CHAPTER III. The County Hall Competition
With the passing of the London County Buildings Bill in
1906, the Establishment Committee was free to concentrate on the question of the design. The matter had,
in fact, been engaging the attention of both LCC Members
and outside commentators since the spring of 1905, when
the decision to purchase the South Bank site had been
taken.
The choice facing the Progressive administration was
awkward: if they erected a fine building, the accusation of
extravagance with ratepayers' money would be reinforced,
while a plain building would be seen as unworthy to stand
alongside not only Guildhall but the many provincial town
halls being erected elsewhere in the British Isles. The
Radical weekly Truth suggested that the Council should
put up the cheapest building possible:
A big furniture depository is the sort of thing I have in mind,
with a stock brick interior and cast-iron window frames. Possibly
a good deal of the work might be done temporarily in corrugated
iron sheds. I would provide in that way a council-room and
offices for all the staff, showing that everything had been done
on purely utilitarian principles.
The LCC's critics could then be left to complain at its
parsimony. (fn. 1)
One of the first Progressive leaders to address the
problem publicly was John Burns (1858–1943), who represented Battersea as M.P. (1892–1914) and as LCC
Member from 1893 to 1907. One of the most active and
colourful figures in the early years of the Council, and a
socialist of Liberal sympathies, he had spent his early life
employed in various engineering works, including those
of Peter Brotherhood in Belvedere Road. He had had a
hand in starting up the Works Department, was a great
advocate of town planning, and always took an interest in
the Council's activities from an artistic as well as a practical
point of view. (fn. 2)
In an article in the Pall Mall Magazine for October
1905, (fn. 3) in which he called London 'the Cinderella of the
cities in the matter of municipal recognition', Burns drew
a sharp distinction between the offices occupied by the
Council, and those of other authorities:
Compared with the Hotel de Ville in Paris, Spring Gardens
is a slum. Contrasted with those of Berlin, Glasgow, Leeds,
Birmingham or Liverpool, the London County Council offices
are insanitary areas, costly, squalid, inconvenient – a reproach
to London, a danger to the staff.
Even the London boroughs were now building themselves
new town halls, and Burns suggested that the quality of
work done by any organization was directly related to its
environment. He contrasted the 'rabbit-warren habitation'
of the War Office – 'responsible for the mazy conduct of
that department, and the hazy sense of duty it has towards
the country' – with the 'bold policy of banks, insurance
offices and large commercial houses having prominent
sites, adequate space, handsome exteriors and internal
attractiveness' which stimulated 'a joy of work in staff, an
order in business, and a supreme command of organisation
impossible in low, mean and disorderly habitations'.
Turning to the question of style, Burns reviewed the
fine parade of riverside buildings in London, and the
improvements being carried out on Millbank between the
Houses of Parliament and the Tate Gallery. He favoured
'a solid pile, less ornamental than Parliament – a massive
building, yet withal fine to look upon – a structure that
will fill with dignity and size ... one of the very best sites
in South London ... an exalted and improving neighbour
to St Thomas's Hospital; a worthy companion to the great
Gothic mass that Barry has given to us in Parliament
House, and to which the new County Hall in no sense
should be an unworthy neighbour'.
Burns's interpretation of the principles of office planning and design was not shared by all Members of the
LCC, nor by all Londoners, and many other points of
view were expressed in the three years that were to elapse
before the final choice of design. However, some of the
problems that were to arise over the new County Hall
turned out to be as much a matter of personalities and
power as of concern for the design of the building.
The Architect to the LCC and his
Department
By 1905, the LCC had an Architect's Department of
growing experience and increasing self-confidence, headed
by W. E. Riley. At a very early stage, Riley put forward
the claim of his department to design and plan the new
County Hall. He did this through the preparation of a
design, based on the planning work for the brief as already
carried out by his staff, and through overt lobbying of
influential Members of the Council. Though running
counter to the prevailing fashion for competitions, the
claims of his department deserved to be taken seriously,
and indeed in the later phases of the development of
County Hall, the Architect's Department took over.
The Metropolitan Board of Works had had little need
for an Architect in its early years. Its chief projects, the
construction of sewers and embankments, demanded the
skills of an engineer, and it was the Engineer who was the
important MBW officer. This tradition persisted into the
LCC, with the Engineer taking precedence after the Clerk
of the Council over the heads of other departments until
well into this century. The Clerk and the Engineer were
traditionally knighted for their services. Not so the Architect. His work was mainly associated with the Public
Control Department, whose responsibilities were those of
checking weights and measures, and the licensing of places
of entertainment: functions not demanding much from
architecture.
Thomas Blashill (1831–1905) was appointed Architect
to the MBW in 1887, and subsequently to the LCC. His
department also had responsibility for fire-stations, and
later designed some smaller jobs for the Works Department, such as the approach arches to the Blackwall
Tunnel. But with the Housing of the Working Classes Act
of 1890 empowering the LCC to redevelop slum housing,
the Architect's Department was given a great opportunity.
The creation of the eponymous Housing of the Working
Classes Branch brought a number of high-minded and
talented designers into the Architect's Department. Blashill's ability to recruit and organize these young architects
was to create a great reputation for the department, and
for the LCC, not only in the matter of public housing but
in other branches of public architecture. (fn. 4) The Boundary
Street Estate in Shoreditch, begun in the early 1890s, was
the first project undertaken by the Council under the Act,
and was followed in 1896 by the Millbank Estate.
