History

Introduction

• A brief history
• Historical development of the Suburb
• A Concise History
• Growth and Change
• Henrietta Barnett's planning vision
• Unwin's town planning
• Small scale planning
• Town Planning Act
• Central Square Architecture
• St. Jude's and the Free Church
• The Institute

The Institute

The Institute was built to fulfil Henrietta Barnett’s desire for “a centre where intellectual people of all standards of cultivation and of all classes of society could meet in potential friendship.”

It went through a very protracted design life, beginning as a simple block to enclose the North-East side of Central Square, becoming more ambitious and grandiose and standing today still unfinished.

Edwin Lutyens, architect for Central Square, aimed for building which would act as a classical link between the churches while also helping to enclose and define the square itself.

The first design he presented was a simple three block ‘Wrenaissance’ plan. The central block was visually linked to the churches through the inclusion of a massive hipped roof and cupola, while the arcaded ground floor was intended to read as a continuation of a set of arches planned in North and South Squares, the whole area reading as an arcade of connected but distinct spaces.

The strength of this design was its enclosure of Central Square, creating a solid boundary to the space, and its visual connection of the two churches.

In the built design the elevation increases this visual connection, the cornice from the roof line of the churches is continued as a band along the façade of the Institute; below this band the ground floor ‘podium’ supports the floors above.

In this later design the building also has a recessed central block to vary the quality of the space, and to relate it to the open space of Central Square.

Lutyens also created variety within the block facades, giving them a central section flanked by pilasters. The wide opening necessary at the centre of the wings made an arched entrance or flanking columns impossible, so Lutyens inserted a flat arch of stone voussoirs descending towards the centre, he described this as a ‘Vincenzean’ arch, echoing the originally planned arcading.

The North wing was completed in 1911, and J.C.S Soutar, the Trust architect and Unwin’s successor, supervised the construction of the South wing in 1923, while Lutyens designed the elevations for Crewe Hall, the central block.

The recessed nature of Crewe hall between the North and South wings gives it two very different aspects, the courtyard façade, which relates to the churches and Central Square, and the more expansive protruding façade which relates to the sloping countryside behind.

In 1926 Lutyens finished the elevations for Crewe Hall, making the courtyard elevation similar to that of North wing, and the protruding façade more grandiose.

Due to the hill site the back elevation has an exposed basement, and this level which provides the rusticated base for the impressive four columned Ionic portico and pediment which burst through the roof and terminate in a colonial-American cupola. This four storey portico was designed to dominate the views up the hill from Middleway, another beacon on Henrietta Barnett’s hill of knowledge.

The Institute as it stands today is still not as Lutyens intended, his plans included the extension of the North and South wings to completely enclose Central Square and link the building to Northway and Southway, and the planned extension to the east which would have screened Central Square from the east winds and created an area for sports was financially impossible.

However it is as Henrietta Barnett envisioned the “first expression of the common life of the suburb,” and offered concerts, evening classes, debates and even Unwin’s lectures on Town planning until its conversion to the Henrietta Barnett School for Girls in the 1930s.