The Design of the Speculative Builders Semi
Unlike the Victorian mass-produced house and the pre-1919 semi, the speculative built house of the 1930s avoided the wasteful use of materials and expensive architectural features, such as decorative mouldings, ceiling embellishments, rear extensions or projections and large amounts of areas dedicated to halls and landings. Instead it settled on a good arrangement of net floor areas within a simple shell. The only typical addition and projection to the basic box form that was usually found in the construction of the working-class semi, - indeed there were few houses built without it-was the bay window which was added to the front facade.
Indeed, 'bay windows were an almost obligatory feature if the houses were to sell quickly, if only because they were rare included in council dwellings'; they became so popular that the expression 'was used to describe an acquired middle-class accent or way of life' (39). The working-class owner-occupier was anxious to highlight the fact that he was living in his own house, and the inclusion of a bay window made the distinction clear. Half a century later John Short, commenting on the 'right to buy' policies of the Conservative government, said that 'It is not incidental that the first thing people do when they have bought their council house is to paint the front door differently, add a bay...it is an indication of success' (40). This is one instance where the design of houses by local authorities lagged behind the market.
The desire for self-containment is often seen as an attribute of British character and was given expression by the semi, which could provide seclusion even for the lower-paid and working classes. They might look 'As like as a string of sausages but the Englishman treasures above all the pleasing conceit that his house constitutes his castle' (41). Such an identity could not be obtained by living in a terrace since 'The fundamental objection was that the terrace did not lend itself to individualisation, by now an important middle-class requirement' (42). Individuality was expressed by the style and form of the home, and the movement from the tunnel-backs and similar poorer houses to the light open aspects of the semi was to be the most emblematic change in the life-style of the working classes of the 1930s. The speculatively-built semi was inspired by some aspects of the Unwinian municipal housing estates of the early 1920s. But the developers economics had changed. The Unwinian theory of low density, where the cost of purchasing large amounts of land was outweighed by savings on development cost of roads and drains, did not work in a situation where the developer was trying to make a profit of say £50 per house. In the example given by Raymond Unwin of the treatment of housing layouts on a right angle bend, such as is given in the Manual of 1919, four houses are shown as being the appropriate number to be constructed on such a site. However the speculative builder would have squeezed seven houses on such a corner plot, including perhaps a bungalow on the very apex of the site.
The semi became the ideal suburban dwelling and the terraces were firmly seen as being suitable only for the towns. The journal Surveyor, Engineer and Architect, the London monthly journal of the physical and practical sciences of the Victorian age, announced 'That the terrace had ceased to be fashionable' (43). Earlier in Victorian times it became obvious that living in a terraced house, even a grand one, was not comfortable. Those members of the working classes who may have grown up as children in terraced houses on many floors would not have wished to raise a family in such dwellings. There were sufficient new communities of houses in the countryside, surrounded by open space, in Victorian times to make the terrace house appear, by comparison, just what it was - unhealthy, cramped, gloomy and monotonous.
It is likely that the building of semis according to the 'universal' plan was a logical development from previous speculative types. This plan, which was generally adopted by the speculative developer, incorporated a front sitting-room, rear dining-room, and three bedrooms on the first floor. It was the distillation of all the sound features of semis, villas, cottages and terraced houses from the past. A particular layout feature contained within almost every speculative built house intended for the working classes was the parlour, an aspect of design which will be fully discussed below. Most houses built by local authorities did not have parlours and 'On this point Fabian rationalism and medievalising romanticism, combined with hostility to the practices of the speculative builder led Parker and Unwin into direct conflict with popular taste' (44). In their eyes, as the room was seldom used, it could not be justified and was in fact a waste of space. In neither the private garden cities of Port Sunlight and Bournville 'was reform of the internal layout of the house a major goal', and the parlour remained (45). The Dudley Report in 1944 that looked at the design of council houses concluded 'Evidence is unanimous that the scullery is too small...to meet these needs (the living-room being constantly in use).We consider the municipal house of the future should provide two good rooms on the ground floor' (46). So the parlour finally won formal approval, but only after many hundreds of thousands of non-parlour homes had been built by local authorities. For the working-class home-owner, the hipped roof suggested conspicuous waste and therefore affluence. The inclusion of a parlour was a similar luxury. The parlour gave the working-class owner an opportunity to furnish the room with ritual objects that they considered to be in good taste. It was somewhere 'where furniture and domestic objects have pleasant private associations' (47). It was a part of the struggle to achieve respectability, the search for a role or identity based upon the perceived behaviour of those they considered to be their social superiors. The estates in the south of England were often occupied by people who had moved there from other parts of Britain. They could genuinely hope for visitors from their old neighbourhoods to be entertained in and impressed by what they saw in the parlour. The hope for a better life for the children of the home-owning working classes required that a parlour was 'required for home lessons by the children of school age' (48). Parlours helped to sell houses to the working classes and made them feel superior to the council tenants who lived in homes which were generally designed without parlours.
(39) A.Jackson. Semi-Detached London: Suburban Development, Life and Transport, 1900-39 (London,1991), p.111.
(40) J. Short, Housing in Britain, The Post-War Experience (London, 1982), p. 234.
(41) Illustrated Carpenter and Builder (31 January 1936), p.16.
(42) J. Burnett, A Social History of Housing 1815-1985, (London, 1986), p. 204.
(43) 1841 edition, p.285.
(44) M. Swenerton ,op.cit, p. 21.
(45) M. Swenarton, op.cit, p.19.
(46) The Dudley Report, paras 37 and 41.
(47) From the papers of Tom Harrisson dated 1 February 1943 held by the Mass Observation archives at The University of Sussex, filed as M-OA:FR 1593.
(48) Tudor Walters Report, para 86. |
