BAKER FURNITURE DESKS

Architects: Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners, 1961-64.
The following quotations are taken from an article by Elain Harwood written for BD, 19th October 2007, describing Churchill College Competition Show held at the College.

“…. Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners’ scheme was a clever one, reappraising the traditional Cambridge quad in the manner of Le Corbusier’s Maisons Jaoul. A basic cross-shaped unit has wings of rooms radiating from a staircase core that housed bathrooms, a kitchenette, and the cleaner’s or “gyp” room. This unit was rotated and linked to form courtyards — a modern interpretation of a college staircase plan, on a large scale. It went through many evolutions, refined from 20 quads to 10, and from stone to brown brick. Like Jacobsen at St Catherine’s, the architects also designed furniture, while the communal spaces saw the only collaboration between Robin and Lucienne Day, with furniture by Robin and textiles by Lucienne.

If the scheme had a fault, it was that the architects were working for a committee of scientists which tried to impose its own ideas, while at St Catherine’s, Alan Bullock gave Jacobsen a free hand. Churchill College lacks the coherence of St Catherine’s, but it has impressive elements, and the main building exudes warmth and camaraderie. St Catherine’s is formal. Churchill contrives to be informal but grand, likened by Reyner Banham in the Architectural Review to “the ‘Finest Hour’ image of the stout person in siren-suit after whom the college is named”. “

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