Within his department, Blashill was respected and
much loved. He retired in 1899, to be succeeded by
William Edward Riley (1852–1937). (fn. 5) Riley was born in
Yorkshire and educated at Batley Grammar School, and
partly in France and Italy. He joined the office of William
Critchley of Wakefield, and after five years in the office of
Beck & Lee, moved to the staff of the Director of Engineering and Works of the Admiralty in 1877. There he was
in charge of works in, among other places, Bermuda,
Malta, Chatham and Devonport. He held the LCC post —
the full title of which was Superintending Architect of
Metropolitan Buildings and Architect to the London
County Council – for twenty years, but because he was
given a separate contract for his work on County Hall
he was involved with it for a further ten years. A one
time Council member of the Royal British and Colonial
Society of Artists, and a member of the Royal Society
of Artists, he was said to spend most of his spare time
painting. (fn. 6)
Andrew Saint has pointed out the problem for the early
LCC in reconciling the ambitions of Members who wanted
to see London become a worthy 'imperial capital' with the
drive towards working-class housing and other schemes of
improvement for the London working man espoused by
left-wing Members. (fn. 7) The contradiction had to be solved
in the Architect's Department as elsewhere in the Council,
and Riley proved very good at this. It has often been said
that Riley was simply a 'good organizer' and 'brilliant
administrator'. His close friend Frederick Hiorns, an
architect working at the LCC from 1902 and for a long
time Riley's right-hand man on the County Hall project,
spoke of 'the almost ruthless force of his administrative
control'. Indeed, he went further, saying that, possessed
of an unusually forceful personality, it was almost inevitable that Riley should express himself by somewhat autocratic methods. (fn. 8) Yet Riley's artistic associations suggest,
as the architectural production of his department demonstrates, that he was an excellent judge and positive
advocate of good design. It is somewhat more difficult to
assess his own merits as a designer, since, as Architect to
the LCC, he headed a large department. After leaving the
LCC he went into partnership with E. Glanfield, from
1919 to 1931, and they did some fine work, for example,
the North Western Polytechnic, opened in 1929. (fn. 9)
The department Riley inherited was stocked with talented architects. As the housing projects begun in Blashill's time were completed, it was inevitable that Riley
should get much of the credit rightly belonging to Blashill.
But his department soon had work on a much larger scale
than anything Blashill had handled.
1900 saw the beginning of the LCC's first cottage estate,
Totterdown Fields in Tooting, and it is interesting that
one of the architects most concerned with it was Ernest
Stone Collins, later to work on County Hall. (fn. 10) In the same
year a programme of fire-station building was begun, for
which Riley reorganized his department. The resulting
buildings are one of the great achievements of the Arts
and Crafts movement. It was Riley who promoted and
defended his architects in their efforts to improve the
quality of London's streets. In 1915 he set out his views
to an RIBA committee enquiring into the architectural
work of public authorities, work which the RIBA felt they
were incapable of handling in an artistic manner, and
which should therefore be left to private architects. Riley
told the Editor of the Builder that he challenged this claim
absolutely, suggesting that the profession was 'overloaded
by a sub-stratum of incompetent private members who
could not obtain employment'. He continued, 'The
routine through which an official must press his work is
of such a character that feeble results ... cannot ensue. If
outsiders had to encounter the same searching criticism
and a tithe of the obstruction, their fees would only about
half cover their requirements'. (fn. 11)
One of the most difficult problems faced by Riley
greeted him in his first few years as LCC Architect,
and shaped much of his response to later problems in
Council service. The Holborn to Strand Improvement
the present-day Kingsway and Aldwych had been
under discussion for ten years, and was finally given the
Parliamentary authority it required in 1899. This was by
far the most ambitious improvement scheme undertaken
by the LCC up to that time, and the problem of dealing
with the elevations of this great street fell to Riley. The
LCC Improvements Committee had agreed to a competition for elevations of the Strand-Aldwych part of the
site, and Riley acted as assessor together with Richard
Norman Shaw, then in retirement, but one of the grand
old men of British architecture. It was a job fraught
with difficulties since many of the firms rebuilding their
premises had engaged architects of their own and designs
had been prepared. Shaw proved a valuable friend both
to the LCC and to Riley on this occasion, offering his
work free of charge, and saving a situation which was
potentially very embarrassing for the LCC by his skilful
interventions with both architects and committees. (fn. 12)
Amongst Riley's staff were men who were to have
an influence on the development and design of the new
headquarters. One of these was Hiorns (1876–1961), the
son of a Warwickshire man, educated in Plymouth, who
joined the LCC in 1902, winning the Godwin Bursary in
1905, making apposite use of it to study 'Modern Town
Halls in France'. He was interested in historic architecture, being a member of the Society for the Protection
of Ancient Buildings, and a member both of the LCC
Staff Arts and Crafts Society, and of the Art Workers'
Guild. He was in charge of the general section from 1926
till 1935, then senior divisional architect responsible for
all constructional work, becoming Architect to the LCC
from 1939 to 1941. He was to play an important part as
liaison officer between Riley and Knott in the construction
of County Hall, and as the designer of the New County
Offices in the 1930s (see page 106). A 'kind, quiet and
retiring man who shunned publicity of any kind whatsoever', his work for the Council was not ostentatious.
It included the South Eastern Technical Institute, the
Weights and Measures Office in Euston Square, and major
work on the LCC hospitals after 1930. He was to become
an important member of Lord Reith's Consultative Panel
for the post-war replanning of London. (fn. 13)
The office of Chief Assistant, General Constructional
Section, was held by Percy Ginham (1865–1947), Richard
Norman Shaw's former principal assistant. Ginham joined
the LCC in 1902 at the time when Shaw was no longer
taking on enough work to need an assistant, and came
with the master's highest recommendations as an architect
who knew the planning of buildings. His other referees
were Ernest Newton and William Lethaby, both of whom
he had known in Shaw's office. Lethaby, by now Professor
at the Royal College of Art, had known Ginham for twenty
years, and wrote of him:
He is an excellent architectural designer having taste and judgement in a high degree with a preference for refined simplicity
.. If his influence could be exerted on public buildings, it would
I am certain be to the great advantage of the streets. (fn. 14)
The appointment is an interesting one. The job carried
responsibility for all building work done in the department
except that for the Fire Brigade and for Working Class
Housing, each of which had its own section. General
Construction covered buildings from generating stations,
park buildings, technical schools and homes for inebriates,
to 'Schemes and Sites for the Council's Central Offices'. (fn. 15)
Ginham came into the department, where it was hoped
he would be of help in future street improvement schemes,
and where he was a direct channel of influence from Shaw
to the department. It was Ginham, as head of the General
Section, who was responsible for the early planning of the
new County Hall, before the competition. The sketch
plans which were prepared throughout 1905 and 1906, in
order to show the Establishment Committee the possibilities of the site, were almost certainly his. (fn. a) One of these
was eventually to accompany the competition regulations,
and was a fundamental influence on the way in which the
competitors planned their schemes.
