This talk presents early findings from Harry Foley’s PhD research, which returns to Coventry’s unsuccessful entries as part of a wider study on the representation of architectural competitions and the unbuilt in Britain.
Speaker:
Harry Foley
It is 75 years since architectural journals first revealed Basil Spence’s winning entry to the Coventry Cathedral competition, an occasion of international interest, his drawings perhaps first alluding to the establishment of a modern church architecture in Britain. The published design was at once polarising, arousing public excitement and critical suspicion in equal measure, heralding calls for a wider reflection upon the competition’s losing entries. On 30th August 1951 The Architects’ Journal provided the most robust coverage in this respect, an overview of 15 commended and specially mentioned designs. The remaining 204 submissions, yet to be published, were almost unanimously ridiculed by critics following their exhibition in the King Henry VIII School hall in Coventry: ‘a parade of sterile, dreary, vulgar or stunt designs’ requiring the ‘faculty of clairvoyance’ to interpret.
This talk presents early findings from Harry Foley’s PhD research, which returns to Coventry’s unsuccessful entries as part of a wider study on the representation of architectural competitions and the unbuilt in Britain. Prioritising contemporary submission material and mediated debate surrounding the competition, this research identifies Coventry’s losing proposals as underexplored yet valuable contributions displaying an overlooked diversity of design thinking in the nation’s early attempts to define a post-war ecclesiastical architecture.
Speaker Bio:
Harry Foley is a Scunthorpe-born Architectural Designer, Educator, and Historian. As a practitioner he has worked in New York, Beijing, and London, most notably with Stirling Prize-winning practice Stanton Williams on the award-winning Royal Opera House ‘Open Up’ scheme. He has taught Architecture and Interior Design for several higher education institutions and is completing a PhD in Architectural and Urban History and Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His research focuses on working-class representation in architecture, architectural media and competitions, and twentieth century ecclesiastical interiors in Britain.
Registration:
Register below, or via email to website@sahgb.org.uk.
Location
This SAHGB - IHR seminar will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in person at Senate House.
Institute of Historical Research, N304 (3rd Floor, North Block of Senate House, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU).
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