Bauhaus in Britain; Chermayeff and Bexhill-On-Sea

I was very interested in Bauhaus architectural students who moved to Britain, as soon as the Bauhaus was closed down (in 1933). Serge Ivan Chermayeff (1900–96) was exactly the same age and nationality as many of the Bauhaus architectural students, but he in fact moved from Grozny in Russia directly to London. Thus we know that he did not spend any years studying at The Bauhaus in Germany.

However we do know that in 1931, Chermayeff and two other English architects (Wells Coates and Jack Pritchard)  made a journey together through Germany, and included Bauhaus in Dessau in their itinerary. They spent time talking with English undergraduates who were studying there.

In the 1920s, professional organisations of young architects were al­ready emerging in Berlin and other German cities. Zehnerring/Ring of Ten was an org­anis­at­ion of Berlin architects set up in 1923 to prom­ote the Bauhaus notion of modernism architecture. Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953) was one of these German architects who was thrilled to join Zehnerring, but within a few years he fled Germany while getting out was still a possibility.

Chermayeff went into private architectural practice is 1930 and a couple of years later, he welcomed Erich Mendelsohn into the practice. Of these two Jewish architects safely working in Britain, Mendel­sohn was older and more famous, but Chermayeff spoke English better and had citizenship. Their combined goal was to design significant archit­ect­ural works in the British modernist movement, a la Bauhaus.

Looking to the beach from the Bexhill-On-Sea pavilion

Bexhill, a small beach resort town between Eastbourne and Hastings, already had a high-class entertainment venue: the Kursaal in De La Warr Parade. The mayor of Bexhill in 1932, who happened to be 9th Earl De La Warr, suggested the town needed a more modern, more invit­ing pavilion. What he wanted was an enclosed structure or winter garden, behind the existing colonnade. The town largely supported this project, as long as the new building maintained the existing character of the town.

Bexhill Borough Council set up an architectural competition in 1933 and prepared a brief that indicated that a modern building was required. 230 architectural designs were submitted, exhibited and assessed, and the winning entry was declared to be that submitted by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff.

Bexhill social life in summer evenings

Building work began in Jan 1935, using perhaps the first welded steel frame building in Britain. The aesthetics taught at The Bauhaus were well suited to the Bexhill Pavilion, focusing on long, low concrete surfaces, industrial designs, with expansive metal-framed windows and concrete-steel materials. The glass-encircled staircase towers above the headland on which it stands.

If the streamline extended verandas, glass tower and deckchairs reminded the viewer of a ship, it was not coincidental. Firstly Bexhill On Sea was a beach resort town. Secondly 1930s modernist architecture, especially Deco, was besotted with ships (as well as trains and fast cars), as shown by Art Deco Buildings.

When the money ran out, the plan to redevelop the Colonnade, a swimming pool and modernist statue was abandoned. Nonetheless the completed project was opened in Dec 1935, in the presence of royalty.

In the 1930s the modern style of the building was probably something of a shock to the good (staid?) burghers of Bexhill. And there was also some resentment over the cost of the project. However in the end it became much loved. graveney marsh blog has an enticing image of the sea, taken from inside the pavilion.

I hadn't discovered why this coastal resort fell out of love with its treasure, then The Knowledge Emporium blog showed how the pavilion was damaged when a nearby hotel was bombed during the war. Afterwards, in the tough postwar era, the pavilion was simply neglected.

By the 1980s, the De La Warr Pavilion was granted a Grade I listed Building status and plans were formulated to restore the building. In 2005, after an extensive programme of restoration and regeneration, the De La Warr Pavilion reopened as a large, cont­emporary arts centre. 70 years after the building was designed by Chermayeff and Mendelsohn, the De La Warr Pavilion is the most famous spot in Bexhill. And much to my pleasure, it is one of the best early examples of the Bauhaus style of architectural modernism in Britain.

What do bloggers think of the pavilion now? 60 going on 16 blog examined the architecture, loved it, then headed for the cafe, opting for tea, cake and sea views out on the first floor balcony. Despite not spending much time with the art as expected, it was an excellent experience.

Bexhill Pavilion and art centre, in 2005

For scholars of The Bauhaus, it is interesting to know that Laszlo Moholy Nagy's successor at the head of the Ins­t­itute of Design in Chicago was the very same Serge Chermayeff who had moved to the USA during WW2. Chermayeff, the man who had never studied at the Bauhaus, remained true to the Institute’s orig­in­al Bauhaus goals. Some of materials related to the De La Warr Pavilion were archived in the Serge Chermayeff Papers in Columbia University New York.

