Elisabeth Scott
Encyclopedia
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
at Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
, England. This was the first important public building in Britain to be designed by a female architect.
Early life
Scott was born in BournemouthBournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
, England, one of ten children of Bernard Scott, a surgeon. She was a great-niece of the architects George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
and George Frederick Bodley
George Frederick Bodley
George Frederick Bodley was an English architect working in the Gothic revival style.-Personal life:Bodley was the youngest son of William Hulme Bodley, M.D. of Edinburgh, physician at Hull Royal Infirmary, Kingston upon Hull, who in 1838 retired to his wife's home town, Brighton, Sussex, England....
and second cousin of Giles Gilbert Scott
Giles Gilbert Scott
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on such buildings as Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea Power Station and designing the iconic red telephone box....
, architect of Liverpool Cathedral. She was educated at home until the age of fourteen, when she enrolled at the Redmoor School, Bournemouth. In 1919 she became one of the early students at the Architectural Association's new school in Bedford Square, London, graduating in 1924.
Career
Scott's first position was with the architects David Niven and Herbert Wiggleworth, a practice specialising in the Scandinavian style. In turn she became an assistant to Louis de SoissonsLouis de Soissons
Louis E J G de Savoie-Carignan de Soissons , was the younger son of Charles, the Count de Soissons. An architect, he was called for professional purposes Louis de Soissons...
, a progressive architect producing work in the contemporary style for the new garden city
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...
of Welwyn
Welwyn Garden City
-Economy:Ever since its inception as garden city, Welwyn Garden City has attracted a strong commercial base with several designated employment areas. Among the companies trading in the town are:*Air Link Systems*Baxter*British Lead Mills*Carl Zeiss...
, Hertfordshire, and the modernist Oliver Hill
Oliver Hill (architect)
Oliver Hill was an English architect, landscape architect, and garden designer. Oliver Hill was apprenticed to a builder and then to an architect. Oliver Hill's early garden designs were in the Arts and Crafts style but he turned towards modernism in the 1930s, favouring curved lines...
.
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
In 1927 a competition for a replacement to the burnt-out Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was announced and Scott entered, with a confidence in her own abilities taken from the sound theoretical grounding at the Architectural Association's school. At the time she was working for Maurice Chesterton's practice at HampsteadHampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London, and Chesterton agreed to oversee her proposals for feasibility. She was assisted by two fellow AA students: Alison Sleigh and John Chiene Shepherd. On winning the competition (against seventy-one other entries) the four formed a partnership to prepare the detailed plans and supervise the construction.
The reaction to Scott's design was mixed. The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
suggested that, although the design reflected the building's purpose, its bulk in the small town was "startling...monstrous [and] brutal." The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
did not agree, noting how well the building "adapt[ed] itself to the lines of the river and landscape". Sir Edward Elgar, then 75, was to be the theatre's new musical director but, after visiting the building, he so was furiously angry with that "awful female" and her "unspeakably ugly and wrong" design that he would have nothing further to do with it, refusing even to go inside. On the other hand playwright George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, a member the SMT committee notwithstanding his earlier telegram of congratulations to its chairman on having the unsuitable old building burnt down, was a firm supporter of Scott's design as the only one to show any theatrical sense. Scott herself acknowledged that in her design she had not intended to conceal the functionality of the building.
Although most criticism was directed at the building's external form, in the auditorium the performers—although acknowledging that Scott had been at the mercy of her theatrical advisors: William Bridges-Adams, Barry Jackson
Barry Vincent Jackson
Sir Barry Vincent Jackson, , was a distinguished theatre director and the founder of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.-Life and career:He was the son of George Jackson of Birmingham and was educated privately....
and stage designer Norman Wilkinson
Norman Wilkinson
Norman Wilkinson:* Norman Wilkinson * Norman Wilkinson * Norman Wilkinson...
—found that it was curiously difficult to connect with their audience: evidently the large, plain expanse of the cream-painted side walls had the effect of diffusing attention from the stage. Only in 1951, when the gallery seating was extended along the sides, was this overcome. However the building's lack of "meaningless decoration" was one of the features enthusiastically praised in the special June 1932 edition of the modernist Architectural Review
Architectural Review
The Architectural Review is a monthly international architectural magazine published in London since 1896. Articles cover the built environment which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism as well as theory of these subjects....
.
From today's viewpoint the theatre, now called the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, is regarded as a "nationally significant building" representing the "best modern municipal style of architecture". It was made a listed building on 14 October 1980.
Later practice
Scott was joined in the partnership by John Breakwell and—as John Shepherd and Alison Sleigh had married—the practice became "Scott, Shepherd and Breakwell". None of their subsequent commissions had the prominence of the SMT, although their 1938 work on the Fawcett Building at Newnham College, CambridgeNewnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...
, is of note. In the post-war period
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
Scott returned to Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
, working with the practice of Ronald Phillips & Partners. In the 1960s she joined the public sector
Public sector
The public sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector, is a part of the state that deals with either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.Examples of public sector activity range...
, working for Bournemouth Borough Architect's Department on such projects as the new pavilion and theatre on Bournemouth Pier. She retired in 1968.
Feminism
In 1924, when Scott entered practice, there were no prominent women architects and her selection for the project to rebuild the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after it was destroyed by fire was only through her success in an international competition. Her achievement, and her decision to employ where possible women architects to assist her on the Stratford design, was instrumental in opening up the profession to women. Although Scott was identified with the progressive movement to overturn traditional assumptions about women and the professions, she was by nature more of a quiet and practical feminist, ensuring that women were represented on her design projects and working through the Fawcett SocietyFawcett Society
The Fawcett Society is an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigns for women's rights. The organisation's roots date back to 1866 when Millicent Garrett Fawcett dedicated her life to the peaceful campaign for women's suffrage....
to promote wider acceptance.
Sources
- Pringle, Marian : The Theatres of Stratford-upon-Avon 1875 – 1992: An Architectural History, Stratford upon Avon Society (1994) ISBN 0-9514178-1-9