In-House Proposals
Riley's first reaction to the question of designing the new
County Hall had been to make a bid for having it carried
out by his own department. He himself prepared a perspective of a building on the site (Plate 3c), which was
hung in Spring Gardens prior to the Council meeting on
11 April 1905, the week before it was decided to buy the
Belvedere Road land.
This was widely published, and although the LCC
Architect was careful to insist that the drawing was done
merely to suggest the potential of the site, it is evident
that he hoped to keep the work in-house, even if he
thought it a remote possibility. He was later to say that
the drawing was 'not even made from a plan, it was a mere
sketch made in my own time at home ... done between
Saturday and Monday'. (fn. 16) He claimed it was 'hastily prepared simply as a means of conveying the capabilities of
the site in relation to its immediate surroundings in order
that the members of the Committee and Council should
have this information before them in considering the purchase of the site'. (fn. 17) Nevertheless, he felt not a little proud
of his work, and kept the sketch hanging on the wall of
his Spring Gardens office for some time. Whether or not
he hoped to win over the Committee with his 'sketch',
it must represent an effort to persuade them to let his
department design the new building. (fn. 18)
The perspective immediately stirred up trouble. The
Building News had to point out, a week after giving details
of the scheme, that 'it by no means follows, of course, that
this particular design ... will be adopted for execution'.
But Riley had found his first ally, for the article congratulated the Council 'on the grasp of the possibilities of
the site shown by its architect, and the certainty that if it
commissions him to design the building, as it is quite
justified in doing, it will secure a municipal hall worthy
of London and the authority that, in spite of ignorant
obscurantists, has done so much to improve and beautify
it'. (fn. 19) In May Riley wrote to the Chairman of the Establishment Committee, J. W. Cleland, expressing alarm at
the 'many symptoms of pressure being exercised to
influence' the design of the new County Hall. His own
'earnest desire' was to obtain the best solution for the
Council, over a building which he described as 'one of the
most important ones for London which has been produced
for the past 50 years or likely to be in the next 50'. He
referred to the proposal for a competition, which he felt
was an inherently unsatisfactory way of dealing with a
building, since it would be necessary for the Council to
hand over its authority to an assessor, supporting this view
with a reference to other occasions. The Council would
be unlikely to find 'the best architectural talent on the
elevations and probably less ability still on the plans'.
He reminded Cleland of Norman Shaw's 'magnanimous
effort' in the initial stages of the Kingsway Improvement
to give 'an artistic bent to the improvement'. Though
Shaw was prepared to testify to the Committee that in his
opinion Riley's office would be perfectly competent to
design the new buildings, Riley himself was fearful that,
'where so many interests are involved, his [Shaw's]
opinion in this direction would not be convincing to those
outsiders who desire to obtain a foot-hold in such a large
and remunerative scheme'. Riley ended by suggesting that
if the Committee should decide not to entrust him with
'a complete tentative scheme', the best alternative would
be for 'the work of construction, planning, and internal
arrangement, which could concern no one but the Council
and its staff', to be given to his department. Shaw should
then be invited to become 'consulting Architect for the
purposes of the elevation' – a role that Riley believed that
he would undertake for 'a comparatively modest fee'. (fn. 20)
Riley continued to press the Council to choose an inhouse architect, at the same time instructing his own
department to prepare plans, presented to the Establishment Committee in February 1906. (fn. 21b)
In November 1905 William Lethaby, adviser to the
Technical Education Board since 1894 and in close touch
with the LCC Architect's Department, wrote to Sydney
Cockerell:
As to L.C.C. I wish it were possible to get a Frenchman but
that is impossible. I hardly see any way out: a comp. means the
swashbuckler gang and the swashbucklest being taken. Probably
the best thing obtainable now wd be the L.C.C. Office with
Shaw as Consulting Archt ... The Shaw business wd work
probably more or less, because after the main bulks were kept
simple (which he wd do in two days) the office cd carry it out. (fn. 22)
The Move towards a Competition
There was a strong external lobby for a competition,
mainly among RIBA members, who tended to view public
architects as mere incompetent technicians, sheltering in
the large offices of public authorities to avoid the competitive realities of the outside world, and, worse still,
undercutting independent architects' fees at the taxpayers'
expense. They knew that Riley had had Norman Shaw's
architectural help on more than one occasion in LCC
matters, and they knew too that Shaw disliked competitions almost as much as he disliked the RIBA itself. (fn. 23)
As Riley had foreseen, they all wanted a chance at one of
the decade's big commissions.
The subject of competitions was a source of much
concern to the Institute in the early years of this century,
following the peculiar outcome of the Liverpool Cathedral
competition in 1903, won by the 24–year-old Giles Gilbert
Scott. The youthful and inexperienced winner had been
forced to accept G. F. Bodley (1827–1907), a competition
assessor, as joint architect. This arrangement was widely
criticized and in practice did not work well. The RIBA
soon after formed a committee to establish approved guidelines for the setting up and running of future competitions. These 'regulations' were approved in the summer of
1905.
