Joshua Abbott has launched a crowdfunding campaign to publish Modernism Beyond Metro-land, a book documenting 20th-century architecture in London’s suburbs. In the first of a series of extracts, the spotlight is on South Woodford Library. Photo by Geoff Wilkinson
The London Borough of Redbridge was created in 1965, bringing together the municipal boroughs of Ilford and Wanstead and Woodford, and parts of the boroughs of Dagenham and Chigwell. These fragments had all previously been part of Essex before being transferred to the Greater London area.
Like all of the 32 new boroughs, Redbridge sought to improve their building stock from the late-1960s onwards through their newly created architects departments. Some boroughs like Camden with Neave Brown, or Lambeth with Ted Hollamby, undertook massive housing projects that are now feted as examples of the golden era of social housing. Redbridge’s architects department was led by Michael G Booth, who had worked for the architects department of London County Council, the largest in the world at the time. There, he helped design a range of projects, including schools, colleges and fire stations.
Booth moved from the London County Council to Redbridge in 1965, joining as deputy borough architect, eventually becoming the youngest chief architect in the 32 boroughs. There, he would oversee the design and construction of housing, schools and other community facilities. Two of the most interesting projects from this period are the libraries in Wanstead and South Woodford.
The library and Churchill Hall in Wanstead were opened in 1969, overseen by Booth. The South Woodford project was completed in 1975, combining a library and health centre. Designed by CA Stok and J Hockley of the borough’s architects department, it is a more complex and ambitious scheme than Wanstead, providing multiple facilities on a site just to the north of the North Circular, previously home to an 18th-century lodge, which was demolished to make way.
The buildings are constructed of red brick around a concrete frame with black timber window frames. The 1970s saw a backlash against the monolithic concrete designs that had proliferated during the 1960s, with architects turning back to brick, particularly the hot red type used by influential architects James Stirling and James Gowan in their 1960s work, such as the 1963 Engineering Building at Leicester University. However, the concrete frame does appear around the South Woodford building, most notably with the rear staircase. South Woodford Library was refurbished in 2015 and now contains a gym.
For more information on Modernism Beyond Metro-land and to support the crowdfunder, visit swvg.co.uk/mbml
