Rebuilding Post War Dulwich: The Christison Hall
Architect Manfred Bresgen speaks about the design and build.
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My first architectural concept was for a four-storey building with a number of small cubes at various angles to accommodate class rooms connected by an elegant spiral staircase on the outside. My design idea was to create an independent ‘sculpture’ which would not interfere with the wonderful Barry Buildings. However, the Governors found the design too futuristic and decided that the front of the College should not be interfered with at all. Our new concept was a larger complex comprising the Art and Technology Departments together with a new dining hall which was also to be used for assemblies, theatre productions and exhibitions. After a thorough analysis, we proposed a building complex at the rear of the College adjacent to the swimming baths. I found this to be a great opportunity to bring some order to the various not-very-attractive extensions made in the past decades and to form a dominant and representative rear elevation to the whole College complex, overlooking the lawns and playing fields. The Art and Technology Departments were directly connected to the existing building, designed as a transparent bridge in between the existing swimming baths and the Christison Hall. All the classrooms were erected on untreated concrete columns at first floor level with brick window parapets to match the material used at the College. The classrooms surrounded a courtyard for optimal lighting, leaving the ground floor open for a covered area where the pupils could meet at breaks and which would accommodate the boat (the James Caird ) of the famous explorer Shackleton, as well as provide access to the dining hall. I designed this ‘Composite Block’, as we called it, as a long rectangular two-storey building accommodating the main dining hall and extending over a two-storey height, with the kitchen area adjacent. The staircase was positioned in a large, representative two-storey foyer. Two smaller dining halls were positioned on the first floor over the kitchen area, one as a gallery overlooking the main hall which could be closed off on demand and one separately. The hall building was executed in an untreated exposed concrete structure showing a designed pattern marked by the grains of the raw wood boards used for the formwork, with two- storey windows in between the columns for transparency, opening to unrestricted views over the lawns. The intention was for a well-proportioned, powerful and balanced counterpart to the vast existing College buildings, radiating calmness and a timeless durability. The Governors were very pleased with the preliminary design and quickly gave an initial approval. With agreement from the Heads of the Art and Technology, who hardly changed the proposal, the project could go ahead. Within a few weeks we presented the final design along with the estimated costs and got the green light for the project with hardly any alterations. I put great effort and enthusiasm into the project, getting the working drawings prepared, coordinating with the structural and technical engineers, obtaining offers and placing the contracts. The execution of the building works followed a rather tight schedule. We wanted to complete the very substantial construction works for an opening in the spring of 1969: the 350th anniversary of the College. In my recollection we kept very much within the estimated costs. However, I never saw the final figures since I sadly had to leave London (my green card was about to expire) for the USA just before the opening. Fifty years has since passed and I have designed numerous other buildings, but I still see this building complex as a very successful design which, to me, has the same aesthetic values today as in 1969. It will always remain an important witness to that period and an honest architecture without short-lived fashionable attributes.
Between 1945 and 1969, the College, like so many institutions, saw the damage done during WW2 as an opportunity to rebuild and remodel the campus. The student body was growing in number and many buildings were simply not fit for an expanding and aspirational school like Dulwich in the latter part of the 21st century. Contracts were awarded (often to companies run by OAs) and funds raised. In the hands of successive Masters Gilkes, Groves and Lloyd, decisions were made slowly while the building phase always seemed to take place with undue haste; the extension to the Lower School was fully formed in less than seven months. This post-war period it seems, was a time when the aesthetics of a building were less important than its functionality and creative and imaginative architects’ drawings were often interpreted less sympathetically as the buildings emerged from the ground. For over 50 years the Christison Hall has been the College’s dining hall, replacing the Great Hall, which until the late 1960’s had seen food winched up by lift from the kitchens below. Together with the Art and Design and Technology Departments it forms part of a quadrangle of buildings initially known as the ‘Composite Block’, designed and built in what has come to be known as the brutalist style of architecture and once described as reflecting the ‘tough’ idiom of the 1960’s. However, the Christison Hall and connecting creative departments were not the first on the list of the governing body’s priorities. The War Memorial Hall
The Christison Hall With the ongoing delays to the building of the Memorial Hall, the College took the opportunity to push ahead with other projects outlined in the 350th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign. In September 1965, Russell Vernon of Austin Vernon & Partners was asked to design a new dining room and a preliminary scheme prepared by architect Manfred Bresgen was put in for planning permission. This however, was rejected by the Council who considered that the proposed site, at the front of the College campus next to E T Hall’s Memorial Library (The Old Library), would impact badly on the views of the Barry Buildings from Dulwich Common. Manfred put together a revised scheme for the dining room, now including the technical classrooms, for the southern site beyond the swimming pool and this is largely what we see today. The plans were agreed in principle by May 1966 following arguments as to whether a basement kitchen was the right solution. The architects preferred it, but the dining room manager had other ideas and her views prevailed. What’s more, removing the basement saved money. By July 1966 the scheme was approved. Manfred’s concept was simple, consisting of two parallel blocks: the dining hall and kitchens, and the technical classrooms. They were linked at first floor level but the ground was left open to form a partially covered courtyard, later enclosed to provide additional teaching rooms for the Design and Technology Department. The main dining hall was double height and, facing south, was almost completely glazed. In addition there was provision for a dining hall for the Lower School and separately the Boarders.
During the late 1950’s, the construction of a War Memorial Hall was proposed and discussed as one of a number of post-war building projects at the College. It was intended to be a new assembly hall, replacing the Great Hall which was to be converted into a library. In 1969, proposals to build the Memorial Hall were included in a fundraising campaign brochure marking the 350th anniversary of the founding of the school. As well as the Memorial Hall, the brochure also included plans for a new dining room building, a new sports hall (on the site of the old Covered Courts on the east side of College Road), and a technical education block adjacent to the swimming pool at the southern end of the site. A location in front of the Science Block was settled on, but rising costs and other priorities, which needed funding first, meant no real progress was made and the building never existed as anything other than an architect’s sketch and plan.
the hall was named the Christison Hall after prominent Old Alleynian ‘Slacker’ Christison.
After a number of discussions about funding, Russell Vernon was finally given the go ahead to produce working drawings in October, with the aim of starting on site in the spring of 1967 and having it available for use at the beginning of the Michaelmas term of 1969. The estimated cost, including fees, was just under £300,000 and he was instructed to negotiate a contract with local builder Messrs W J Mitchell & Son Ltd. As a postscript, he was told to bear in mind that financial constraints may make it necessary to build in stages and that any contract with the builder should reflect that possibility. There was a late change in the size of the dining hall following the arrival of a new headmaster, Charles Lloyd early in 1967; it was extended by a further bay but otherwise it was completed as designed. Manfred Bresgen managed the construction on site and the project progressed very quickly, with practical completion taking place in the Michaelmas term of 1968, well ahead of time. It was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in June 1969, when
The Christison Hall along with the Art and Design buildings have been in uninterrupted use since their opening, with only minor modifications in the intervening years. While opinion is divided about their appearance, particularly the later additions, there is no doubt that the Christison Hall in particular still retains its overall beauty and impact, especially when viewed from Hunt’s Slip Road south of the College. Structurally, the building has stood the test of time well; the servery was modernised and opened up to improve the layout and flow of service in 2019 and apart from upgrades in the air handling units, together with inspection and spot repair of the external fabric carried out this summer, no other significant works have been needed in the last decade or so. It would seem that Alleynians will take their lunch in the Christison Hall for many years to come.
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