Patrick Gwynne
Encyclopedia
Patrick Gwynne was a British modernist architect with Welsh roots, best known for designing and building The Homewood
, which he left to the National Trust
in 2003.
in 1913 to naval Commander Alban Gwynne and mother, Ruby. They had a daughter, "Babs".
He attended Harrow where he first connected with modernist architecture on a school sketching excursion near Amersham, in Buckinghamshire
where he saw Amyas Connell
’s “High and Over", the first modern movement house in Britain.
His father planned for him to be an accountant but since Gwynne wanted to be an architect, secured articles (indentured training) for him with Ernest Coleridge, a former assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens. On completion, Gwynne met Wells Coates
, founder of the Modern Architecture Research Group. Gwynne worked for Coates while designing a new house for his parents.
This was the European influenced, The Homewood, built in 1938 on another part of an 8 acres (32,374.9 m²) estate, to replace the rambling Victorian house in Esher
in Surrey
. The family used profits from the sale of their Welsh estate – a Welsh “planned town”, Aberaeron, to pay for the new building which cost ₤10,000, an immense sum for those days.
Coates advised on technical matters and Denys Lasdun, another assistant to Coates, designed the elliptical terrace pool. Gwynne and Denys Lasdun became friends while at Wells Coates's office. Gwynne claimed to have contributed a crucial design move that unlocked the rest of the design for the Royal College of Physicians building, making it end-on to Regents Park. Lasdun returned the compliment by designing The Homewood pool.
's Villa Savoye
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
's Tugendhat House. Despite his enthusiasm for flat surfaces, man-made materials and rigorous lack of ornament, Gwynne produced a remarkably mature design at a young age, designing all the built-in furniture, light fittings and innovations such as ensuites and window mechanisms.
The main accommodation is raised on piloti
s to accommodate parking for the family's many cars. There is one large living room with a dining area screened at one end. The five bedrooms are in a separate wing and the servants’ quarters had room for four servants.
His parents had "one good year" in the house, but died early in the Second World War, while Gwynne was serving in the Royal Air Force constructing airfields. War broke out just after the family home was finished. Commander Gwynne resumed his naval duties, Patrick joined the RAF and his sister, Babs, went to the Wrens. Patrick's mother Ruby let the house, but died along with her husband in 1942. After the war, Patrick returned along with his sister, who soon married and left. His long-term companion, pianist Harry Rand, had an adjoining bedroom, identical to Gwynne's, with a single bed and washbasin concealed behind sliding panels. He carried on a highly successful architectural business from the house that he was to live in for about 60 years.
In 1946 he restored the house for himself, remodelling the kitchen to the servantless times (though he continued to be looked after by housekeeper friends). His parents' bedroom was added to his office space. Murals by Peter Thompson and Stephan Knapp, and furniture to Gwynne's own design, were added over the years. He continually modified the house over time so that it represents design from the 30’s and 50’s to the 70’s.
The building was his personal masterwork, his home, his office and living portfolio. It's the only other substantial prewar modernist house with continuity of occupation and contents.
led to a commission for the Crescent Restaurant at Battersea Fun Fair. It was a real tent, with Regency-style bows to support the structure, painted in rainbow colours.
Through this he met Charles Forte, for whom he went on in 1964 to design the Serpentine Restaurant in Hyde Park
, a series of mushroom structures inspired by umbrellas - which he thought appropriate in a park. It was demolished in 1990, but his smaller Dell Restaurant, built 1965, at the other end of the park survives, and the terrazzo terrace and built-in seating overlooking the Serpentine show his signature touches.
The Serpentine Restaurant led to a commission for a restaurant addition to the Theatre Royal
at York
, where the mushroom structure was repeated around a sweeping, freestanding staircase.
He designed two motorway service stations for Motorchef. Burtonwood on the M62 was built in 1974, with a pair of dramatic roof forms swooping up like a swirl of whipped cream.
For his private houses, Gwynne developed a close-knit set of clients that included his builder, Leslie Bilsby, for whom he designed three houses, and his quantity surveyor, Kenneth Monk. These houses mark the height of sixties
life style, many designed as a series of connecting rooms that could be thrown together for parties, and with built-in dressers and drinks cabinets. Televisions and gramophones were cleverly concealed, and in one house were hinged within the wall to serve different rooms.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Gwynne designed a number of houses in Hampstead and Blackheath in London, and in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Dorset, many of which have been Grade II listed.
on a strip of land overlooking the Channel
. This house was Vista Point, completed in 1970, and designed to take full advantage of the site.
Gwynne designed Vista Point to entirely overlook the garden. The house has few side windows. Bingham writes: “The house is planned with an hourglass shape, narrowing to a ‘waistline’ for the staircase core. The roof echoes the undulating walls, sliding from the front to the rear like a giant wave. Gwynne chose building materials, many of them man-made, to withstand the sea-front climate.”
He did not complete any major buildings after the end of the 1970s, working more as an advisor on restorations and extensions.
His later houses became more curvilinear, with rounded corners; one in Blackheath
is designed as a series of linked pentagons, a space-age capsule that references the proportions of neighbouring Regency buildings.