The RIBA wrote to the LCC on 3 April 1906 with their
suggestion that a competition be held and sketching the
basic lines they would like to see followed. Certain that
'the only way of securing a really broadly treated and fine
work', was to get a 'strongly individualised personality',
they were equally sure that the best way of attracting such
a personality would be a competition. As Riley was quoting
failed competitions at the Establishment Committee, so
the RIBA mentioned the successes – among others, the
Houses of Parliament and Foreign Office in London, the
Opéra in Paris, the Reichstag in Berlin, and the New York
Central Library. The Institute's suggestion was for a twostage competition with six well-known architects invited
into the second stage. There would be three assessors, one
of whom was to be elected by the second-stage competitors, one appointed by the President of the RIBA, and one
to be the Council's own Architect. (fn. 24)
When the Committee asked for Riley's opinion he
reiterated the earlier arguments, but put forward his own
suggestions for a competition. He proposed that 'he
prepare plans showing fully the best possible utilization
of the site, having regard to the functions of the various
Departments, of the Committees, of the Council itself'.
These plans 'when fully matured' would form the basis
of the competition. He also proposed that the competitors
should be told that they would have to work with him,
and that he should have discretionary powers concerning
internal economy and construction. In commenting on the
RIBA proposal, he suggested that two assessors, Shaw
and himself, would be enough. He was not happy about
the method of choosing the third, though he did finally
accept the idea of a third assessor elected by the competitors entered for the second stage. Anticipating criticism, he cited the Liverpool competition as a precedent for
his own dual role as assessor and collaborating architect. (fn. 25)
Riley lost his fight to have County Hall designed in
his own department, but through the conditions for the
competition he was able to retain a considerable influence
over the development of the design. In the week following
his report, Swinton proposed to the Establishment Committee that a public competition should be held for the
design of the new building. (fn. 26) The deliberations of the
Committee, together with much of Riley's advice, were
presented in a Report to Council on 24 July 1906, setting
out the case for a competition, and the most important of
the regulations governing it. These were approved the
following week, and the Establishment Committee
instructed to go ahead with the arrangements. (fn. 27)
Framing the Competition
The main lines of the competition had been set out in
the Establishment Committee's Report, though details
remained to be clarified. A two-stage competition was
proposed, the second stage being limited to no more than
twenty-three competitors – the authors of between ten and
fifteen designs selected by the assessors in the preliminary
round, and up to eight leading architects invited by the
Council to submit designs. Norman Shaw and Riley were
recommended as assessors, to be joined at the second stage
by a third, elected by the finalists. Riley's role in preparing
the 'detailed particulars of the accommodation required
by the Council' and his collaboration with the successful
competitor, fortified by his 'discretionary power in all
matters relating to the internal economy and construction
of the building', were also clearly set out.
The Establishment Committee agreed to employ Shaw
at an assessor's fee of one thousand guineas and instructed
Riley to consult him on certain points of detail, among
which was the fee to be paid to the third assessor. With
typical modesty Shaw said that the third assessor should
have a fee equal to his own, in spite of the fact that he
would have less than half the work to do. (fn. c) Shaw recommended that some of 'the younger talented architects'
might with advantage be included in the list of those
invited into the second stage of the competition, a suggestion with which Riley fully concurred. Shaw also thought
that some of those involved in the Kingsway Improvement
might be invited. (fn. 28) These proposals were in general
adopted by the Council on 31 July 1906. (fn. 29) The list finally
presented to the Committee on 25 October contained
nineteen names, and included all of the eight architects
eventually selected – H. T. Hare, W. Flockhart, John
Belcher, E. W. Mountford, T. G. Jackson, Ernest George,
Sir Charles Nicholson, and Edwin Lutyens – plus those
of Leonard Stokes, Aston Webb, J. J. Stevenson, Reginald
Blomfield, Robert Lorimer, Horace Field, C. E. Mallows,
Gerald Horsley, E. J. May, Mervyn Macartney, and
Ernest Newton. (fn. 30) The last four clearly represented
Shaw's idea of 'the younger talented architects': all were
ex-pupils or assistants of his. Hare, Flockhart, Macartney,
Mountford, George, and Blomfield had been involved in
the Kingsway competition. Stevenson, at 75, was the
oldest by ten years, and Lutyens, who took the competition
very seriously, at 37, the youngest of a handful under
45.
Preliminary letters of invitation were sent out on
6 November 1906, and these included the information that
the winner would have to collaborate with Riley. The
eight invited architects originally selected included Blomfield and Webb, but Blomfield declined, saying he had too
much work on. Aston Webb, after a havering correspondence with the Clerk, also turned it down, because
of the association of the Council's Architect with the
successful competitor, which he felt raised 'several difficult
and important points'. Flockhart and Ernest George took
their places. (fn. 31) The suggested list was submitted to the
Council on 18 December 1906, and approved on 22
January 1907. (fn. 32)
Webb's objections raised the matter of Riley's shared
responsibility for the design of the building, soon to
become a bone of contention with the RIBA.
At the same time the Establishment Committee put
forward the conditions for the competition, later issued as
the Instructions to Competing Architects, which were also
approved by Council on 22 January 1907, as were the fees
of 1,000 guineas each, payable to Shaw and the third
assessor. (fn. 33) (fn. d)
The RIBA Protest
Several of the conditions were unusual and proved to be
contentious. The first was the suggested plan discussed
below, the second was the invitation to the eight selected
architects to join at the second stage, which was felt to be
unfair, and was castigated as 'unbusiness-like'. (fn. 34) The
third, and most disliked, was Riley's role. He was to be
given a separate and personal appointment by the Council
as their 'Official Architect', working with the winning
architect, and receiving one-tenth of that architect's commission for the building. (fn. 35) In the words of clause 8 of the
Instructions, it was laid down that 'Mr W. E. Riley, the
official architect, shall have discretionary power in all
matters relating to internal economy, building construction, and stability'.
