CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 55 North Shore hotels in Miami of the 40s and 50s. When adopted in Britain, she tells us, its meaning was somewhat different, with architects typically pursuing a gentler type of modernism which embraced functionalism but did not exclude the decorative touch. The Festival of Britain, held in the summer of 1951, best captures its stylistic ethos, and within the book Harwood traces its development over the next decade as it became simpler and more refined. In the introduction she explains the influence that continental architects such as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer had on British design, identifying the former’s Impington School of 1939 as how British architecture might have evolved but for the second world war. When the war was over, an acute shortage of building materials, not to mention funding, delayed construction and encouraged experimentation such as prefabrication and system building. The gradual revival of the British economy in the 1950s brought greater activity, as well as major public works and advances in technology. Among these were the curtain wall and lightweight concrete shell structures. Midcentury modern, she claims, came to an end with the rise of brutalism. Following the introduction, most of the book consists of a gazetteer of buildings, each given a full-page illustration and a brief description. It is divided into building categories, beginning appropriately with the Festival of Britain. Other categories include private houses, low-cost housing, education, public buildings, transport and places of worship. Many of the selected buildings are not well-known (among them is this reviewer’s house), and about one third are unlisted. The handsome photographs are almost all taken by the author, and the book is attractively designed. While the format allows limited scope for detailed analysis of the buildings (and no plans), the book skilfully evokes the spirit of the two decades it covers. It is a bargain at £25. Peter de Figueiredo, reviews editor of Context Solitary afflictions Walls of Containment: the architecture and landscapes of lunacy Patrick Quinlan, UCD Press, Dublin, 2021, 288 pages, colour and black-andwhite illustrations, hardback, ISBN 978 1 910820 74 2, £35 It was the writer’s work as an architect based in London that first attracted my attention and led me to discover his research on Irish asylums. Walls of Containment is a classic, which developed from a master’s degree in 2014 covering the heritage of buildings constructed as places of refuge for victims of mental health issues. A PhD is now registered by way of continuation. Covering all periods from the beginnings of the asylum system in 1814 to around 2014, the book covers the various phases of architectural development as they were played out against political and religious changes sweeping the island of Ireland during its turbulent 19th- and 20th-century history. David Killeen provides a photographic record of the surviving structures in colour. These pictures accompany a wealth of plans, maps and archive photos that bring the text vividly to life. Book lists follow, with all the other elements of a serious, well-researched and broad study. In the UK many workhouses and other such buildings have been listed and most local authorities have evidence of walls of containment in their district. My own house stands across the road from a future development site where Italian and German prisoners of war were held in the 1940s during an almost forgotten episode. Nearby are more remains of a former workhouse that was eventually converted into flats or second homes, and a former isolation hospital situated deep in the woods, where tuberculosis was treated in buildings designed by a young Charles Holden. ‘The Big House’ could once have been found in most Irish cities and towns, or at more isolated spots where land was available for massive buildings. The population in care reached a height of about 20,000 at its peak in 1914 until progress in social care and pharmacology led to a slow, protracted decline in numbers. A further 100 years would pass before we reach the current position with the buildings now abandoned, demolished or repurposed. Quinlan takes us carefully through the whole, sad story of ‘the most solitary of afflictions’, and its results in architecture and preservation. The earliest structures were rigidly planned with male and female segregation, leading to an obsessive symmetry in layout, with a Master’s House at the focus. As the 19th century progressed, other layouts came in and out of fashion. The old houses of ‘lunacy’ became regarded as being too much like prisons, with their rows of cells along the sides of corridors. When allowed, other inmates were given dormitories in which to sleep, but the hours of confinement were long. Not only are we presented here with a stunning volume of history but Quinlan’s formula of 10 introductory chapters, each dealing with a phase of Irish hospital theory and practice, followed by 29 case studies in which single sites are thoroughly discussed and illustrated, provides an ideal formula. It brings a massive subject within the reader’s grasp. Other topics might benefit by this treatment: missions to seamen, for example? The taverns and hotels of the temperance movement? Hostels of all types once existed for a transient workforce and their buildings deserve attention. Each is almost global in extent, but comes from the opposite end of the social scale from the stately homes, city mansions or great churches that are the normal subject of architectural history publication. Graham Tite, conservation officer employed under contract
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