Return of the Style Wars

The real problem with the Labour Party’s embrace of traditional architecture

Gdansk, Poland: an example of the “gentle density” favoured by the Create Streets school of urbanism. (Image: Shutterstock)

The architectural style have erupted again, after the Times reported that Britain’s Labour Party wants to build new houses with a more traditional character. It appears Labour has been working with the think tank Create Streets, which has also influenced the current Conservative government, to plan neighbourhoods inspired by “Edwardian mansion blocks,” “Victorian terraces” and “suburban semis.” Cue outrage from the architectural establishment, in the guise of former RIBA president Ben Derbyshire. Writing in the Architect’s Journal, Derbyshire accused Labour of “seducing the electorate with sad, regressive imagery,” which he described as “Edwardian pastiche and twee chocolate-box watercolours.” Instead, Derbyshire wants the next government to “work with contemporary talent” and promote “real design quality, not historicist, aesthetic populism.”

The Create Streets approach that Labour has adopted is fundamentally about persuading local communities to accept more housebuilding. It favours terraces and mansion blocks because they provide “gentle density,” meaning that housing can be concentrated in urban areas (reducing the pressure to build in the countryside) while maintaining a human scale of three to eight stories, as opposed to enormous tower blocks. It favours traditional styles because the evidence from surveys and housing market data indicates quite strongly that Brits like them. As far as I can tell – and despite his best efforts to dance around the fact – Derbyshire concedes this point about popularity: hence his charge of “populism.” He is arguing, firstly, that traditional styles are unpopular with architects; secondly, that majority preferences should not rule in “a diverse nation”; and finally, that the government should not indulge the ignorance of laypeople but “show the public what good housing architects can do.”

I’ve been writing about these controversies for a while now, and my own thinking has evolved somewhat. In the past I’ve worried – and still do – that our infatuation with heritage is preventing us from making our own distinct contribution to history. I’ve looked at some of the reasons that architects have such different tastes from the public – resulting in hysterical claims about the dangers of traditional architecture – while I acknowledged that design should not place popularity above the pursuit of excellence. More recently, I’ve realised the divide over style has much deeper roots in British society, reflecting a longstanding conflict between cultured progressives and the suburban middle classes. A preference for traditional elements and historical references in the built environment is deeply ingrained in middle Britain (though not limited to it), as is the sense that old buildings are beautiful. These feeling are part of a worldview and way of life. In this sense, Derbyshire is right to describe Labour’s promise of Edwardian mansion blocks as populist; the party’s design vision is emblematic of its efforts to reassure these same parts of the country that it is on their side. I’ll be elaborating on this point in my next post.

Create Streets’ vision for new Victorian- and Edwardian-inspired neighbourhoods, described by the former RIBA president as “twee chocolate-box watercolours.” (Image: Create Streets)

What I don’t buy is the assumption, quite widespread in the design world, that the popular appetite for historicism is a symptom of pathological insularity or nostalgia, tendencies that enlightened architects should try to stamp out. For one thing, there is nothing inherently irrational about preferring older design principles to newer ones. Both modernist and anti-modernist aesthetics can be embraced out of pure prejudice, or through more sensitive and considered forms of appreciation. As I’ve noted in the case of post-war architecture, progressives are prone to their own kinds of sentimentality, and it’s worth remembering that “traditional” styles actually tend to combine old and new elements. More importantly, the fact that these preferences are bound up with identity and notions of home is precisely what makes them too complex to boil down to simple ideological signifiers.

My own objections to Labour’s traditionalist turn are quite different. Who exactly is going to build these elegant neighbourhoods? Victorian and Edwardian architecture relied on relatively cheap, skilled workers, trained to build in a certain way (as shown by its habitual use of ornament, which would now be considered a luxury). Today, by contrast, the construction industry suffers from an aging, shrinking workforce, a dearth of skills, and a structure that ultimately favours property developers’ profits at the expense of quality. That is a big part of why we get the mediocre “identikit homes” that Labour is promising to banish. As the Create Streets proposal illustrates, the “get Britain building” brigade has become so fixated on overcoming the objections of NIMBYs that it has nothing to say about how its promised designs will actually be delivered at scale. I can only assume the result will be another wave of shoddy new builds with slightly different proportions.