Exception was taken to this clause by the RIBA. After
the Instructions had been published, and in spite of their
broad conformity to the Institute's proposals of April
1906, the Institute sent a belated protest to the LCC,
both about this condition, and about a report of LCC
proceedings which had mentioned the Instructions as
'approved by the RIBA', whereas, in fact, they had 'never
been submitted to their consideration'. The latter point
was countered by Shaw's claim that the draft had been
available in the RIBA library for inspection. (fn. 36)
The Institute interpreted Riley's role as 'official architect' as an appointment as 'joint architect' for the work,
and their letter pointed out that there was 'a well established principle of the Royal Institute, binding on all its
members, that no Assessor shall accept the appointment or
act as Architect to carry out a building, on the design of
which he has to adjudicate'. (fn. 37)
This reference to Riley's position led the Clerk, Laurence Gomme, to ask Shaw's advice in the matter. Shaw
reiterated his approval of the clauses 8 and 9, setting out
Riley's position and emoluments: 'I have always felt that
the object of a competition is to get the very best building
that can be had, and that any means (short of injustice)
towards the attainment of this end is not merely legitimate
but desirable'. He cited the Liverpool Cathedral competition, as Riley had done in a report of 1906. (fn. 38)
The climax of the RIBA protest was reached at a
special meeting on 28 May 1907, called by several outraged
members (including J. S. Gibson, C. E. Mallows, H. V.
Lanchester, Herbert Read, R. Falconer MacDonald and
Herbert Wills), when a resolution was tabled banning
Institute members from taking part in the LCC competition. (fn. 39) It was proposed by Gibson, Chairman of the
RIBA's Competitions Committee, who had given evidence
in the House of Lords on behalf of Holloway Brothers
against the London County Buildings Bill. His chief objection was that the invited architects, six of whom were past
or present members of the RIBA Council, had, by
accepting the invitation, tacitly consented to the LCC's
conditions, thereby breaching the Institute's own regulation prohibiting an assessor of a competition from
himself competing or acting as architect for the proposed
work. Colcutt replied that the regulation was intended to
prevent an assessor being subsequently appointed as the
architect, but that this did not apply in the County Hall
case, which was an exceptional one. He referred to the
by now familiar precedent of the Liverpool Cathedral
competition, only for A. W. S. Cross to point out that Sir
Aston Webb, then President of the RIBA, had stated on
that occasion that such a situation 'would never occur
again'. Gibson's comments implied that Riley could not
act fairly in the dual role of assessor and joint architect,
but practically all of those who spoke at the meeting
disputed the insinuation and several members of the older
generation begged Gibson to withdraw his resolution,
although he stood firm.
Riley was at the meeting, he said only to observe, but
now rose to speak. He first pointed out that there had
been plenty of time to make this complaint before the
conditions for the competition had been finalized, and
then denied that he had written them. This was not the
entire truth. The Establishment Committee had asked
Riley and Shaw together to prepare the Instructions. The
implication of Riley's remark is that Shaw prepared the
conditions on his own, which is a little hard to believe.
Certainly it was Riley who proposed his own association
with the competition winner, and even though the RIBA
suggested him as an assessor, he did nothing to dissuade
the Committee, seconding the Institute's recommendation
virtually as soon as it was made. (fn. 40)
Riley may have thought he was acting in the best
interests of the LCC and of architecture in general. His
impatience with what he saw as the RIBA's narrow selfinterest was evident, but events were to prove that his
responsibility for 'internal economy, building construction
and structure' was wide enough to hamper the competition
winner to a considerable degree. Of his own position as
an assessor, he said, somewhat disingenuously, that the
Institute Council had not consulted him before suggesting
him to the LCC as an assessor. It could be a very barren
honour, as he had discovered when he was appointed
one of two assessors on the Kingsway competition in
1900, and he thought that any endeavour to ascribe
undue importance to his being an assessor on the County
Hall competition was insincere. Gibson's resolution was
defeated by 50 votes to 29 and the matter stopped there. (fn. 41)
Riley was later to propose to the Establishment Committee that he serve as an assessor without vote, merely
as a consultant to the others, but this suggestion was
rejected. (fn. 42)
Another condition caused no immediate acrimonious
controversy but is equally revealing of contemporary preoccupations. Schedule C of the Instructions dealt with the
drawings to be presented – plans of each floor, elevations
of the three principal façades and two sections – but at the
end there is a specific prohibition against the submission of
perspectives in either stage of the competition. This was
no doubt one of Shaw's interventions, reflecting his latterday belief that perspectives were drawn in an attempt to
make architecture 'more pictorial', appealing to those who
understood little of the subject but being not especially
useful to those who did.
The idea that perspectives were false and misleading
had been developing for some years. In a series of pieces
in the Architectural Review about the sorry state of the
architecture room at the Royal Academy, Shaw (who had
often had the responsibility for hanging that room), Halsey
Ricardo, John Belcher, and others tried to establish what
architectural drawings were and why the general public,
as well as other artists, found them so uninteresting.
Belcher was quite clear what the problem was:
The pretty sketch or suggestive drawing dashed off in an hour
or so cannot properly represent architecture. It is by the geometrical plans, elevations, and sections, and half-inch details
that it can best be understood. It is these which show the real
thought bestowed upon the work and the knowledge possessed
by the author.
There seems to be a tacit assumption here that it is not
only the public which is deceived, but also the architect
himself. Shaw was less outspoken, as befitted the man who
had done so much to generate the problem with the
magnificent perspectives of his younger days. He set out
a definition of 'what I should call architectural drawings,
viz., plans, sections, and elevations (especially sections)
drawn to a good scale, with some detail drawn to a larger
scale'. This he thought would create 'a good exhibition,
pure and simple'. (fn. 43) Shaw's words foreshadow the drawings
requirement for the County Hall competition, right down
to the phrase 'drawn to a good scale', which translated
into sixteenth-scale plans and elevations – a size many of
the competitors felt to be excessive. (fn. e)
This new distaste for perspectives invited a more critical
analysis of the plan, and, to a lesser extent, the section.
