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Pullman Court and the Modern Movement
© Richard J Biggins / Frederick Gibberd Partnership
At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the aftermath of the industrial revolution, there was a huge legacy of poor housing in overcrowded, and often polluted, towns and cities across Europe. Much thought was given to possible solutions by architectural writers and theorists, and many were of the opinion that the very process of industrialisation could provide the solution to the crisis it had created.
One of the most influential of these was a Franco Swiss architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret, who adopted the name 'Le Corbusier' (The Raven). In his most famous book 'Towards a New Architecture' (published in 1923) he proposed the idea that 'a house is a machine for living in' he believed that the processes of industrial design which applied to automobiles and ships could equally be applied to the home. The emphasis was on functionality, efficiency and economy, and there was to be no place for the superfluous ornament of traditional architecture.
A similar theme was developed at the Bauhaus School of Design in Germany where a group of artists and architects were exploring various radical ideas under the leadership of Walter Gropius. With the rise of the Nazi regime many were forced to flee to Britain where their ideas were greeted with enthusiasm by young designers such as Gibberd.
Living in flats has always appeared to be less popular in Britain than on the Continent. Early experiments at solving the housing crises included the growth of 'Garden Cities' such as those at Western and Letchworth; or the suburban sprawl of semi-detached villas which began to ring major towns and cities as improvements in transport enabled people to commute to and from city centres. However various schemes by private developers and those carried out by the newly formed London County Council showed that good quality flats could be provided successfully on inner-city sites in developments such as Millbank and the Boundary Street Estate in Shoreditch, albeit executed in a traditional architectural style.
Frederick Gibberd was of the view that low density housing schemes swallowed up large quantities of land and whilst they might suit affluent car owning families, they neglected the needs of young professional or retired couples who preferred to be close to town centres and were probably reliant on public transport. By using flat roofs for terraces and careful siting of the blocks, it was possible to maximise the amount of open space available to residents, with large communal parks taking the place of tiny individual gardens.
When he came to plan Harlow New Town after the Second World War, he advocated higher-density neighbourhoods with generous areas of landscaped parks between, with accommodation provided in a mix of housing and flats to meet the differing needs of the community.
At Pullman Court the structure is of reinforced concrete throughout and was designed with the structural engineers L.G. Mouchel and Partners, and the Helical Bar & Engineering Co. A highly efficient frame layout of 11 feet 3 inches was adopted which suits the layout of the internal dividing walls. The exterior walls are only four inches thick reinforced concrete with a one inch thick cork lining to provide thermal insulation, and the floors are hollow tiles cast into a reinforced slab to reduce the overall weight. The flat roofs are structural decks to provide gardens.
The concrete was cast against hardboard lined moulds to give a high quality finish and was specified to be painted every five years for protection. So that this can be carried out easily steel rails were provided on each elevation to allow for the suspension of a painter's cradle.
One of the chief characteristics of the buildings of the modern movement was the reliance on 'new' materials such as reinforced concrete and steel. Ideally these materials were to be used in an 'honest' way, with a clear architectural expression of the way the materials were used structurally. If the building was framed internally this could be demonstrated externally by generous areas of horizontal glazing within the lightweight external skin.
© Richard J Biggins / Frederick Gibberd Partnership
photograph: © jaime gili