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C.F. Annesley Voysey : the man and his work

Voysey’s directive impulse or principle is, as we have seen, simplicity; his individuality is identified with a logical elaboration of that motive of simplicity; and the perfection which is reached in some of his designs, and touched in many, is, in my opinion, identified with those works in which this sentiment of simplicity is most strongly presented. In some of his buildings the number of the features or parts seem to elude the architect’s capacity to combine them into one comprehensive design. Of these designs it is to be said that they are not simple. Our perception of them is confused; their unity is not apparent; some of them even lack a beginning, a middle and an end; they are not remembered as an idea – as an identity – but as an agglomeration of parts which veil or confuse the conception of an idea. It is true that there are many mediæval buildings – Penshurst, for instance – which have this quality and which yet delight us; but the pleasure we receive from them is not of the building as a design, or even as a building: it depends upon the building having happened, and upon its various happenings being redolent of history, of traditions of building craft, of byegone life. This appeal cannot be claimed by a new building. When, for instance, Bentley built the Convent at Hammersmith, he produced a rambling mass of buildings which, although seeming entirely unpremeditated, yet constitute one complete and definite design which has an identity and in no way impresses us as an agglomeration of separate parts.

I have purposely overstated what I deem to be a defect in some of Voysey’s more ambitious designs in order to make a clear comparison with those designs which I think signalise his important contributions to modern architecture, and in order that I may be obliging in following Voysey’s instructions to “say what you don’t like about my designs.” I have not, however, included any illustrations of what I consider to be the culprit buildings, in spite of the invitation to “say how bad they are,” but the house at Combe Down, which is illustrated at the head of the second of these articles [AND RIGHT], will serve to instance the particular in which I think the architect sometimes loses touch with his characteristic motive of simplicity. I chose the example for illustration because it is a stone house, because it represents Voysey in close relation to tradition, and because it is in many ways a charming design. It is a building which will improve with time. When it has stood for a hundred years and its origin on an architect’s drawing-board has been veiled by mossy eaves and weather-stained ashlaring, it will convey a different meaning; but this similitude to the adventitious ways of mediæval builders, which no doubt coloured the mind of its designer, serves to illustrate what I have spoken of as a weak point in some of Voysey’s work. Whether we approve of the system or not, the only way to produce a work of architecture in these days is by employing an architect, and it is impossible to estimate any architect’s work except as design. So regraded, I object to this Combe Down House because there is no expressed reason why it should end where it does. It has the effect of being part of a house: in years to come it might seem that a ruined church tower has at some time been reconditioned and adapted to the needs of a cottage. The design is not simple; it is illusive: the motive seems to me not simple, but oblique. The architect was not, I think, here concerned only to let simplicity express itself; there was, and I deeply regret to have to say it, a less chaste motive involved. I am afraid Voysey revelled a little in this design: but as my window cleaner said the other day, “We can’t all be perfect.”

I do not place this building among Voysey’s most successful designs, although it remains a memorable little house. It would be an arresting and delightful thing to come upon unawares, and although it falls away from Voysey’s principles and differs from other work of his with which I am acquainted, no one would have any difficulty in recognising its authorship.

I said in speaking of the Chorley Wood House that it would be difficult to imagine anyone wishing to alter a single detail of it except possibly the buttresses. I will not say that I object to the buttresses in this house, they seem to belong to it and they complete the idea it expresses; but as a purist I am not as fond of buttresses as Voysey is, although Voysey is a greater purist than I. I have badgered Voysey about his buttresses, for they were characteristic of his work at one time; they had not before been used as he used them; he left off building them, and the feature has not been adopted by other architects. The occasion for these buttresses is related to the roughcast walls they fortify. It must be remembered that thirty years ago there were scarcely any good hand-made facing bricks. I believe I am right in saying that Sir Edwin Lutyens was largely responsible for galvanising our brickyards into producing the delightful varieties of beautiful bricks that are now at the disposal of everyone, and that he did this by importing Dutch bricks, to the consternation of British brickmakers. When Voysey began to build, the only bricks readily to be obtained were of the deadly machine-made kinds, which are still represented in standard specification clauses of the text-books, which exactly describe all that bricks and brickwork should, for nearly every purpose, never on any account be. Voysey used roughcast because he found that clients who came to him wanted inexpensive houses, and because an 11-in. hollow wall “isn’t a wall at all.” A 9-in. brick wall, roughcast, was the cheapest weathertight wall that could be built, and buttresses were introduced to restore to the wall the stiffness which it lacked. That stiffening by buttresses was probably not so much an actual constructive need, in an engineering sense, as an expression of the architect’s aesthetic sense of a solid and adequate construction. The wall was reduced in thickness below what was the general practice, and the architect sought to correct the weakness this innovation caused. In these days when the schools of architecture appear to justify any architectural feature for the sake of its part in a composition, or because of its association with another feature, it would be unfair to ask Voysey to show the constructive need of every buttress he introduced into his designs, although he had to face that criticism in the more discerning days when they first saw the light.

I have so far said nothing of the insides of Voysey’s houses, yet Voysey’s insides are, in more than one sense, the most lively and entertaining thing about him. Schools of architecture not having at that time set their cloven hoof-mark on principles, and taught mankind that a house should be designed from the outside and that the scullery window may balance that of the drawing-room in order to give the building the appearance of being something it is not, it was the custom to make the outside of a house conform to its individual inward needs; thus the strict logic of Voysey’s approach to house design found particular opportunities for expressing itself within doors. In these pages photographs are shown of certain interiors in which not only the finishings, but the furniture, fabrics and wallpapers, are of Voysey’s design. I shall speak of this part of his work in my next and concluding number, and will only here call attention to the cheerfulness and freshness and practical efficiency of the interior finishings. To understand the force of the originality displayed, it is necessary to recall what was customary at the time these ideas were made common property, for since they have become common property and all architects, when they set about designing small houses are, whether they know it or not, Voysey’s heirs, and follow as by nature the path he showed them, the vigour of the leader who showed them that path is obscured. Voysey’s case is very parallel to that of Kipling: no one who does not remember the appearance of “Plain Tales from the Hills” can have any adequate idea of the force and original genius of the writer, for the atmosphere he created has since seen the vital element of all short story writers. In the same sense that Kipling invented the short story, Voysey may be said to have invented the small house. Ironmongery, the cast-iron mantel register, joinery, the use of all kinds of materials in new ways – in these matters Voysey was not only prolific in ideas, but set architects in a new relation to their work. It is not only the things he did, but more particularly the spirit in which he addressed himself to his tasks, which places architects and architecture in his debt. How fundamental are his teaching and his practice is shown by the eagerness with which the whole fabric of his design has been seized on by foreign nations. Not once but several times publications in Holland, Germany and elsewhere have been specially allocated to the display of his work in elaborate and costly productions. It always seemed to me that the short-lived and ill-inspired “l’Art Nouveau” had its inception in a hurried misinterpretation of the new Voysey vogue. I have, however, no justification for saying this except the impression I received when I visited Paris, Switzerland and North Italy twenty-five years ago.

An interior at Frinton-on-Sea
[Now known as The Homestead. Designed in 1905-6 for Sydney Claridge Turner.]

An interior at Beaconsfield
[Now known as Holly Mount. Designed in 1905 for C.T. Burke.]

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