His clients included the actors Jack Hawkins
and Laurence Harvey
, the pianist Clifford Curzon
, the pioneer builder of modernist schemes Leslie Bilsby, and Sir Charles Forte. The largest was built at Whitley Park, Godalming, Surrey, for Gerald Bentall in 1962,
Gwynne retained the European quality of 1930s modernism in his careful choice of materials, delight in gadgets and neo-Baroque sensibility.
His obituary in The Times
notes his genius for his residential work "with his faultless sense of placing, innovative plan forms, novel techniques and materials, and meticulous concern for interior arrangement and detail."
's house in Willow Road, Hampstead
, in 1993 Gwynne offered the Homewood, the last great pre-war modern house with its fittings and grounds intact. Avanti Architects worked with Gwynne to painstakingly restore the house.
Even at the end, despite increasing frailty Gwynne was still developing designs for a new house in the grounds to create an income for the Trust.
Michael Pick The English Room. Weidenfeld&Nicolson. (1985)
Images of The Homewood Patrick Gwynne http://www.mainstreamimages.co.uk/theme.asp?id=1&feature=0389
The Homewood
The Homewood is a modernist house in Esher, Surrey, England. Designed by architect Patrick Gwynne for his parents, The Homewood was given by Gwynne to the National Trust in 1999.-Origins:...
, which he left to the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
in 2003.
Early life and work
Gwynne was born in Porchester, HampshireHampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
in 1913 to naval Commander Alban Gwynne and mother, Ruby. They had a daughter, "Babs".
He attended Harrow where he first connected with modernist architecture on a school sketching excursion near Amersham, in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
where he saw Amyas Connell
Amyas Connell
Amyas Douglas Connell was a highly influential New Zealand architect of the mid-twentieth century. He achieved early and conspicuous success as a student, winning the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1926...
’s “High and Over", the first modern movement house in Britain.
His father planned for him to be an accountant but since Gwynne wanted to be an architect, secured articles (indentured training) for him with Ernest Coleridge, a former assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens. On completion, Gwynne met Wells Coates
Wells Coates
Wells Wintemute Coates OBE was an architect, designer and writer. He was, for most of his life, an ex-patriate Canadian architect who is best known for his work in England...
, founder of the Modern Architecture Research Group. Gwynne worked for Coates while designing a new house for his parents.
This was the European influenced, The Homewood, built in 1938 on another part of an 8 acres (32,374.9 m²) estate, to replace the rambling Victorian house in Esher
Esher
Esher is a town in the Surrey borough of Elmbridge in South East England near the River Mole. It is a very prosperous part of the Greater London Urban Area, largely suburban in character, and is situated 14.1 miles south west of Charing Cross....
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. The family used profits from the sale of their Welsh estate – a Welsh “planned town”, Aberaeron, to pay for the new building which cost ₤10,000, an immense sum for those days.
Coates advised on technical matters and Denys Lasdun, another assistant to Coates, designed the elliptical terrace pool. Gwynne and Denys Lasdun became friends while at Wells Coates's office. Gwynne claimed to have contributed a crucial design move that unlocked the rest of the design for the Royal College of Physicians building, making it end-on to Regents Park. Lasdun returned the compliment by designing The Homewood pool.
The Homewood (1938-39)
Building The Homewood when he was just 24, Gwynne acknowledged his sources as Le CorbusierLe Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
's Villa Savoye
Villa Savoye
Villa Savoye is a modernist villa in Poissy, in the outskirts of Paris, France. It was designed by Swiss architects Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, and built between 1928 and 1931....
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
's Tugendhat House. Despite his enthusiasm for flat surfaces, man-made materials and rigorous lack of ornament, Gwynne produced a remarkably mature design at a young age, designing all the built-in furniture, light fittings and innovations such as ensuites and window mechanisms.
The main accommodation is raised on piloti
Piloti
Pilotis, or piers, are supports such as columns, pillars, or stilts that lift a building above ground or water. They are traditionally found in stilt and pole dwellings such as fishermen's huts in Asia and Scandinavia using wood and in elevated houses such as Old Queenslanders in Australia's...
s to accommodate parking for the family's many cars. There is one large living room with a dining area screened at one end. The five bedrooms are in a separate wing and the servants’ quarters had room for four servants.
His parents had "one good year" in the house, but died early in the Second World War, while Gwynne was serving in the Royal Air Force constructing airfields. War broke out just after the family home was finished. Commander Gwynne resumed his naval duties, Patrick joined the RAF and his sister, Babs, went to the Wrens. Patrick's mother Ruby let the house, but died along with her husband in 1942. After the war, Patrick returned along with his sister, who soon married and left. His long-term companion, pianist Harry Rand, had an adjoining bedroom, identical to Gwynne's, with a single bed and washbasin concealed behind sliding panels. He carried on a highly successful architectural business from the house that he was to live in for about 60 years.
In 1946 he restored the house for himself, remodelling the kitchen to the servantless times (though he continued to be looked after by housekeeper friends). His parents' bedroom was added to his office space. Murals by Peter Thompson and Stephan Knapp, and furniture to Gwynne's own design, were added over the years. He continually modified the house over time so that it represents design from the 30’s and 50’s to the 70’s.
