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The University must plan for future development of the estate, but recognises the need to remain sympathetic to the architectural and landscape significance of ...
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UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA
(2762) 5.2 FINAL Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd 25 Gwydir Street #6 Cambridge CB1 2LG www.carltd.com
This Conservation Development Strategy covers the site and buildings of the University of East Anglia. It is an update of Issue 1 of the Conservation Development Strategy of 2006. It was commissioned by the Estates and Facilities Division of the University of East Anglia and prepared by Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd, beginning in March 2018. The team working on the project comprised Dr William Fawcett and Katie Thornburrow, architects with specialist experience of conservation plans; Dr Barnabas Calder, a specialist on the work of Denys Lasdun; Kenneth Powell, an architectural critic with specialist knowledge of the work of Norman Foster; Philip Cooper, a structural engineer with specialist knowledge of structural conservation; and Dominic Cole, a landscape architect specialising in landscape conservation. UEA’s representative for the project was Peter Bilverstone until August 2018, then Andrew Burbidge. Input to the project and comments on drafts of the Conservation Development Strategy were received from the following members of UEA staff: Roger Bond (Estates Director) Mahmood Faroughi (Deputy Estates Director) Richard Bettle (Energy & Utilities Manager) Peter Bilverstone (Estates Project Manager) Rachel Brown (Space Planning Coordinator) Andrew Burbidge (Head of Projects & Estates Development) Clare Cole (Head of Cleaning & Grounds) Katrin Dawsley (Sustainability Development Manager) Dawn Dewar (Transport Co-ordinator) Charlie Dowen (Deputy Head of Maintenance) Tom Everitt (Landscape Manager) Phil Hunt (Head of Sustainability, Utilities & Engineering) Martin Lovatt(Senior Estates Project Manager) Shaun Palmer (Deputy Head of Maintenance)
Sarah Spooner (Senior Lecturer in Landscape History) Josie Stevens (Head of Space Management & Design) James Taylor (Head of Maintenance). Help in accessing the Feilden & Mawson archive for the Academic Wall was provided by Philip Bodie of F&M. The following participated in reviews of drafts of the Conservation Development Strategy: David Eve (Historic England) Lee Cook (Senior Planner, Norwich City Council) Lara Hall (Principal Landscape Architect, Norwich City Council) Sophia Bix (Conservation & Design Officer, Norwich City Council) Clare Price (20th Century Society) James Alflatt (Bidwells) Heather Jermy (Purcell) Jon Wright (Purcell). Their assistance and contributions are gratefully acknowledged. Particular acknowledgement must be made to two publications which contain a wealth of detailed information about UEA, The History of the University of East Anglia Norwich by Michael Sanderson (2002), and Concrete and Open Skies by Peter Dormer & Stefan Muthesius (2001). We used these sources so many times that it would have been impossible to insert references on each occasion.
The Strategy deals with conservation issues, but conservation is only one factor that must be taken into account when the University is planning or carrying out work to the estate; other factors would include academic priorities, funding, traffic, environmental impact, etc, within the University’s overarching Corporate Plan. This Conservation Development Strategy, therefore, does not constitute an overall development plan for the University, but contributes to UEA’s Development Framework Strategy for growth. The Strategy identifies opportunities for change at UEA, and in this respect it is more ambitious than a typical conservation plan. A conservation plan restricts itself to reviewing the present situation, and is then referred to when proposals for change are brought forward as a separate exercise. The Strategy can fulfil exactly the same role as a typical conservation plan, but by adding opportunities for change it mitigates the planning uncertainly faced by UEA due to the significance of its existing building stock. It is important to note that the Strategy gathers together principles of good practice. The proposals are not all novel and many are already part of current practice at UEA. In these cases the Strategy aims to reinforce the present situation and ensure it continues. It is most important that the Conservation Development Strategy should be a practical guide for action and a material consideration of weight in future planning negotiations. It reflects a range of present- day informed opinion on conservation-related issues at UEA and, subject to resource and timescale constraints, it is believed that its proposals are practical and realisable. How the Strategy is organised The Conservation Development Strategy is based on the well-established ideas of conservation plans, which are promoted by Historic England and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and derive from the pioneering work in Australia by J S Kerr. The Strategy is in five sections: Section 1, ‘Understanding’, describes the building history of the University in a chronological sequence, including a discussion of the social and economic factors which explain the present character of UEA. The architectural and landscape significance is evaluated. Section 2, ‘Issues’, discusses the pressures that might lead to loss of significance, if not managed appropriately. Experience of other buildings and sites which are facing similar pressures are reviewed.
