books the country house ideal: recent work · pdf filedrawing and rendering, ......

BOOKS

PERSPECTIVE 95

This beautifully produced volume,

illustrated with the finest architectural

photographs this reviewer has ever

seen (and that is saying something),

is a record of works by a civilised

practice directed by Robert Adam, Nigel

Anderson, Paul Hanvey, Hugh Petter,

and George Saumarez Smith. The last’s

Treatise on Modern Architecture in Five

Books was reviewed by the present

writer in Times Higher Education 2127

(14-20 November 2013) 50-1: Smith

is a fine draughtsman, and indeed

several members of the firm are highly

accomplished in traditional architectural

drawing and rendering, rare skills in

these benighted times.

ADAM Architecture’s portfolio is

varied, but The Country House Ideal

concentrates on that building-type:

and what exquisite things are on

display! There are superb top-lit stair-

wells, delightful sequences of rooms

and spaces, elegantly proportioned

buildings, and much else to please the

eye, but what strikes the reader most

is the attention to detail and the very

high standard of workmanship achieved

using real craftsmen and competent

contractors under sound professional

supervision. The Lutyensesque use of

tiles used as the voussoirs of arches, flint

walls with brick dressings (very much

responding to local building traditions),

and oak framing with dowels for the

belvedere windows at Robert Adam’s

Penny Lane Farm near Stockbridge,

Hampshire (completed 2002), draw on

Arts-and-Crafts precedents, markedly so

in the enchanting, long, stone-flagged

hallway-cum-picture-gallery. Petter’s

sensitive and meticulous restoration

(and improvement) of the Old Rectory

at West Woodhay, Berkshire, after a

disastrous fire of 2011, also involved

expert craftsmen, not least in the

realisation of his simplified Greek-Doric

porch with square columns.

The ‘butterfly’ plan of Nigel Anderson’s

Ebblestone House, Wiltshire (completed

2009), a building constructed of

limestone with knapped-flint panels,

suggests something of Happisburgh

Manor, Cromer, Norfolk (1900), by

Detmar Jellings Blow (1867-1939), and

its low-pitched slate roofs with wide

overhanging bracketed eaves nod to

Regency design, notably works of John

Nash (1752-1835), whose influence

may also be detected in Anderson’s Field

House, near Grange Park, Hampshire

(completed 2004). All the Directors

are sensitive to the proper use of

materials, and there are particularly

good examples of brickwork (all with

appropriate pointing, of course, for

nothing can kill the effect of a wall built

of even the finest bricks better than grey

cement) depicted, including red bricks

laid in Flemish bond with dark glazed

headers, all hand-made, at Ewhurst Park,

Hampshire (a new house by Anderson

completed 2012), and Saumarez Smith’s

chastely elegant work at Langton House,

near Alresford, Hampshire (completed

2005), both schemes employing

skewback arches made of brick rubbers

set in lime putty.

Works shown are extremely well-

made, avoid pedantry or stylistic

dogmatism (Mr Musson ought to know,

however, that the French cottage orné is

masculine, so his ornée is wrong), and

all are perfectly fitted within their sites,

respecting features, views, and contours.

There is no SLOAP here (Space Left Over

After Planning), an inevitable result of

the unimaginative, crude rigidities of

International Modernism. The country

houses of ADAM Architecture have

found their places in the landscape: they

truly belong. l

James Stevens Curl

The Country House Ideal: Recent Work by ADAM ArchitectureBy Jeremy Musson

with photographs by

Paul Barker

and Forewords by Clive Aslet and

Calder Loth

London & New York: Merrell Publishers LtdISBN 978-1-8589-4639-9 (hardback with jacket) 288 pp., 280 colour illustrations, £40.00

THE COUNTRY HOUSE IDEAL: RECENT WORK BY ADAM ARCHITECTUREBY JEREMY MUSSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL BARKER, FOREWORDS BY CLIVE ASLET AND CALDER LOTH