RIBApix presents a series of features exploring the Architectural Review's radical assessment of the built environment at the end of the 1960s, MANPLAN.
Looking forward to the new decade ahead in the autumn of 1969 The Architectural Review (AR) paused to examine and evaluate state of the nation through its architecture and planning. This was by way of the publication of ‘Manplan’, a number of special editions of the AR focusing on topics ranging from housing to religion and how well these functioned within society. Manplan was not only a radical, sometimes brutal assessment of the built environment of the day, but today forms a poignant reminder of British life at the end of the sixties. Its stated intention was to take “as its yardstick real needs rather than minimum standards. Hence the title MANPLAN. A plan for human beings with a destiny rather than figures in a table of statistics.” (The Architectural Review, September 1969)
The first edition, Manplan 1, was published in September 1969 with the series ending a year later with Manplan 8. The intended Manplan 9 focusing on Leisure was never published, however the RIBA holds some of the photographer Patrick Ward’s contact sheets.
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.
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.