Section 3, ‘Strategy’, begins with a statement of general Principles that will enable UEA to respond to pressures for growth and change while taking full account of heritage significance. Then the individual parts of the University are considered. The significance of each of the main elements is assessed, then special observations are noted and, where appropriate, Policies are set out indicating how the general Principles should be applied. These Policies are cross- referenced to the relevant Principles. The assessments of individual elements are intended to identify significance and do not constitute an exhaustive survey, which falls outside the scope of the Conservation Development Strategy. This section concludes with a methodology for using the Conservation Development Strategy for impact assessment. Section 4 describes the main sources of information about the buildings and landscape of UEA. This includes the statutory listing statements. Section 5 contains plans showing the site and key buildings at UEA. How to use the Strategy The Conservation Development Strategy is intended for a wide readership, on the proposition that the better the University estate is understood, the better it will be appreciated and therefore treated. All users should therefore benefit from reading Section 1, ‘Understanding’, even if their particular interest is focused on one part of the University. Readers who are concerned with the broad issues of conservation at UEA should read the whole of Section 2, ‘Issues’. Other readers might prefer to return to Section 2 after using relevant parts of Section 3, ‘Strategy’. However, all readers should aim to digest the basic information in Section 2. Readers who are concerned with particular elements should refer to the relevant entry in Section 3 before referring back to Section 2. If readers want to follow up any points in the Conservation Development Strategy in more detail, Section 4 gives a list of published sources referred to in the preparation of the Strategy, and also identifies locations with other material specifically related to the buildings and site. The plans are grouped in Section 5 so that they can easily be referred to whenever needed. Updating the Strategy Some aspects of the Conservation Development Strategy should remain valid for a long time, but others will become superseded by new developments, including revisions to legislation and guidance.
projects: academic expansion normally required new buildings, so UGC decisions on the funding of construction determined which developments went ahead. During the 1950s the UGC approved development projects to meet the expected need for growth. Their favoured method was the expansion of existing universities, because this could achieve results more quickly and cheaply than starting from scratch. Under this policy the number of university students rose to 130,000 by 1960, but with the increasingly urgent pressure of numbers the UGC decided to fund a small number of new universities. This also gave a better geographical spread of universities and met the prevailing desire for innovation. Norwich was one of the cities that successfully lobbied for a brand new university. The others were York, Lancaster, Brighton (University of Sussex), Coventry (University of Warwick), and Colchester (University of Essex). At Bath and Canterbury (University of Kent) existing higher education colleges were upgraded to university status and rebuilt on new sites. The names of the chosen cities had a Shakespearian ring, in contrast to the industrial cities with ‘redbrick’ universities, suggesting historic and even romantic aspirations. The UGC’s decision in favour of Norwich was made in April 1960. It was a momentous step, but the job of creating a new university was just beginning.
The creation of a new university at Norwich owed a great deal to the enthusiasm and efforts of local people over many years. A memorandum had been submitted to the UGC in 1947, and in 1958 the local initiative was reactivated and a Promotion Committee formed, which secured the support of local government, industry and influential local figures. Some funds were raised, and a site owned by the City Council near Earlham Hall was earmarked for university use. The name ‘University of East Anglia’ was chosen, rather than University of Norwich or Norfolk, to gain broader regional support. The Promotion Committee was chaired by Lord Mackintosh, a prominent local businessman; Gordon Tilsley, the Town Clerk of Norwich, acted as chief administrator until the appointment of the university’s first full-time Registrar in 1962. The serious business of the new university at Norwich began in the summer of 1960 when the UGC appointed an Academic Planning Board. The crucial post of Vice-Chancellor of the new university was first offered to C H Waddington (1905-1975), an eminent geneticist at Edinburgh University, who initally accepted but then withdrew. After a second round of shortlisting and interviews Frank Thistlethwaite (1915-2000) was selected in July 1961. He was a relatively young historian at Cambridge University specialing in American history, with experience of working at American universities. Thistlethwaite One of the most ambitious pre-New University expansion plans was at Leeds. For the designers of the New Universities, ‘There was one recent development plan which was studied with great interest and which had considerable relevance; that was the carefully documented study for Leeds University by Chamberlin Powell & Bon, published in 1960’ (Brawne, 1970). It argued for compactness and flexible, continuous teaching space – lessons learned at UEA. (2006) Frank Thistlethwaite’s successful textbook on American history, The Great Experiment (1955) – an apt title for his own years at UEA.
