Available online
Media not available in the Digital Archive
You can view clips from this programme
Description
In this programme, Dr. Geoffrey Baker, a qualified architect and also a lecturer in Art History at the Open University, describes the process of designing his own house in a village near Newcastle-...upon-Tyne. As he himself says, although his house "was completed thirty years after our period, it does, I think, show how architects' ideas have been completely revolutionised by developments in design techniques which took place between 1890 and 1939". Dr. Baker starts by describing the various elements he wanted in his final design and with the help of his actual preliminary sketches he traces the beginnings of the ideas which led him forward to the finished house. With the help of a scale model he describes his motives for placing each element where it is and concludes by paying perhaps the strongest tribute amongst the many factors that have influenced him to Le Corbusier, whose work and influence is met on many other occasions during the course. The programme attempts therefore to show how the mind of one particular architect works and tries thereby to provide an insight into the mental processes of the architects with whom the students are to become familiar during the rest of the course.
In this programme, Dr. Geoffrey Baker, a qualified architect and also a lecturer in Art History at the Open University, describes the process of designing his own house in a village near Newcastle-...upon-Tyne. As he himself says, although his house "was completed thirty years after our period, it does, I think, show how architects' ideas have been completely revolutionised by developments in design techniques which took place between 1890 and 1939". Dr. Baker starts by describing the various elements he wanted in his final design and with the help of his actual preliminary sketches he traces the beginnings of the ideas which led him forward to the finished house. With the help of a scale model he describes his motives for placing each element where it is and concludes by paying perhaps the strongest tribute amongst the many factors that have influenced him to Le Corbusier, whose work and influence is met on many other occasions during the course. The programme attempts therefore to show how the mind of one particular architect works and tries thereby to provide an insight into the mental processes of the architects with whom the students are to become familiar during the rest of the course.
| Module code and title: | A305, History of architecture and design 1890-1939 |
|---|---|
| Item code: | A305; 01 |
| First transmission date: | 15-02-1975 |
| Published: | 1975 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:24:31 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Edward Hayward |
| Contributor: | Geoffrey Baker |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Architecture; Fletcher's Well Ponteland; Housing architecture |
| Subject terms: | Architecture--Aesthetics; Architecture--Designs and plans; Baker, Geoffrey |
| Footage description: | Titles sequence over rough sketches by Geoffrey Baker of his designs for his own house at Ponteland, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Film of the house. Baker begins by explaining his idea of the process of architectural creativity. He describes some buildings which influenced him, with still illustrations. A Northumberland farm, Sea Ranch in California, Le Corbusier's Jaoul Houses, and Tom Mellor's cottage, Ribby Wood, near Blackpool. He describes the technique by which a final design is developed, with sketches, illustrating his thesis with Le Corbusier's drawings of houses for workers (1924) based on a cube. Stills of La Tourette and Villa Savoye. He describes, with film, the basic house type which he has modified, and the features of the site. Drawing sketches in the studio, he shows how the final design of the house was arrived at. He explains features of the design using a specially built model. Finally he shows, in a film sequence, the completed house, describing particularly the materials and colour. Baker summarises the design process, showing again the buildings and architects who influenced him. Shots of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Credits over the model of the house. |
| Master spool number: | 6HT/71593 |
| Production number: | 00525_3167 |
| Videofinder number: | 1745 |
| Available to public: | no |
Related Archive Content
This programme looks at some of the work of the Czech architect, Adolf Loos. Loos w...as a journalist and theorist of art, as well as an architect, and although most of his work is located in Austria, Prance, Germany or Switzerland he was a great admirer of the British and American social systems, and through them the architecture of the two countries. From a series of elegant adaptations of Voysey or Mackintosh, set not in rural England but suburban Vienna, he moved to elegant and very individual
This last programme steps outside the Course's time limits (1890-1939) to look at s...ome key housing developments in post-war Britain. Stephen Bayley, Lecturer in Art history, looks at the London County Council's Roehampton, Alton West development of the early 1950s; Erno Goldfinger's Trellick Tower, London, of the late sixties - early seventies, and Ralph Erskin's and Vernon Gracie's Byker now being built in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The sequence on Roehampton includes interviews with the architects f
Despite the achievements of the modern movement, the majority of between the wars a...rchitecture remained traditional. Sut there were degrees of tradition. Here Dr. Geoffrey Baker examines the classical tradition represented by such buildings as Manchester City Library and Liverpool Cathedral, the less traditional Scandinavian municipal style - and demonstrates the contrast between these and the modern buildings which were appearing. The programme culminates in a detailed study of the conservativ
The Villa Savoye, finished in 1930, is now empty but stands as one of the most impr...essive monuments to Le Corbusier's ideas about architecture and the modern movement in general. The film was shot at the Villa Savoye near Paris and consists of a detailed analysis in which Tim Benton relates the building to ideas expressed in Le Corbusier's writings. Complete in itself as a case-study of a seminal modern building, the film is related to radio vision programme 17 which examines the development of