The increased importance attached to the plan made
Riley's role, particularly concerned as it was with the plan,
more significant. That is why some RIBA members could
say that whoever won the competition would be reduced
'to the level of a sub-official of the Council under the
control of the Superintending Architect', despite that
official's claim that his role was merely to assure the
rational ordering of the building's internal spaces. The
new spirit did not consider this to be a minor item by any
means. (fn. 44)
At the same time we find architects less willing to accept
the opinion of men who judged their elevations as 'works
of art', a matter of taste, rather than as 'good plans', a
matter of rational determination. An Architectural Review
article of 1906 shows how these attitudes were blended
and how the problem of perspectives was seen to affect
the outcome of competitions:
Even supposing the really best design to gain the premium
(which again is not always the case) it becomes a question
whether the plan should be considered of the first importance
or the elevations .. and as the best plan does not postulate the
best elevation, and vice versa, the door is open for comparative
failure in one or other direction. (fn. 45)
Architects in later years were to attempt a solution by
giving greater importance to the plan, which Shaw and
others thought the area least susceptible to deceitful presentation. It is interesting that many of the entrants in the
County Hall competition, particularly those experienced
in competitions, prepared showy perspectives to amplify
their plans and sections, (fn. 46) and the moment the competition
was decided the first thing the Members of the Council
wanted was a nice perspective to show what the building
would look like. (fn. 47)
The competition had been tarnished at its outset by
the RIBA's objection to Riley's appointment as Official
Architect. Moreover, Riley's misgivings about this method
of choosing an architect were being confirmed. He was
later to claim that the RIBA's involvement and the resulting competition delayed progress on the County Hall for
nearly two-and-a-half years, and that the total competition
expenses amounted to over £8,000. (fn. 48)
He had foreseen these problems in 1905. In the same
year he had tried to turn the RIBA's arguments against
themselves, pointing out to the Establishment Committee
that in March 1899, the Council of the RIBA had recommended to the LCC that Shaw should be consulted 'as
to the architectural treatment of Vauxhall Bridge', and
that in the following September, the RIBA's Standing
Committee for Art had congratulated the LCC on the
design of Embankment Gardens Generating Station. (fn. 49)
Convinced that a competition was unnecessary, Riley
had fought hard to have Shaw selected, and failed. The
two thought they had 'saved' the Kingsway competition,
and may have felt that competitions in general were bound
to fail without their intervention, and that they could not
allow this one, once decided upon, to proceed without
them. Convinced from the outset that the idea was misconceived, they were not perhaps the best people to ensure
its successful execution.
The Terms of the Competition
The competition was first advertised in The Times and a
selection of British professional and technical journals at
the end of February 1907. Advertisements were also
placed in three Continental Journals – one French, one
German and one Italian – the competition being open to
architects of any nationality despite an attempt by some
Members to restrict it to British citizens. (fn. 50) (fn. f) Competitors
were given six months to produce their designs, which
had to be with the LCC by 27 August 1907.
Fig. 4. Suggested Plan for County Hall by the LCC's Superintending Architect, issued in 1907 as part of the Instructions for
competitors. As well as indicating positions for the Council Chamber and Public Hall, the plan also shows suggested locations for the
Members' and Chief Officers' accommodation
Much of the information given in the Instructions was
necessarily conventional – schedules of accommodation,
drawings required of the competitors, as well as a budget
for construction, in this case £850,000. In addition, a plan
for the guidance of competitors was issued, drawn up by
Ginham on Riley's instructions. From the time when they
began considering the project in 1905, Riley's department
had never stopped working on plans, at sixteenth-scale. (fn. 51)
By February 1906 a plan, symmetrical on the river front,
had been developed with many features that were incorporated in the Instructions. Chief of these were a first floor
reserved for the use of Members and department heads,
with public access rooms on the ground floor, and the
vertical stacking of departments. This plan (fig. 4)
emerged in the Instructions as 'a sketch plan ... which
shows a suggested arrangement of the accommodation ...
to be regarded as merely a suggestion which competitors
may modify in any way they desire'. Despite this, many
competitors may have felt a certain inhibition about altering the general plan drawn up by an assessor, particularly as that assessor was to be responsible for the
internal arrangements of the building.
The Instructions and the plan together defined the site
for competitors. This was curtailed by a 50–foot set-back
on the west side of Belvedere Road, but extended by a
proposed embankment to be built out into the Thames,
raised some 18 feet above datum, the face of which was
to be clad in granite to the architect's design.
The building was to comply with the London Building
Acts, but little else was stipulated about construction or
materials. Services were to include central-heating radiators and a system of mechanical ventilation, though fireplaces were to be provided in the principal rooms.
The LCC's main requirements for the building were
quite specific in certain areas, but left a number of other
matters unclear. For instance, no detailed instructions
were given about vehicular access for Members, or indeed
for 'cart access' to parts of the basement. In his special
volume on the competition published in 1908, the Swiss
architect Alexander Koch, himself an unsuccessful competitor, commented that the first thing that any architect
did upon entering for a competition, was to look out in
the programme what principal rooms were wanted, so that
he might express them in the elevations. He complained
that in the County Hall conditions, 'while, so to say, every
little corner required for a broom-stick was enumerated
in the programme, the representative rooms were put
under one head:- "Suitable accommodation, amounting
... to 16,000 square feet, for the general use of the members'". Thus the Members' Terrace which appeared in
all the designs was not even mentioned, and was only
taken by all the competitors from the suggested design of
the Council Architect. (fn. 52)
Lutyens must have expressed the feelings of many
competitors when he later complained to Herbert Baker:
The L.C.C. I feel sick of – bruised with. One was so in the dark
as to what was wanted. The site so lovely, the conditions so
difficult. (fn. 53)
Most attention was paid to the first floor, which was to
be for the use of Members, with offices for the heads of
departments where possible. (fn. g) Schedules of accommodation were provided for the floor: there was to be a
Council Chamber of 4000 square feet, two lobbies, a
public gallery for 150 persons with direct access from
outside, and a gallery with separate circulation for the
press. There was also to be an Assembly or Public Hall
to accommodate 800, complying with the LCC Theatre
Regulations, and a library 'as conveniently situated to the
Council Chamber as possible', with accommodation for a
librarian and twelve staff. Muniment and record rooms,
strong room and storage were to be provided in the
basement. The description of the areas intended for
Members seems particularly vague in comparison with
that requested for Council staff; the brief called for 'suitable accommodation' for some 200 Members, together
with facilities easily accessible from the Council Chamber
and lobbies, including an 'ample cloak room', fitted with
lockers and telephones. Also called for were a Members'
reading-room, restaurants, a possible smoking-room for
gentlemen, and a cloakroom for ladies. These provisions,
not dissimilar from those provided in the Houses of Parliament, reflected the same view of the Council's position
which led it to model its Standing Orders on Erskine May
rather than on the usual standing orders for local councils. (fn. h)
In addition, some twelve committee rooms, varying in size
from 600 to 1,200 square feet, were to be provided, the
way in which they were specified betraying that they had
been taken off the sketch plan (fig. 4).