took up the post in October 1961 and held it until his retirement in 1980. His distinctive vision for the new university was to loosen traditional subject-area boundaries and move to more interactive teaching. Thus, disciplines were grouped into schools of study, and contacts between schools were encouraged. Seminar teaching was promoted. The university was to be a single community in which networking would be maximised. Thistlethwaite’s educational and social ideas fed directly into the physical plan of the university. The pro-university mood of the 1960s was confirmed by the Robbins Report, which was published in October 1963. The New Universities had already been established, but Robbins gave an enormous boost. ‘Its case for a large and rapid increase in higher education on demographic, economic and social grounds was undeniable. ... The public mood was one in which great numbers of things which in a normal period would take years to settle if they could be settled at all, could be decided for ill or good in almost no time. The press, the public, the political parties, were full of enthusiasm for higher educa- tion, especially university education. Money flowed in abundance. The few voices that were raised in opposition and restraint were shouted down and muffled’ (Carswell, 1985). Universities moved from the UGC backwater in the Treasury to political arena of the Department of Education and Science, where high-profile ministers staked their reputations on exciting policies for the university sector. The positive signals to the new universities could not have been stronger. ‘In Whitehall as elsewhere, there was a determination that the system should not be devalued as a result of expansion. Robbins was not to be done on the cheap. Building standards were generous, staffing ratios were maintained or even allowed to improve, postgraduate support was rapidly extended, and the growth of ancillary services was faster than the growth of student numbers’ (Carswell, 1985). At the embryonic University of East Anglia it was clear that permanent buildings on the new Earlham site could not be ready for some years. The University leased the adjacent Earlham Hall (it is now owned by UEA), and a temporary ‘University Village’ was built on a nearby site between December 1962 and July 1963. The first 112 undergraduates arrived in October 1963. The temporary University Village (1962-63), designed by David Luckhurst of Feilden & Mawson. It remained in use until the 1980s. The site is now occupied by new student housing which retains the name ‘University Village’.
January 1962 and after administrative formalities his appointment was confirmed in March 1962. He said he should be left alone for a year to develop a masterplan for the new university.
In early 1962 UEA was still a very small organisation. Initial briefing for the new buildings took the form of informal discussions between Lasdun and Thistlethwaite on the nature and needs of the new university. They discussed the academic and social implications of centralised facilities as opposed to colleges, and the need to bring disciplines together; and agreed on a tight grouping of buildings to minimise distances and create an urban quality to the university. Otherwise Lasdun had a free hand in planning a university of 3, students to be built over ten years, with scope for further expansion to 6,000 students. Over the summer months of 1962 the UEA project team in Ladun’s office drew and redrew the site with different ideas for the university masterplan. They were strongly influenced by the topography of the site, with the buildings being concentrated on the higher ground towards the north boundary. In the first design studies the central group of buildings was located towards the west of this built-up zone, looking down the steep hillside to the bend in the River Yare, with the remaining accommodation extending towards the east. Denys Lasdun saw the opportunity of moving the main focus to a central position, with eastward and westward growth divided by a central ‘harbour’. This was the generating inspiration that led to the masterplan. Two important themes emerged in the early, formative studies. Firstly, the zigzagging residential blocks appeared at an early stage, forming a boundary between the open landscape and the academic accommodation. Secondly, multi-level solutions with raised decks and walkways were a consistent feature throughout design development. Draft I of the Development Plan was presented to the University in December 1962 and unveiled to the public on 25 April 1963 – Lasdun literally removed covering sheets from models and drawings one-by- one. His office first emphasised the acronym ‘UEA’, which later became ubiquitous. The Draft I design was greeted enthusiastically and received extensive publication and comment in international architectural