'Hugh Cullum and Richard Nightingale were
both brought up abroad. Cullum is the son of
an architect in Newfoundland; Nightingale the
son of a farmer in Kenya. They are, however,
as English as can be. Educated at Marlborough
and Rugby respectively, they came together
at the Cambridge School of Architecture, then
headed by British Library designer Colin St
John Wilson. After qualifying, Cullum stayed
on to do a PhD while Nightingale travelled
the world from Berlin to Hong Kong, including
China and India. Both worked for a time in
St John Wilson's office.
'Their early collaborations included
a detailed and serious entry for the Hong Kong
Peak competition in 1983, the winning of which
was to launch the career of that queen of Deconstructivist
architecture, Zaha Hadid. The Cullum and Nightingale
entry, however, did not impress the judges,
or so they thought. Later they found out that
it had been lost in the post.
'Despite this inauspicious start to their
partnership, they struggled on, prepared
to take on anything from minimal domestic
conversions
in London to a polo club room near Nairobi
that cost less than £1000. The London
- Nairobi connection eventually - proved
to be a fruitful source of work, but first
they
gained some practical experience on a
number of small jobs, including Richard Nightingale's
own house, a travel agency in the City
and
a house extension in Bayswater. The partners
also undertook a little property development,
renovating two Georgian houses in St
Pancras and converting the basements for use
as their
offce.
'The big break came in 1989 when they
were invited by the Foreign Offce to take part
in a limited competition for the design of
the new British High Commission in Nairobi.
The other entrants were Denton Scott and Troughton
McAslan. Cullum and Nightingale won the competition
with a subtle and complex design which combines
the three main elements of the brief - VIP
accomrnodation, commercial wing and consulate
- in a composition which the designers liken
to an English country house. This job is now
out to tender, production information having
been prepared by a local architect. The arrangement
seems to have worked well, and Cullum and Nightingale
are confident that the completed building will
be a faithful interpretation of their detailed
design.
'Other jobs in Kenya include a set of
five luxury houses now under construction on
a coffee plantation outside Nairobi. Though
the development is speculative, each house
has been designed for an imaginary client and
has its own character.
'Meanwhile, back in London Cullum and
Nightingale have built up continuing relationships
with two educational institutions, North Westminster
Community School and the Central School of
Speech and Drama. Built projects include a
temporary classroom for NorthWestminster, designed
andbuilt in three months, and a new backstage
sets workshop for the Central School.
'The practice now has a total staff of
six, including a secretary, and is equipped
for CAD. With its overseas connections and
institutional clients, it has managed to avoid
the worst effects of the recession, though
according to the partners it has never had
more than three months' guaranteed work.
Design philosophy
'Cullum and Nightingale's architecture
is distinctive, but difficult to characterise.
None of the usual convenient labels applies.
It is modern, but not quite Modernist; it is
complex and allusive but too restrained to
be described as Post-Modernist; it expresses
structure and construction clearly and unambiguously
but it certainly isn't Hi-Tec. It hasClassical
poise and proportion but does not use any of
the conventions of Classical ornament; it makes
use of natural materials and traditional forms
but it isn't romantic or folksy.
'So where is it coming from? There seem
to be two main influences, and both are connected
with the Cambridge School of Architecture,
where the partners studied between 1973 and
1979. The years are important, for it was in
1978 that two architects, Dalibor Vesely and
Peter Carl, came to the school and began to
change the direction of the teaching.
'Previously there had been a recognisable
Cambridge design tradition, represented most
clearly by two long-serving heads of the school,
Sir Leslie Martin and Colin St John Wilson.
Martin had been the chief architect of the
LCC inthe 1950s, and in the 1960s designed
a number of important university buildings
which combined European Modernism with the
English Arts and Crafts tradition. St John
Wilson worked with Martin, inherited the headship
of the school from him and went on to make
his name by designing the massive British Library
project, the first phase of which is now nearing
completion in St Pancras. Other architects
often associated with this Cambridge tradition
include Ted Cullinan, who taught there in the
1960s, and RIBA president Richard MacCormac.
'This was the tradition to which Cullum
and Nightingale were exposed in their early
student years. The emphasis was on functional
clarity and the manipulation of space. St John
Wilson, for whom both partners worked for a
time after qualifying, is an erudite and cultured
designer and no mere technician, but nevertheless
the educational emphasis was on the design
technique. Then, in l978, the Czech Dalibor
Vesely arrived at the school and introduced
a new intellectual component. The emphasis
was shifted away from technique towards the
less tangible historical, cultural and philosophical
aspects of the art of architecture.
Inspirational
'According to Cullum, the effect was
confusing but inspiring. "In the fifth
year, Dalibor Vesely and Peter Carl descended
on us and there were great rumblings because
nobody understood anything they were talking
about. Until then the emphasis had all been
on manipulating sections, efficient planning,
systems of construction and so on. Dalibor
and Peter introduced issues that we had been
completely unaware of. It was unfamiliar territory
but it was very exciting, and that's why I
went back to do a PhD."
'It is impossible to sum up Vesely's
theoretical position in a few words. Sufffice
it to say that it relies on a particular interpretation
of the central part that architecture has played
in the development of Western culture. A thorough
knowledge and understanding of the architecture
of the past is a prerequisite, but it has to
be much more than just a familiarity with the
canon of great buildings. One might expect
Cullum's enthusiasm for the Baroque architecture
of Borromini and Guarini, for example, to lead
him to design in a flamboyant Classical style.
But in fact he despises the current Classical
revival represented by architects like Quinlan
Terry and has no time for the various Post
Modernist reinterpretations of Classicism.
'For Cullum and Nightingale it is the
relationship between architecture and the deeper
cultural undercurrents of society that is important,
not the superficial appearance of buildings.
For this reason the Modernist tradition commands
more of their respect and the Martin/St John
Wilson branch of Modernism in particular remains
a strong influence.
'Despite the philosophical Cambridge
grounding, Cullum and Nightingale's architecture
is eminently practical and buildable. Ever
since his school days, Cullum has been a maker
of models and a designer of nonarchitectural
artefacts like boats and go-carts. When Nightingale
built his own house a few years ago, Cullum
made all the joinery and the complicated lead
flashings for the roof were assembled on Nightingale's
living-room floor. The craft of building is
an important part of their architecture. What
they find less satisfying is the quasi-legal
aspect of contracting - all those specifications
and drawings which are prepared solely for
the purpose of defining (and avoiding) responsibility.
Both partners cherish the hope of setting up
a building firm, a group of trusted craftsmen
who they could work with directly and creatively.
'Complexity and continuity are the keynotes
of their approach to design. They prefer to
work with a client over a long period so as
to gain a deeper understanding of the culture
and needs of the users and find a natural expression
of these needs in architecture. In view of
this, it is not surprising that their major
clients are public institutions like the Foreign
Office, the Central School of Speech and Drama
and North Westminster School rather than commercial
developers, though this is not a deliberate
policy or a matter of principle. They are not
selling a particular style or way of working,
but rather offering an attitude of responsiveness.
'"A single-minded devotion to for example,
some particular constructional technique does
not necessarily have anything to do with the
task in hand - the brief and the users," says
Nightingale. "Adhering to a dogma, we
feel, is not the way to go about solving a
particular problem. There is no special value
in a building being extraordinary. We would
rather build good ordinary buildings than extraordinary
buildings that attract attention for a brief
moment. Perhaps it is this that makes our architecture
difficult to pigeonhole."
'"In any case, " adds Cullum candidly, "we
haven't built all that much so we don't have
a ready formula at our fingertips."'
|
