural profession’s often factional response to buildings (and their peers) against the conventional viewpoints of ordinary human beings. He perceptively examines the demise of the occasionally fey, but broadly popular Regency revival of the inter-war years – amusingly characterised as the Quality Street movement – pummelled by relentless and unbridled abuse from the proselytes of heroic modernism, even though these pioneers formed the tiniest minority in this period. Be warned, for you may find yourself involuntarily dividing the architects you know into two broad categories, ‘sissies and bullies’. He concludes that architects are often weak at manipulating words and emotions as opposed to visions, in direct contrast to how the laity usually express their comprehension of the world.They can be weaker still at supporting their visions within the framework of a wider story, whereas ordinary people long for a narrative voice. Most conservation officers will be completely forgotten, our work records deleted in the next data clear-out, if not already lost in the last reorganisation, or the one before that.We trust some legacy will remain in the buildings we have helped restore, or the new uses they now accommodate. So, as we too prepare to join the nameless legion of those already lost to history, you may find solace in this deeply melancholy but meticulously argued book. Michael Scammell, a historic buildings officer at South Downs National Park Authority
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