journals. It is crucial for an understanding of Lasdun’s intentions at UEA, representing his underlying ideas before practicalities masked their clarity. Some years later Lasdun set out the generating principles in the following words (Lasdun, 1969): Concentration : The University must be compact, a place where activities merge and where the individual can sense his identity with the whole. All activities are within five minutes’ walking distance and linked by continuous pedestrian routes. Lasdun’s development Plan Draft I received an enthusiastic response when it was presented in April 1963. The work of briefing the Architect for the Development Plan went on throughout the spring and summer of 1962. Mr. Lasdun absorbed the academic design in all its aspects and it became clear that it was congenial to him and that there was a real meeting of minds about the way this should be resolved in architectonic terms. Space precludes an account of the extended conversations involved. Two points of principle and one or two specific features may, however, be mentioned. First, the architect was asked to evolve an integrated, rather than a dispersed, scheme, appropriate to the academic design. Secondly, the scheme should not only be flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen needs for many years to come, but should be a coherent entity at each stage of growth so that early generations of students should not have the sense of living in a broken and unfinished development. The architect responded imaginatively to the demands of both these criteria, especially in his concern for a solution which would be “urban” or concentrated rather than “campus” or dispersed, which would provide a “sense of place”, for the movement of people, their encounters and their sociable relations, and which could be capable of being realised in terms of organic growth. He was also provided with guidance as to the nature of the principal buildings and the priorities for their construction. Frank Thistlethwaite : The Founding of the University of East Anglia: a reminiscent chronicle, November 1963
Limitation of the spread : This together with the fact that there will be no ‘cordon sanitaire’ not only secures the continued enjoyment of a recreated landscape for the university and the people of Norwich, but also ensures its continuance as a cohesive whole. Linkage and Movement : Elevated walkways, carrying services, run horizontally against the natural slope of the ground enabling buildings to be entered one or more floors above ground level, while roads follow the slope of the ground. This gives a degree of concentration otherwise obtainable only by a more extensive use of lifts; allows separation of pedestrians from vehicles; and encourages mixing and chance encounters. Student Living : A form of living fully integrated with the University as a whole and capable of fostering small groups within the larger community. Materials : The infinite variety of colour in the valley landscape makes the choice of external materials and colour of particular importance. Of all the suitable materials available today concrete in its natural grey state appears to enhance the colours of the landscape to greatest advantage. It is important, therefore, that there should be a predominance of this material with its range of neutral colours depending on whether it is precast, in situ or in the form of concrete blocks. Growth : The establishment of a nucleus in the first stage by systems of quick construction to produce a microcosm of the ultimate University. The plan must have the capacity to assimilate the changing needs of the academic programme and be susceptible to architectural modifications and elaborations by discovery and use. Following the euphoric response to Draft I, there was a period of negotiation with the newly-appointed heads of academic departments about their precise needs. Almost all the changes to the masterplan were driven by academic considerations. The teaching accommodation for the arts and sciences, which had been separated, was recast as a long teaching wall. The library moved to its current freestanding position, with room for expansion, and all the commercial, social and catering functions were grouped into a single building. In contrast, the ziggurat residences were only slightly adjusted. The Development Plan Draft II incorporating these changes was made public at the end of September 1963, as the first students were arriving at the temporary University Village. Lasdun’s revised Development Plan Draft II of September
document produced by DLP on UEA. It explains the key themes of the earlier drafts, and gives Lasdun’s views on how to safeguard the quality of UEA’s architecture whilst satisfying the university’s need for growth and change. Virtually nothing of the Draft III proposal was built in the way Lasdun proposed.
