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Manplan 4: The Continuing Community

“My school would play a dual role, preparing its pupils for both citizenship and examinations in the morning and afternoon, and becoming a centre for community life in the evenings and holidays. With a resurgence of interest in community life, a school offering its facilities to the public would soon become the pivot of that locality… with people meeting and exchanging ideas and opinions the barriers of prejudice, class and age would begin to erode, and children and adults alike would be taught by example.” (‘David’, 16, The School I’d Like by Edward Blishen (Penguin, 1969) quoted in The Architectural Review, January 1970)

At the start of the new decade The Architectural Review [AR] switched to publishing the Manplan editions on alternate months with the next edition, Manplan 4, analysing educational buildings. The late 1960s was a period of great change in secondary education under the Labour Government spearheaded by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, Anthony Crosland. Under statute Circular 10/65 it became government policy to abolish selective state grammar schools in favour of comprehensive schools, a controversial process that was largely implemented by the mid-1970s. Good examples of new comprehensive schools featured were the Lyons Israel & Ellis designed David Lister Comprehensive School, Hull and Crawshaw Secondary School, Pudsey by Gillinson Barnett & Partners.

Not only were these changes driven by political ideology to correct disadvantages of the class system but also “to humanize British education” to provide better education for all and to give greater opportunities for working class pupils to reach university. Of such “divisions” in class and politics the AR noted:

“The élitist British public school system is a byword for privilege – a self-perpetuating oligarchy which brooks no interference unless it be matched with cash or brains.” (The Architectural Review, January 1970)

By the use of uncaptioned photographs of Christ's Hospital, Horsham particular scorn was reserved for this school as, “Probably the most bizarre example of British educational institutionalism is the monstrous regimentation implicit in being made to march – headed by a band – for meals.” Not surprisingly in Manplan Letters (March 1970) there were two robust ripostes from the school demanding an apology, one no less than from the inventor Sir Barnes Wallis (the school’s Treasurer) who called the article “grossly offensive”. Whilst due apology was given the AR tried to defend its stance as not being an attack on the school per se but intended as a critique of the “crazy British habit” of children being required to be “properly dressed”, i.e. wearing school uniforms.

Apart from railing against school uniforms the AR’s real message was to promote better school design along with community colleges and their perceived wider benefits to society such as sports or recreational facilities. Like ‘David’ above and the ‘Town Workshop’ of Manplan 3 the AR postulated a rather more integrated but utopian vision of society with schools set in the centre of communities. Examples highlighted include Leicester County Council’s Glenfield Frith Primary School influenced by Hertfordshire County Council’s school-building programme and Bingham Comprehensive School (now Toot Hill School) by Nottinghamshire County Council. Architects' Department.

For more images, see: Manplan 4

Click for further information on the exhibition: Wide-Angle View: architecture as social space in the Manplan series 1969-70, 13 September 2023 to 24 February 2024.

Manplan 4: The Continuing Community

Publication date: January 1970

Series editor: Tom Rock

Consultant editor: Virginia Makins (appointed Features Editor of The Times Educational Supplement in 1969)

Guest photographer: Tom Smith   

Article by Jonathan Makepeace

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Recreation time at Credon Road School, Bermondsey, London

RIBA51085
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: The continuing community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Crawshaw School, Pudsey, Leeds: housing seen from the playground

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NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: The continuing community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Collegiate Grammar School for Girls extension, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh: the staircase tower

RIBA51087
Shanks & Leighton
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: The continuing community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Silhouettes in classroom windows in a school in Wales

RIBA51088
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: The continuing community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

East Elementary School, Tooele, Utah: the internal courtyard

RIBA62543
Scott, Louie & Browning
NOTES: This is one of the images collected for use in 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Masters and Harrovians leaving Old Schools, Harrow School, London

RIBA62658
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Christ's Hospital Band practising in the quad, Horsham, West Sussex

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NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Teenage boys playing imaginary cricket in the playground, Credon Road School, Bermondsey, London

RIBA62664
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Recreation time at Credon Road School, Bermondsey, London

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NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Recreation time at a state secondary school

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NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Children resting at Regent's Park day nursery, Camden, London

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Camden. Architects Department
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Signage at entrance to Glenfield Frith Primary School, Leicestershire

RIBA62670
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Children catching the school bus, Great Barton Primary Scool, West Suffolk

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West Suffolk. Architects Department
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Mothers waiting at the gate of a Victorian-built primary school

RIBA62674
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Children changing classrooms at a Victorian-built primary school

RIBA62675
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Fish-eye lens view of David Lister Comprehensive School, Hull

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Lyons Israel & Ellis
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Crawshaw Secondary School, Stage 1, Pudsey, Leeds

RIBA62679
Gillinson Barnett & Partners
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Crawshaw Secondary School, Stage 1, Pudsey, Leeds

RIBA62680
Gillinson Barnett & Partners
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Collegiate Grammar School for Girls extension, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh

RIBA62681
Shanks & Leighton
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Children leaving school at home time, Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan

RIBA62684
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

The Board school and high-rise housing block overlooking the cleared site at Chatsworth, Liverpool

RIBA62686
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Playtime at Coppice County Junior School, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

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Warwickshire County Council. Architects Department
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan. This school was built using the CLASP method of construction.

Glenfield Frith Primary School, Leicestershire

RIBA62671
Leicestershire. County Council Architects
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Children in the playground, Vittoria Primary School, Half Moon Crescent, Islington, London

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Greater London Council. Department of Architecture & Civic Design
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan. This was an experimental school built for the Plowden Council which in 1967 published the report, 'Children and their Primary Schools', reviewing Primary education in England. The report was widely known for its praising of child-centred approaches to education. It was the second such primary school, (the first being Eveline Lowe in Camberwell) built by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) in consultation with the Department of Education & Science, but designed by the Greater London Council rather than the latter.

Rosebery Sixth Form College, Epsom, Surrey: the terrace

RIBA62677
Great Britain. Department of Education & Science. Development Group
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.

Rosebery Sixth Form College, Epsom, Surrey: a music room in the old building, formerly Rosebery County Grammar School for Girls

RIBA62678
Great Britain. Department of Education & Science. Development Group
NOTES: This is one of the images taken for 'Manplan 4: 'The Continuing Community' in Architectural Review, vol. 147, 1970 Jan.
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