Every adult citizen's vote must be counted

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance - Compulsory voting information wrote that democratic governments consider voting in elections a right of citizenship. Many nations consider that participation at elections is more than a mere right; it is also a citizen's civic responsibility. In some countries, where voting is considered a duty, voting at elections has been made compulsory and has been regulated in the national constitutions and electoral laws. Many of these countries impose sanctions on voters who do not fulfil their civic duty. But the idea of "forcing" people is almost irrelevant. They vote because that is what a good citizen does - he looks after the children, runs a home, keeps a job, pays taxes, protests against bad laws, supports charities, uses public transport wherever possible, and votes!

I would add another very important consideration. A government who is elected with­out hearing from 100% of the adult population has no legitimacy. Of course 100% may not be literally possible since some people are inevitably in gaol, in hospital or are so infirmed that they cannot write. But 100% of the adult population should be the goal of any democratic nation’s electoral strategy.

If mobile voting booths have to go out to old peoples’ homes and move from bed to bed, those mobile booths must be funded from the tax base and equipped before the next election. Postal voting will be necessary for all absentee voters. Voting has to be on weekends so no worker suffers a loss of wages during his absence from work. If citizens are working in Antarctica or New Guinea, election officers need to process those remotely located citizens in a timely fashion.

Rural voting, New Zealand, 1897

There seem to be 35 nations that have some sort of universal voting laws:
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Congo
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Fiji
France (Senate elections only)
Gabon
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
India
Indonesia
Italy
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mexico
Nauru
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Singapore
Switzerland (some cantons)
Turkey
Uruguay
Thailand
Venezuela

Austria, Netherlands, Soviet Union and Spain did have universal voting at some stage, but have since changed their legislation.

FairVote blog gives the arguments cogently and at length in Maximizing Participation: what the US can learn from compulsory voting. Empress Nasi Goreng blog discussed how serious Australians were their rights and responsibilities in On the Australian system of compulsory voting.

Gold fever & stage coaches, Calif & Victoria

Freeman Cobb (1830-1878) joined Adams & Co., the American express agents, in 1849. He worked with the coaching line which had established itself during the Californian gold rush, starting only one year earlier. Adams and Co’s rival, Wells Fargo & Company's Atlantic and Pacific Express, also moved gold, transported passengers and carried freight between the cities of New York and San Francisco, and around California. Guards rode shotgun on the stage coaches, to protect the gold and the passengers.

Wells Fargo, driver, armed guards and passengers,
California

Just as gold fever was starting to die down in California, it was about to start in central Victoria. Coach services in Australia had been irregular and unreliab­le. So it was not surprising that Freeman Cobb wanted to establish a branch of Adams & Co. in Melbourne. In fact several American coach drivers had arrived in Australia, rep­resenting the interests of either Adams & Co. or Wells Fargo. Neither of these two American companies did carry traffic to the Victorian gold diggings, in the end. So the very entrepreneurial Freemen Cobb joined three of the new arrivals to create a new partnership, Cobb & Co. They were John Peck, James Swanton and John Lamber.

By the end of 1854 Victoria had a better system of roads, with toll gates on all high­ways leading to the gold fields, and booking offices in all the bigger towns. Cobb and Co still struggled a bit in the first 5 years of service, but the Co. boomed when it was bought in 1858 by another recently arrived Amer­ican, James Ruth­erford. Rutherford had been the manager of a particular Cobb and Co line before he and the new partners re-organised and extended the Victorian services, and won a monopoly on the mail contracts.

The coach drivers pro­vided mail and passen­ger serv­ic­es to the out­back, facing a tough life of rough roads, difficult weather condit­ions and even bushrangers. Soon specially sprung coaches that could handle Australia's very rough conditions were imported from America.

Every 25 ks the horses were replaced at a changing station, to get passengers to their destinat­ions faster and safer. Chan­ging stat­ions were important for the horses, but for the passengers as well since they provided an opport­un­ity for food and rest. A few examples will do. The American Hotel in rural Creswick was described as a 2-storey timber structure. During the gold rush period, the hotel operated as a Cobb and Co station, gaining prominence as one of the leading est­ablishments in the colony. And providing drinks to thirsty travel­lers! Some changing stations were not in pubs. Just west of rural Beaufort, for example, there was a free standing Cobb & Co changing station, built in 1869. In Barraba near Tamworth NSW, Cobb & Co stage coaches had a clearly marked changing station in the town’s post office.

Barraba post office
and Cobb and Co station, NSW

Why did Cobb and Co headquarters were moved from Victoria to Bathurst in New South Wales in 1862. Workshops were built at Hay and Bourke in NSW, and Castlemaine in Victoria, and the service was expanded to include Queensland. The first Cobb & Co coach in Qld ran from Brisbane to Ipswich in Jan 1866. Holties House blog gave photographic proof that in the dry sandy regions of Queensland, the innovative Cobb & Co. sometimes used camels instead of horses to move the mail and passengers.

