The story of post-war school building.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Education.
Date:
1957
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The story of post-war school building. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and installed and the cost of steel conduit tubes screwed to the surface of the building can thus be saved. These are a few selected examples of how scientific and industrial development has helped to reduce cost. Building for children 123. Fourthly, money has been saved by turning to account the fact that schools are used by children and not adults. For example, a whole range of wash hand basins, water closets and urinal stalls, specially designed for children, has been developed. The articles, being child- sized, are much smaller; they contain less material and are therefore substantially cheaper than the full-sized articles which were often unthinkingly installed in most pre-war and many early post-war schools. In addition a child-sized wash hand basin holds less water; wastage is therefore less, storage capacity can be reduced and less water needs to be heated. There are thus important savings in annual running costs. The same advantages in capital costs have been obtained by designing smaller cloakroom fittings, benches, cupboards, tables and chairs. A simple architecture 124. These are four positive lines of action to reduce cost by wise spending. But money can be saved by not spending on unnecessary additions to a school building. This is more controversial because it concerns architectural style and personal taste. Whether from choice or because the cost limits have coerced them, architects have eschewed in their school buildings what we may call traditional ornament. The design and construction of most new schools are almost entirely functional. Every piece of the building is intended first and foremost to do its job—the frame or the walls to hold the building up, the windows to let air and light in, the roof to keep wind and rain out. A skilful architect will, of course, achieve both utility and grace; his elevations will both secure the correct amount of daylight in the rooms behind the facade and yet be of pleasing proportions. The important point, how- ever, is that there is hardly a school today which is designed primarily for its outward show. There can be no classical facades, ornamental cornices, gothic windows, stone dressing, rubbed brickwork or wrought ironwork. These were the stock in trade of the builders of our public schools and public buildings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is surprising to see how widely they were still used even in many of