EXHIBITION: Building Fitzwilliam College 1963-2013: An Architectural Journey 26 June – 11 October | Open daily 9am – 5pm

SYMPOSIUM Tuesday 25 June 2013 | The Auditorium

Programme: 5.30: Dr Barnabas Calder ‘Courts and Community: ’s Fitzwilliam House’ Panel: Bob Allies, Ted Cullinan, Joanna van Heyningen, Oliver Smith, Johnny Winter. Chair: Professor David Dernie 7.00: Reception 7.45: Dinner

Introduction: In 1963 the Fellows and students of Fitzwilliam moved into new buildings designed by Denys Lasdun, a champion of the International Modernist movement in architecture. Fitzwilliam celebrates 50 years on the site with a symposium and an exhibition of photographs, plans and models showing the ways in which Lasdun’s original vision has been interpreted and transformed by successive architects and imaginative landscaping.

Six architectural practices have been involved in building Fitzwilliam over the last 50 years – Denys Lasdun and Partners; David Roberts; MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (now MJP Architects); van Heyningen and Haward; Allies and Morrison, and Edward Cullinan Architects (now Cullinan Studio).

A close look at the buildings and their complementary gardens shows Fitzwilliam evolving into one of the most appealing of Cambridge college environments in which to live and to study.

Abstract: ‘Courts and community: Denys Lasdun’s Fitzwilliam House’, Dr Barnabas Calder. Denys Lasdun was one of the most internationally admired British architects of the 1950s and ‘60s. From 1958 he designed the first buildings for Fitzwilliam House, as part of the institution’s drive to obtain its collegiate status. This lecture will revisit the ‘essential nucleus’ which Lasdun provided as the central point for the College’s future growth, and will compare Lasdun’s strategy for collegiate planning with others of the post- war university expansion, particularly with the court-dominated planning of the various new colleges of Cambridge and Oxford.

Fitzwilliam has been overlooked within Lasdun’s body of work. This lecture proposes to recognise it as part of his hugely diverse and energetic stylistic experimentation of the 1950s through which he developed the architecture which was to make him Britain’s leading architect of the 1960s. The design for Fitzwilliam will also be shown to be a close relative of some of his most influential and admired architecture, especially the Royal College of Physicians, designed and built over the same period.

Sir Denys Lasdun (1914 -2001) studied at the Architectural Association and worked with Wells Coates before joining Tecton, the practice of Berthold Lubetkin, in 1937. Denys Lasdun & Partners was established in 1959. Fitzwilliam was the first higher education project undertaken, to be followed by the University of East Anglia and New Court at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Probably his best-known work is the National Theatre (1961-76). He was awarded the in 1977 'in recognition of meritorious Modern buildings and their architects at a time when public appreciation of contemporary architecture is at a low ebb'.

Fitzwilliam College Storey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DG www.fitz.cam.ac.uk Registered Charity No: 1137496 Speaker and Panel Biographies

Bob Allies is a partner of Allies and Morrison, the practice he founded with Graham Morrison in 1983. He trained at the , and was awarded the Rome Scholarship in Architecture; he taught at the University of Cambridge from 1984-1988 and has held visiting professorships at the universities of Edinburgh, Maryland and Bath. He is a member of the Design Council/Cabe Design Review Panel, Chair of the Eastern Region Design Panel and a member of the Mayor’s Design Advisory Group.

Dr Barnabas Calder is a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool School of Architecture. His research focuses on the history of architecture since 1950, and he is writing a book on British Brutalism for William Heinemann. At Christ’s College for his PhD on Denys Lasdun he lived in Lasdun’s student residences there, and afterwards he catalogued much of Lasdun’s archive at the RIBA Drawings & Archives Collections. He is now producing an online complete works, Lasdun Online, funded by the Graham Foundation and hosted by the RIBA.

RIBA Royal Gold Medallist Ted Cullinan, BA (Cantab), AA Dip, CBE, RA, RIBA, Hon FRIAS, RDI, is an inquisitive, inventive and passionate composer and maker of buildings. He was educated at Cambridge, the Architectural Association and Berkeley. He trained with Denys Lasdun, worked on Fitzwilliam College and helped design the student residences at the University of East Anglia, before setting up his own practice in 1959. While teaching at Cambridge in 1965, he established Edward Cullinan Architects, now Cullinan Studio, as a co-operative.

Professor David Dernie MA Dip Arch (Cantab) RIBA, ARB is an architect and academic. Previously Head of Manchester and Leicester Schools of Architecture, he became Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Westminster in 2012. He was Rome Scholar in Architecture (1991-1993) and was elected a Fellow at Fitzwilliam College in 1999. His books include Architectural Drawing (2010), Exhibition Design (2006), and New Stone Architecture (2003).

Oliver Smith worked with MacCormac Jamieson and Prichard for nine years from the late 1980s. In this time he collaborated closely with Richard MacCormac on a number of key projects: the Fitzwilliam College Chapel, Ruskin Archive and Library as well as student residences for the LSE, Trinity College and others, and the University masterplan for the West of Cambridge. Oliver left MJP in 1997 to found his own practice, 5th Studio, in Cambridge.

Joanna van Heyningen studied languages at Oxford, and later Architecture at Cambridge. With Birkin Haward she set up van Heyningen and Haward Architects, for whom she is now a consultant. She has been responsible for the practice’s Cambridge work, including Newnham’s Rare Books Library, Fitzwilliam’s Wilson Court, Lucy Cavendish’s Warburton Hall, St John’s Corfield Court and Clare’s Lerner Court. She has taught and lectured widely and was a Stirling Prize judge in 2012.