In the early 1960s the New Universities were highly desirable architectural commissions – ‘the most prestigious building projects of the whole post-war era’ (Saint, 1992). They were an expression of national purpose in the era of the Welfare State, equivalent to, say, a palace or cathedral for earlier generations. The University of Sussex was the first of the New Universities to get under way; in 1959 Sir Basil Spence (of Coventry Cathedral fame) designed a masterplan of pavilions in a landscaped park. The ‘headline’ building was Falmer House (1960-62), the gateway to the University, which housed the social and communal facilities. Its lavish design horrified the University Grants Committee; it is now listed Grade I (the only building in the New Universities to have this grade). Later buildings at Sussex were much more economical. Lasdun was not interested in designing tasteful pavilions in a landscaped park. He wanted to express the vitality and dynamism of university life in a correspondingly vital and dynamic form. It was less important to display good taste than to be radical and ‘urban’. This meant a network of connected buildings, rather than pavilions. Over the summer of 1962 DLP’s team re-thought the conventions of campus planning to produce the distinctive linear layout of teaching and residential buildings, that gave UEA’s Development Plan and the completed buildings such a powerful architectural character. It was a remarkable creation. Needless to say, there were precedents for the elements of the UEA masterplan – it was developed within an intellectual context where many of Lasdun’s concerns and values were shared by others. But the synthesis at UEA is unique. Two other New Universities aimed for the same dense urbanity as UEA – Lancaster and Essex. The masterplan for Lancaster was designed by Gabriel Epstein of Shepheard & Epstein in 1963 and the first buildings date from 1965-68 – the same as UEA. Lancaster used a more conventional layout type of the period, with buildings arranged informally around casual semi-courtyards. This leads to a rather labyrinthine and monotonous architectural character, although functionally sound. Architecturally, UEA is much bolder and more exciting. The masterplan of University of Essex was designed by Kenneth Capon of Architects Co-partnership Falmer House, University of Sussex, by Sir Basil Spence. ‘Some of the officials [of the UGC] groaned about the proclivities of some universities to appoint prestigious and therefore, they suspected, expensive architects’ (Carswell, 1985). (2004) Lancaster University adopted a compact, high-density masterplan, but the buildings and layouts were bland by comparison with UEA. (2006)
in 1962 and construction started in 1964, just ahead of UEA. Like Lasdun at UEA, Capon developed a completely new architectural language. Thus, Essex is the most similar of the new Universities to UEA. When comparing them, UEA has two strong advantages: first, both masterplans were abandoned long before completion, but Lasdun’s work at UEA has a coherence which is lacking at Essex, where unfinished decks are still intrusive; and second, the character of the individual buildings is generally stronger at UEA than Essex, with the exception of the Essex library which is architecturally more impressive than UEA’s. UEA stands, therefore, as one of the architectural stars of the New Universities, and even in its incomplete form it is the most striking large scale architectural composition of the whole post-war Welfare State building programme. The view of Lasdun’s UEA buildings from the Broad bears comparison with earlier architectural set pieces in Britain, like Blenheim Palace or Carlton House Terrace. Despite starting with boundless ambition, UEA was less than half built and what was built was on constrained budgets. Thus the close-up quality of the buildings suffers in comparison with other buildings of the period with more generous funding thn provided by the UGC, such as Arne Jacobsen’s St Catherine’s College, Oxford (1960-64, listed Grade I) or Lasdun’s own Royal College of Physicians, London (1960-64, listed Grade I). Nevertheless, despite tight budgets the main Lasdun blocks at UEA were meticulously detailed, particularly the precast concrete and window elements. The overall conception and impact is the most important thing at UEA. It is sometimes pointed out that Lasdun published photos of UEA models long after work had started on site, but there is sense in this as the models communicate Lasdun’s design concept so well. His approach at UEA could be called ‘schematic’: the big idea is dominant and the physical realisation of individual buildings is a subsidiary point of interest.
A number of important themes contribute towards an understanding of the architecture of Lasdun at UEA.
1. Urban Quality Lasdun was determined to produce a university which would be more like a city than a suburb. Thistlethwaite recalled agreeing that something of the density and concentration of an Italian hilltop town would be desirable, and the comparison appears repeatedly in his writing and Lasdun’s (eg. Thistlethwaite, 2000). In the 1969 Development Plan report the theme of urban density and tight The Architect of Essex University, Kenneth Capon, anwered critics by saying, ‘Wait until it’s finished’, but like the masterplans of all New Universities it never was finished. (2006) San Giminiano, the perfect Italian hill town.
