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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