The specifications for 'Rooms for Heads of Departments' on the first floor, which with waiting rooms varied
from 350 to 500 square feet, were supplemented by
detailed schedules of respective accommodation for their
departments elsewhere. The special requirements of each
branch pay eloquent tribute to the care with which the
Clerk and his colleagues had drawn up their lists. Some
departments, like Housing and Asylums, needed to be
accessible to the public, and 'on one floor if possible', a
request echoed by the Local Government and Statistical
Department, for which 'a quiet portion of site' was essential. The Public Health Department needed room for a
bacteriological laboratory on the top floor, and also two
bedrooms and sitting-rooms for medical officers' use
'during epidemics'. The Chemical and Gas Department
also required laboratory space, while Public Control
needed to test gas meters. The newly joined Educational
Department was very precise in its requirements: 'Essential qualifications – Good light, quiet, easily accessible to
the public, 100 of whom are seen daily for weeks at a
time'. (fn. 54)
The Effect of the Municipal Reform Victory in
1907
Less than a month after the competition was first advertised, the Progressives were defeated and the Municipal
Reformers took office as the majority party on the LCC.
The new administration at first tried to cancel the competition but soon decided to leave things as they stood.
This meant that competing architects were designing a
County Hall for a body which, while still answering to the
name of LCC, had a quite different character from the
client that had sponsored the competition.
A major overhaul of the Moderate political machine
had been a key element in the victory. A few months
before the election, the Conservative London Municipal
Society, formed in 1894, had persuaded the Moderates
to change their somewhat uninspiring name to that of
Municipal Reformers. During this election, said to have
been 'contested with a vigour and violence of emotion
unmatched in the history of the Council', the Moderates –
never themselves in power at the LCC – used their campaign to pillory the ruling party as 'the Wastrels'. It was
perhaps this which did most damage, combined with
a brilliant series of cartoons and posters designed by
E. Huskinson. These were works of political satire far
more potent than any which had appeared in earlier elections. There is little evidence that the County Hall project,
expensive as it was to be, was cited in the campaign,
though the subject appears as a makeweight in some cartoons. The main targets were the tramways and the accident-prone steamboat services, but of course, the
Municipal Reform platform was built on economy and
value for money.
The Progressives were furious at what they regarded as
the hijacking of a name to which they had a historic claim
as direct political descendants of the London Municipal
Reform League. In addition, they found themselves
embarrassed at having to defend an eighteen-year period
of government which had seen much reform and improvement, but which had also seen rates rise from 1s. 9¼d. in
1889 to 3s. 0d. in 1906, against a party which seemed to
be laying claim to a kind of radicalism. The municipal
debt had gone from £18 million in 1893 to £23 million in
1903, and, after central government had moved the
London School Board and its debt to the LCC, to £48
million in 1907. (fn. 55)
The previous year's parliamentary election was doubtless another factor. Progressives and Moderates had long
been affiliated with the national political parties, but the
election in 1906 to the House of Commons of no less
than thirty LCC Progressives as members of the Liberal
parliamentary majority brought this fact clearly before
the public eye. It was not lost sight of by campaigning
Municipal Reformers, who averred that the Progressives
were using the LCC to subvert Parliament. (fn. 56)
Immediately after the 1907 local government elections
the Municipal Reformers put their policies of economy
into practice, cutting the steamboat service and winding
down the Works Department. They also called into question the new County Hall, a project which the Progressives
hoped they had taken too far for reversal, and in spite of
the fact that the need for a new headquarters was recognized by all parties.
