Jack Howe; architect who assisted Gropius
Hyfler/Rosner
Jack Howe
Assistant to Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry who moved from architecture to
industrial design
10 December 2003
Jack Howe, architect and industrial designer: born Enfield, Middlesex
24 February 1911; FRIBA 1953; RDI 1961; President, SIAD 1963-64; Master of
Faculty, RDI 1975-77; married 1939 Carmen Smith (one son, one daughter;
marriage dissolved 1959), 1960 Margaret Corrie (died 1979), 1981 Jennifer
Dixon (née Hughes D'Aeth); died London 3 December 2003.
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"I think Howe is working very reliably," wrote Walter Gropius from Boston to
his architectural partner, Maxwell Fry, in October 1937. Jack Howe, then
aged 26, was the architect responsible for making Gropius's design for
Impington Village College, near Cambridge, buildable within a tight budget.
Before leaving to take up his professorship at Harvard, Gropius had produced
a scheme which was well over budget, and Howe had to redesign almost every
part of it to save money. Although Gropius retained a strong interest in the
job, Howe admitted to deliberately starving him of information to prevent
him from interfering too much, but the result was true to the spirit of the
original design. The quietly assured building gained a world-wide
reputation.
Jack Howe was a butcher's son from Enfield and educated at Enfield Grammar
School, where he was a proficient pole-vaulter. Having successfully drawn
out a small house for the builder-undertaker next door, he decided to take
up a career in architecture and studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic in
London, where there was a strong emphasis on practical matters as well as
good design tuition from L. Thornton White.
Describing himself as "a Corb-worshipper at one time", Howe worked first for
Joseph Emberton, "a slave driver", and put on record that all Emberton's
buildings, most of them recognised classics of 1930s modernism, were
designed by various assistants in his office. Wanting to move on, he applied
to Maxwell Fry in 1934, when Gropius had just arrived in England.
As well as Impington, Howe worked on the Westminster Electricity Showroom in
Regent Street, which included a photo mural by László Moholy-Nagy, Gropius's
Bauhaus colleague, described by Howe as "that lovely madman". He also
designed a modern room for an exhibition at Heal's in 1936 under his own
name.
Impington was completed as war broke out, and Howe went to work as drawing
office manager for Holland, Hannen and Cubitts for Royal Ordnance Factories
at Wrexham and Ranskill. In 1944, he joined the Arcon practice as an
associate partner and worked on the famous Mark 4 prefabricated house
exhibited that summer in London, of which 41,000 examples were subsequently
produced.
In 1949, Howe was commissioned by Henry Morris, the charismatic Director of
Education for Cambridgeshire and the driving force behind the Village
Colleges to develop a brief for a College of Further Education on a site in
Trumpington Road. This was very fully researched and, although the building
was never built because of funding cuts, the brief was adopted by the
Ministry of Education.
Later, Morris was commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation to produce a book
on education and architecture, and asked Howe to write the section on
architecture, which he did, as well as assembling many photographs. Morris
failed to write his part on education, and so the project was never
published.
Sir Leslie Martin was keen for Howe to come and work on the Royal Festival
Hall in the role of designer for the interior filled by Peter Moro, but he
was more interested in setting up his own practice at the time. None the
less, Martin's patronage meant that he was selected for a number of LCC
buildings, including the Highbury Quadrant Primary School and housing at
Windmill House, Lambeth. His exhibition work included litter-bins and
lighting at the Festival of Britain, and a pavilion for Kodak at the
Brussels World Fair in 1958. Kenneth Grange, a former assistant, was brought
back by Howe to design the interior, a contact which led to Grange's design
for the first Instamatic camera. In 1961, Howe and his partner Andrew Bain
were Official Architects for the British Trade Fair, Moscow.
From the 1950s onwards, Howe's work became increasingly concerned with
product design rather than buildings, a career shift commoner in Italy or
Scandinavia than in Britain. "I realised what Industrial Design meant
working for Gropius," Howe recalled, after their experience of designing
components for their buildings when no company could offer the right
product. Later, the managing director of one of these companies rang him and
said, "You know how rude you were to me about the design of our products."
"Yes, I hope you are going to improve them," said Howe, who was known for
speaking his mind. "I hope you are" was the reply, and the source of his
first design job.
His work was cool and understated, but deeply thought through. When he
gained a client's confidence, he usually stayed with them for many years, as
in the case of Chubb or AEI. Much of his design work was connected either
with electronics or transport, including an ACE computer for the National
Physical Laboratory and locomotives and carriages for Pullman trains. In the
streets, the public could appreciate his lamp standards and bus shelters,
some of which are still in position. Howe also designed consumer products
for Gent & Co (clocks), Thermos, Morphy Richards and Heals.
Howe was appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 1961. He was Master of
the Faculty of RDIs, 1975-77, and President of the Society of Industrial
Artists and Designers in 1963-64. He received the Duke of Edinburgh's Design
Prize in 1969. Despite this recognition, Howe did not care to promote
himself and his achievements have been overlooked by design historians.
Alan Powers