The building was his personal masterwork, his home, his office and living portfolio. It's the only other substantial prewar modernist house with continuity of occupation and contents.
Career
As an architect, Gwynne specialised in houses. His designs have a collective resemblance in their ingenious adaptation to site and prospect, their logical but often dramatic internal planning, and their willingness to use curved forms on plan. Gwynne also grew a reputation for restaurant design.Restaurants
His entry in the restaurant competition at the Festival of BritainFestival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
led to a commission for the Crescent Restaurant at Battersea Fun Fair. It was a real tent, with Regency-style bows to support the structure, painted in rainbow colours.
Through this he met Charles Forte, for whom he went on in 1964 to design the Serpentine Restaurant in Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
, a series of mushroom structures inspired by umbrellas - which he thought appropriate in a park. It was demolished in 1990, but his smaller Dell Restaurant, built 1965, at the other end of the park survives, and the terrazzo terrace and built-in seating overlooking the Serpentine show his signature touches.
The Serpentine Restaurant led to a commission for a restaurant addition to the Theatre Royal
York Theatre Royal
The York Theatre Royal is a theatre in St. Leonard's Place, York, England, which dates back to 1744. The theatre currently seats 847 people. This reduced capacity takes into account removal of the mixing position seats and the stage side boxes which are normally not sold...
at York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, where the mushroom structure was repeated around a sweeping, freestanding staircase.
He designed two motorway service stations for Motorchef. Burtonwood on the M62 was built in 1974, with a pair of dramatic roof forms swooping up like a swirl of whipped cream.
Houses
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
life style, many designed as a series of connecting rooms that could be thrown together for parties, and with built-in dressers and drinks cabinets. Televisions and gramophones were cleverly concealed, and in one house were hinged within the wall to serve different rooms.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Gwynne designed a number of houses in Hampstead and Blackheath in London, and in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Dorset, many of which have been Grade II listed.
Vista Point (1970)
In the late 1960s, Gwynne’s quantity surveyor, Ken Monk, asked him to design a summer house in West SussexWest Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
on a strip of land overlooking the Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. This house was Vista Point, completed in 1970, and designed to take full advantage of the site.
Gwynne designed Vista Point to entirely overlook the garden. The house has few side windows. Bingham writes: “The house is planned with an hourglass shape, narrowing to a ‘waistline’ for the staircase core. The roof echoes the undulating walls, sliding from the front to the rear like a giant wave. Gwynne chose building materials, many of them man-made, to withstand the sea-front climate.”
He did not complete any major buildings after the end of the 1970s, working more as an advisor on restorations and extensions.
Materials and design
As well as building design, Gwynne also advised on furnishings and landscaping to create a complete ensemble. His use of plastic finishes, including a special grass paper which was also his own product. "People seem to recognise my work as being from my hand in spite of the strong influence of client and site," he wrote in 1984.His later houses became more curvilinear, with rounded corners; one in Blackheath
Blackheath, London
Blackheath is a district of South London, England. It is named from the large open public grassland which separates it from Greenwich to the north and Lewisham to the west...
is designed as a series of linked pentagons, a space-age capsule that references the proportions of neighbouring Regency buildings.
His clients included the actors Jack Hawkins
Jack Hawkins
Colonel John Edward "Jack" Hawkins CBE was an English actor of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.-Career:Hawkins was born at Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, Middlesex, the son of master builder Thomas George Hawkins and his wife, Phoebe née Goodman. The youngest of four children in a close-knit family,...
and Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...
, the pianist Clifford Curzon
Clifford Curzon
Sir Clifford Michael Curzon, CBE was an English pianist.-Early life:Clifford Michael Siegenberg was born in London to Michael and Constance Mary Siegenberg...
, the pioneer builder of modernist schemes Leslie Bilsby, and Sir Charles Forte. The largest was built at Whitley Park, Godalming, Surrey, for Gerald Bentall in 1962,
Gwynne retained the European quality of 1930s modernism in his careful choice of materials, delight in gadgets and neo-Baroque sensibility.
His obituary in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
notes his genius for his residential work "with his faultless sense of placing, innovative plan forms, novel techniques and materials, and meticulous concern for interior arrangement and detail."
National Trust
Following the National Trust's successful campaign to acquire Erno GoldfingerErno Goldfinger
Ernő Goldfinger was a Hungarian-born Jewish architect and designer of furniture, and a key member of the architectural Modern Movement after he had moved to the United Kingdom.-Biography:Goldfinger was born in Budapest...
's house in Willow Road, Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, in 1993 Gwynne offered the Homewood, the last great pre-war modern house with its fittings and grounds intact. Avanti Architects worked with Gwynne to painstakingly restore the house.
Even at the end, despite increasing frailty Gwynne was still developing designs for a new house in the grounds to create an income for the Trust.
Further reading
Neil Bingham's essay The Houses of Patrick Gwynne (2000)Michael Pick The English Room. Weidenfeld&Nicolson. (1985)
Images of The Homewood Patrick Gwynne http://www.mainstreamimages.co.uk/theme.asp?id=1&feature=0389