Only two 1906 Establishment Committee members
were re-appointed to the 1907 Committee: Edward Smith
and Captain George Swinton. Richard Robinson (1857–
1923), a previous member from 1896 to 1904, replaced
Cleland as Chairman. Within a fortnight of the election
Robinson had asked Riley what the LCC's liability would
be if the architectural competition for the design of the
new County Hall were to be abandoned. The Finance
Committee met to establish the consequences of giving up
the site altogether and the Engineer, Architect and Valuer
were instructed to look again into alternative sites in the
Westminster Improvement Area and Kingsway. (fn. 57)
The Establishment Committee's report on the County
Hall situation, twice deferred, was presented to the Council
on 18 June 1907. After summarizing the Council's commitments to the Belvedere Road site and the architectural competition, the Committee reported that there
was only one possible alternative site, the Westminster
Improvement Area, of which the cost per acre was 50 per
cent higher than the Belvedere Road site. The report
concluded:
having regard to the stage which has been reached in the acquisition of the site and to the large sum of money which would be
lost if the Council did not proceed, and also to the fact that the
competition ... has been in progress for ten weeks, the best
course .. is to go on with the scheme with all possible dispatch
in order that the staff may be housed in the new building at the
earliest moment. (fn. 58)
Calling off the project altogether would have cost the
Council £200,000. Once this was known Members
stopped agitating to have the scheme cancelled and turned
their attention towards hastening its completion and
making substantial economies. In some respects the two
aims were contradictory. Speeding the works along meant
having to buy up the leases of the premises fronting
Westminster Bridge Road, which the Council had
intended to let run until their expiry in 1923–4, foregoing
the rents. These tenancies were acquired in 1910–11. (fn. 59)
On the other hand there was still a hope of getting out
of the agreement to take over Holloways' property at
the north end of the site. The Establishment Committee
consulted Riley about the possibility of using the Belvedere Road site without Holloways' holding. Riley estimated that it would accommodate some 450 people, and
that to fit the extra number on the reduced site was not
practical, particularly since the Council now planned to
house a further 500 staff in the new building, making a
total of 2,738. (fn. 60) A suggestion that the London School
Board offices on the Victoria Embankment be kept, to
reduce the necessary size of the new building, brought the
comment from the Clerk, that to do this 're-creates a
difficulty that New County Hall was meant to remove'. (fn. 61)
It was soon recognized that the purchase of the northern
part of the site was inevitable, not least because the Council
had served a notice to treat. However, the Council decided
to defer development on this part of the site until 1914 at
the earliest, leasing it back to Holloways immediately for
21 years with break clauses at 7, 10 and 14 years. (fn. 62)
The Result of the Competition
Despite its contentious Instructions and austere requirements for large plain geometrical drawings, the first stage
of the competition attracted 99 designs. The competitors
numbered 152, eight of them, the assessors noted, of
foreign birth, and, individually or jointly, they produced
a total of 1,199 drawings. Within a month of the closing
date, 27 August 1907, fifteen designs had been selected
for the final stage (see Appendix II, page 127). (fn. 63) Together
with the eight invited architects, the first-stage winners
elected Aston Webb to join Shaw and Riley as third
Assessor (Plate 3d). After three weeks' scrutiny of the final
23 schemes – 346 drawings – the Assessors presented their
Report to the Establishment Committee on 30 January
1908. (fn. 64)
This brief and laconic document was doubtless meant
to reassure all parties concerned. But its few paragraphs
hedge the Assessors' decision to a great extent, and render
unsurprising the long process of change and interference
that was to follow. As they observed, the competitors'
schemes were at this moment little more than sketch
designs, and some modifications were inevitable:
Under these circumstances, we have selected the design which,
in our opinion, shows the greatest promise of a worthy result,
and best deals with the problem set.
We find, unanimously, that design No. 106 is, on the whole,
the best, and we therefore recommend it for acceptance and
execution.
It is a forcible and artistic suggestion which conveys to us the
purpose for which it is to be erected, and is almost entirely
without costly and unnecessary features: moreover, we are of
opinion that the estimated cost is a fair one, and that the building
could probably be erected within the sum named in instruction
No. 34 ... There are other points in the plan that require modification, but the brilliant qualities of the design far outweigh, in
our opinion, these and other comparatively unimportant defects.
This report was accepted by the Council on 4 February
1908, despite some fierce criticism of the design from the
Rev. Frank Hastings, the Progressive Member for East St
Pancras. (fn. 65)
Fig. 5. Ralph Knott's winning design for County Hall, 1908. Perspective view from the south-west across Westminster Bridge
The Winning Design (figs 5, 13, 14, 16, 17a)
The design chosen by the assessors was that submitted by
Ralph Knott (1878–1929), a 29–year-old assistant in Aston
Webb's office. No stranger to the world of the public
building competition, Knott, jointly with his friend and
future partner Ernest Stone Collins (1878–1942), had previously entered the Bristol Reference Library and Malvern
Free Library competitions of 1902 and 1904, coming
second in both, and the Lambeth Municipal Buildings
Competition of 1905. Although not premiated, their
Lambeth entry was commended by the assessor, H. T.
Hare, but others found its generally restrained mixture of
baroque and mannerist styles 'probably rather too severe
for a building of this nature'. (fn. 66) At the time of winning the
County Hall competition, however, Knott had designed
very little that was actually built – the Building News
credited him with 'some good country domestic buildings,
principally in Sussex'. (fn. 67)
Born in Chelsea, the eighth child of a prosperous tailor
in Pont Street, (fn. 68) Knott had been educated at the City
of London School, and had served his articles in the
architectural practice of Woodd & Ainslie. About 1900 he
had joined Aston Webb's office, where he worked on the
Admiralty Arch and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In
1901 he was placed second in the Tite Prize, with a design
for a gateway in which elements of County Hall can be
recognized (fig. 6). (fn. 69)
Though some critics thought the winning design to be
one of the duller entries – 'cold, grim and soulless' was
the Rev. Frank Hastings's description – it was in fact a
workmanlike and impressive scheme, which fulfilled the
demands of a difficult brief. Innocent of the domes and
baroque grandeur which were a feature of so many competitors' designs, it nevertheless dominated the site and
made full use of the riverside. The main element of the
river front was a square portico with double columns
projecting on to the embankment. Office wings on either
side were cleverly handled, with rusticated ground and
first floors and two attic floors in a mansard to conceal the
sheer bulk of the building. Central features punctuated
the Westminster Bridge Road and Belvedere Road fronts,
a subsidiary entrance on the former and an ingenious
circular Public Hall set in a deep recess on the latter.
Pavilions at each corner of the building were intended to
contain baroque sculpture groups, and decorative carved
and moulded architectural features enriched pediments
over doors and windows. Tall chimneys increased the
domestic impression given by the double rows of dormer
windows, and enlivened the skyline, together with a flèche
topped by a weathervane bearing a ship in full sail.
Considerable re-working of the design was to take place
over the next three years, and though Knott suffered in
the process, as other young and inexperienced designers
have done on similar occasions, much of the change was
beneficial. For Riley the experience of judging the designs
had been nearly as distressing as the Kingsway competition. Shortly after the result was known he wrote to
Belcher:
In the progress of the work, as each scheme went out of further
consideration, I am bound to say that I experienced the deepest
feeling of sympathy with those whose efforts and hopes were
alike disappointed by the decision though of course this was
inevitable. I am not used to the experience and I hope I shall
not be called upon again to go through such an ordeal. I am
henceforth an advocate of selection in works of such magnitude. (fn. 70)
Fig. 6. Detail from a 'Design for an Entrance Gateway to a Public Park' which earned Ralph Knott
second place in the Tite Prize, 1901