Structures of policy : Building Bulletin in Postwar Britain

School design in Great Britain underwent great typological change in the post-war era, necessitated by depleted construction labour and materials, coupled with a bourgeoning school-age population resulting from the population boom and an expanded student base generated by the Education Act of 1944. Yet the impact upon the resultant architectural design was developed via a series of less explicit forces of influence.
The work undertaken by architects commissioned by and working within local councils was to be informed by the Ministry of Education, whose economic calculations, and administrative and educational policies would have a fundamental influence upon the schools built. Transmitted through Council meetings and “regulations, circulars or administrative memoranda” which established student numbers and cost parameters, these were abstracted from the design process. The lack of opportunity to convey architectural aspiration established a great operational separation between intention and implementation.

The issues of “Building Bulletin” published by the Ministry sought to address this divide, creating an opportunity for transmitting policy in an applied manner, and establishing the means for feedback from the profession and the absorption of research undertaken external to the Ministry including elemental analysis of building components, down to the detail of planting, furniture, kitchen equipment and staff administration. Through these, they were able to disseminate the findings from the built Development Projects by the Ministry’s Architects and Building Branch, which culminated in the design of at Wokingham School (“Building Bulletin No.8”, 1952. HMSO) and Junior School, Amersham (“Building Bulletin No.16”, 1958. HMSO) as a test bed to address “practical problems” highlighted in developing the necessarily revised typologies.

This paper examines how this sporadic publication thus formed an underappreciated facet of the architectural genealogy, providing the means for the dissemination of applied policy and to explore its absorption in the architectural manifestation of educational buildings in Great Britain during this period.

This paper was part of the session: PS14 School Design in the Twentieth Century.