A clue comes in Sam Everingham's book Wild Ride: The Rise and Fall of Cobb & Co, published by Penguin in 2007. It says while Freeman Cobb established the company in 1853 to cater for travellers between Melbourne and the Victorian goldfields, it was Frank Whitney and James Rutherford who turned it into the most extensive coach network in the world, covering the all of Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

Just as the name Wells Fargo went into the American psyche, so the name Cobb and Co became known by every school child across Australia. New Blog described a Queensland museum dedicated to this company in Team visits Cobb and Co museum in Toowoomba.

Cobb and Co Museum, Toowoomba Qld

The expansion into New Zealand was sensible. In 1861, the discovery of gold in Gabriel's Gully in Otago prompted another gold rush, includ­ing Australian gold-diggers who sailed for Dunedin. Among these was the Cobb & Co. coach proprietor Charles Cole, who had been running the Ballarat service. Cole landed in Dunedin in 1861 with a coach, 5 wagons, a buggy and dozens of horses. Almost immediately Cobb and Co's first coach left the Provincial Hotel Dunedin for the Police Com­mis­sion­er's Camp at Gabriel's Gully, as described by Otago Gold­fields Heritage Trust blog in Dunstan Trail. The initial journey took 3 days, but the time was soon reduced to a day trip by the introd­uction of stables and relays of horses. There was usually an over­night stop at Styx where the lock-up was built to protect the gold bullion.

We can find unexpected snippets of Cobb and Co history all over the blogosphere. The Humble Blog who wrote about The Coffee Palace in Barwon Heads. After describing boating, fishing, picnic parties and other touristy pleasures, visitors in the 1890s were invited to visit the lake. People wanting to participate had to apply to the manager of Cobb and Co. who had well-appointed stables and horses. Coaches left Geelong twice daily, at 9AM and 2PM, during the summer season. Poetry Galore blog included The Lights Of Cobb and Co., written by one of Australia’s most loved poets, Henry Lawson. It was stirring stuff. And art historians have argued that with his revolutionary approach to depicting the Australian bush and our light, Tom Roberts’ Bailed Up was a painting that helped define Australia’s national identity.

Tom Roberts,
Bailed Up, c1894

Great Synagogue Oran Algeria, 1880-1963

During the later 19th, Jewish communities liked to build large, confident syn­agogues. The buildings had to be big enough to handle all the congregants AND they also had to show that Jews were modern, educated citizens. So the synagogues needed to be architecturally impressive. By mid C19th, the Moorish mudejar style was adopted by the Jews everythere, reminding people of the golden age of Jewry in medieval Spain. Moorish Revival style was quickly adopted as a preferred style of synagogue architecture.

The Great Synagogue of Oran, Algeria

There were 17 synagogues in Oran, a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, by mid C19th. The biggest of them all, The Great Synagogue, was built and consecrated in 1880, although its in­auguration had to wait until World War One was finishing. Designed in the Orientalist style, it was one of the largest and loveliest synagogues in North Africa. This style was of course in keeping with the rest of the Jewish world.

Oran Synagogue, nave

I have no coloured photos from inside the building so I am totally grateful to the blog Une belle histoire for the post La Synagogue d'Oran - C. He wrote of the multi-coloured stained glass window which lit up the interior. On each side of the main building, the archit­ects created a tower 20 ms high. Three large doors, surmounted by windows, opened onto the nave. Inside, the aisles were separated from the nave by arches that supported columns of red marble. 960 solid oak seats occupied the ground floor.

The Great Synagogue of Timisoara in Romania, completed in 1899, was one of the larg­est synagogues in Europe. This reform synagogue, built in the Oriental style in 1865, was said to resemble the Great Synagogue in Oran.

The Algerian war against French colonial rule placed Algeria's Jewish community in great jeopardy. Sleevez blog showed how the city's Jewish community of 30,000 people continued as best they could in regular life, but from 1954 on, the situation of the Jews deter­iorated. Samuel Gruber and Point Of No Return blog discuss the utter destruction of the lovely synagogue in Algiers by a mob in 1960, but the Oran synagogue seems to have simply been confiscated.

France finally granted Algeria nat­ional independence in July 1962, but worse was to come for the  Jewish citizens; the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 granted citizenship in the new state only to Muslims. The end of this ancient community was near. Once the huge community had left, the synagogue was later seized by the government (in 1975) and converted into a mosque, the Mosque Abdellah Ben Salem. At least this wonderful architecture is being used again.

Mosque Abdellah ben Salem

Worth reading is Haim Zeev Hirschberg et al A History of the Jews in North Africa