Imperial Story-lands: Architecture and display at the Imperial and Commonwealth Institutes

Art History

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 99-123

  Crinson, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950298704     PISSN: 01416790     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8365.00141     Document Type: Review

References (37)

1. On this nomenclature see S.R. Mehotra, 'On the Use of the Term "Commonwealth"', Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 1963, pp. 1-16
2. Carol Duncan, Civilising Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, London, 1995, pp. 17, 13
3. Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum, London, 1995, pp. 63, 84
4. See William Golant, Image of Empire. The Early History of the Imperial Institute, 1887-1925, Exeter, 1984
5. John MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960, Manchester, 1984
6. and Michael Worboys 'The Imperial Institute: The State and the Development of the Natural Resources of the Colonial Empire, 1887-1923' in John MacKenzie (ed.), Imperialism and the Natural World, Manchester, 1990
7. F.H.W. Sheppard (general ed.), Survey of London Volume 38 - The Museums Area of South Kensington and Westminster, London, 1975
8. This way of understanding architecture is also influenced by Lefebvre's concept of 'social space': see Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith, Oxford, 1991, especially pp. 142-3
9. For the clearest exposition of its intended industrial and commercial role see the statement by its first Director: Sir Frederick Abel, The Work of the Imperial Institute, London, 1887
10. Imperial Institute, The Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India, London, 1892, p. 18
11. See B. Cohn, 'Representing Authority in Victorian India', in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 165-209
12. and Hosagrahar Jyoti, 'City as Durbar: Theater and Power in Imperial Delhi', in Nezar Alsayyad, Forms of Dominance: On the Architecture and Urbanism of the Colonial Enterprise, Aldershot, 1992, pp. 83-105. The Durbah Court in the Foreign Office might also be mentioned here
13. See Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire, London and New York, 1993, p. 3
14. The Builder, vol. 62, 25 June 1892, p. 498
15. See Carla Yanni, 'Divine Display or Secular Science: Defining Nature at the Natural History Museum in London', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 55, no. 3, September 1996, pp. 276-99
16. W.T. Furse, 'The Work of the Imperial Institute', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 74, 1 May 1926, p. 654
17. H.A.F. Lindsay, An Empire Story-Land, Imperial Institute guidebook from the late 1930s: see PRO 30/76/314. Lindsay succeeded Furse as Director in 1934
18. Nicholas Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, London, 1982, vol. 2, pp. 242-3
19. See Sir Lawrence Weaver, Exhibitions and the Arts of Display, London, 1925
20. am grateful to Christine Boyanovski for this reference. See also H. Spooner, 'The Exhibition Galleries', Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, vol. 41, no. 1, Jan-March 1943, p. 68
21. H. Spooner, 'The Exhibition Galleries', Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, vol. 49, no. 1, Jan-March 1943, p. 72
22. Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Imperial Institute, London, 1952, p. 2
23. K. Bradley, 'The Imperial Institute', Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1957, pp. 879-80
24. Bradley, an ex-District Officer in Africa, saw the transition from Empire to Commonwealth as unproblematic: 'It is the fashion nowadays to scoff at Empire Building and say that it is Kiplingesque and out of date. This is profoundly untrue. The building of an empire is like the building of a city. It begins by the digging of foundations in virgin soil and will never end until utopia is reached. The city, which is the Commonwealth of Nations, is now in all stages of construction, and everywhere the task of building goes forward': K. Bradley, The Colonial Service as a Career, London, 1950, p. 50
25. Amongst the most recent research on this subject I would highlight Jane M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City, London, 1996
26. C. Hussey, 'Save the Imperial Institute', Country Life, 1956, p. 329
27. Architect and Building News, 22 March 1956, p. 271
28. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, April 1956, p. 239
29. The scheme was announced at the same time as William Holford's similar scheme for replanning the Paternoster Square area neighbouring St Paul's Cathedral: Architects' Journal, January 1956, p. 87
30. Architects' Journal, 6 February 1958, pp. 197-8
31. Annual Report of the Commonwealth Institute, London, 1963, p. 8
32. See also K. Bradley, 'The New Commonwealth Institute', Commonwealth Journal, November-December 1961, pp. 1-5. The Commonwealth Institute was listed as Il-starred in October 1988, only the second building to be listed under the thirty-year rule. This demonstrates an acceptance of the building as significant both for its architectural and its social aims, and protects it from the fate of its predecessor
33. The phrase was Stirrat Johnson-Marshall's: see Andrew Saint, 'Commonwealth Institute, Holland Park, R.B. of Kensington and Chelsea', unpublished paper, 1988. Saint writes 'This vision fitted in well with Johnson-Marshall's philosophy of architecture, which was that buildings should be simple in concept, untrammelled by pretentious design theories of architectural personality, "user friendly", informal, geared to youth, educational and flexible.' For the sequence of design ideas see letter and attached notes from Roger (Lord) Cunliffe to Andrew Saint, 10 May 1988, in English Heritage file 'Commonwealth Institute, Holland Park, Kensington and Chelsea'
34. Commonwealth Institute: A Handbook, London, 1965, p. 16
35. Country Life, 27 April 1951, p. 1272. James Gardner, the designer of these displays, had also been one of the chief designers for the Festival of Britain
36. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, St Albans, 1973, p. 100
37. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London, 1994, p. 245