Johnny Winter BA (Hons) Dip.Arch, RIBA joined Cullinan Studio in 1988 and is one of the Practice Leaders responsible for running the practice. Johnny was Project Director on the Library & IT Centre at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge and is currently overseeing the refurbishment of the Central Building at the College. Other projects include the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge and a newly retrofitted Victorian foundry building in as our new studios.

Sir Richard MacCormac CBE MA PPRIBA RA was unable to join the Symposium panel, but has been interviewed for the film which forms part of the exhibition. He established MacCormac Jamieson Prichard in 1972. A committed practitioner working in historic contexts with projects in , Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and the City of London, he has also taught and lectured widely. His buildings in Cambridge include student residences for Trinity College, Trinity Hall and Fitzwilliam College (New Court 1985), as well as the Chapel at Fitzwilliam (1991). Major projects include the British Embassy, Bangkok (2008); Building 1, Paternoster Square (2003); London Jubilee Line Extension Station, Southwark (2000). He served as President of the RIBA from 1991 to 1993. In 2011 he established a separate practice, MacCormac Architect.

Fitzwilliam College Storey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DG www.fitz.cam.ac.uk Registered Charity No: 1137496 Architects and contractors involved in building Fitzwilliam College 1963 -2013

Central Building, Fellows’ Court and Tree Court (1960-1963) Architect: Denys Lasdun and Partners Main Contractor: Johnson and Bailey Ltd

Squash Courts (1981) Architect: David Roberts

New Court (1985) Architect: MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (now MJP Architects) Main Contractor: Sindall Construction Ltd (now Morgan Sindall) Structural and Services Engineer: and Partners Clerk of Works: Robin Hill

Chapel: (1991) Architect: MacCormac Jamieson Prichard (now MJP Architects) Main Contractor: Johnson and Bailey Ltd Structural and Services Engineer: Ove Arup and Partners Clerk of Works: Robin Hill

Wilson Court (1994) Architect: van Heyningen and Haward Main Contractor: Rattee and Kett (now Mowlem Rattee and Kett) Structural Engineer: Price & Myers Clerk of Works: Robin Hill

Gatehouse Court (2003) and Auditorium (2004) Architect: Allies and Morrison Main Contractor: Kier Marriott Structural Engineer: WhitbyBird (now Ramboll) Clerk of Works: Robin Hill

The Olisa Library (2009) Architect: Edward Cullinan Architects (now Cullinan Studio) Main Contractor: Kier Marriott Project Manager: Edmond Shipway Clerk of Works: Robin Hill

Fitzwilliam College Storey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DG www.fitz.cam.ac.uk Registered Charity No: 1137496 Architect statements, website and contact details

Allies and Morrison’s work includes both architecture and urban planning. As well as being collaborators on the masterplan for the 2012 Olympics – for games and legacy – the practice are also masterplanners for King’s Cross Central and Brent Cross Cricklewood. Other work includes the Faculty of English and the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge; new buildings for Fitzwilliam College, Girton and Merton College Oxford; the restructuring of the Royal Festival Hall and the conversion of Highbury Stadium. www.alliesandmorrison.com [email protected]

Cullinan Studio is committed to collaborative design to make fine architecture that fulfils the needs of the client, the users and those of the wider society. Based in London, Cullinans have been designing carefully composed, low energy exemplar buildings for five decades and are currently working on masterplanning, urban regeneration, inner city housing, cultural institutions, schools and universities in the UK and abroad. www.cullinanstudio.com [email protected]

MacCormac Jamieson Prichard was established in 1972. Now named MJP Architects, we are an Employee Benefit Trust based in Spitalfields, London. Our buildings do not have a recognisable 'style', but they share spatial, formal and technical themes - in particular an interest in historical precedents, a response to context and an innovative approach to structure and materials. We aim to delight and inspire the people who inhabit them. www.mjparchitects.co.uk [email protected]

van Heyningen and Haward is a design-led practice, founded in 1983 by Joanna van Heyningen and Birkin Haward, who are both now consultants to the firm. The practice’s work is typified by the thoughtful organization of plan and section in building and place-making. Weight, light and sound are constant themes, as is the importance of context. The firm has been engaged to design the reordering of Leicester Cathedral, including the tomb of Richard III. www.vhh.co.uk [email protected]

Acknowledgements

The College is grateful to the following individuals and institutions for providing material and information for this exhibition: Lady Lasdun Bob Allies (Allies and Morrison) Grainne Crooks (Allies and Morrison) Emilie Lemons (Allies and Morrison) Ted Cullinan (Cullinan Studio) Johnny Winter (Cullinan Studio) Sir Richard MacCormac Richard Robinson (MJP Architects) Joanna van Heyningen (van Heyningen and Haward Architects) English Heritage Royal Institute of British Architects, British Architectural Library (Lasdun Archive) Andrew Peters Christopher Pratt

“The exhibition is a great way to celebrate all the people who have been involved in building our College over the last 50 years. But the College itself is the main exhibit and I’d like to encourage everyone to come and enjoy a visit.” - Professor Robert Lethbridge, Master

Fitzwilliam College Storey’s Way Cambridge CB3 0DG www.fitz.cam.ac.uk Registered Charity No: 1137496