First and Last Loves: John Betjeman and Architecture
Sir John Soane's Museum, London

Nicky Charlish
posted 16 November 2006

The centenary of Sir John Betjeman's birth has given plodding pundits a chance to revisit some of his more well-known poems - the friendly bomb has been invited to fall on Slough so often it's a wonder that the town hasn't been reduced to a sub-lunar landscape by now. And it's given us a good old-fashioned, elegantly bitchy literary spat between two of his biographers of a type that seems deliciously anachronistic in the era of lad-novels and chick lit. Not so much, however, has been said about the one-time Poet Laureate's interest in architecture. This exhibition helps to redress the balance.

Betjeman's contribution to architecture is usually regarded as nothing more than knee-jerk conservationism, a rearguard action against the self-evidently beneficent forces of Modernism. However, the exhibition reminds us that Betjeman started-out with an enthusiasm for that style, and that this was something which he never entirely lost. When he became assistant editor of the Architectural Review in 1930, Betjeman was a supporter of the Modern Movement, feeling that it might bring a breath of fresh air into the architectural scene as a counterblast to conventional arty taste. It was only what he saw as its aggressive destructiveness that led him to criticise it. As an example of the type of Modernism which had his approval, we see a photograph of the new Park Hill flats in Sheffield, which he felt were 'thoughtful and ingenious' - and of Sir Denys Lasdun's block-line National Theatre, also praised by Betjeman (or was he only teasing here?)

Betjeman believed that Modernism had its uses, but he also thought that traditional styles could be used in new ways. We see a photograph showing church architect Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) looking pensively out of his studio window. Betjeman believe that Comper's fusion of Classical and Gothic styles was the way forward for church architecture. We also see examples of other architects - praised by Betjeman - who designed new, but no Modernist, Buildings. Outstanding here is George Whitby's stripped classical extension to the Old Bailey. It has a combination of business-like dignity and toughness which reminds us that courts are no-nonsense places where a serious task - the administration of justice - is meant to be carried out. These architects didn't get the praise they deserved because they were heretics, happy to reject the doctrines of the day. They showed that imaginative work could be done outside the narrow confines of Modernist orthodoxy, and had to be silenced. And it can be said that Comper's approach could also be adopted by present-day architects for secular buildings.

Betjeman's disillusion with Modernism's works and pretensions helped to lead him to campaign for the conservation of buildings from the past that he thought were worth preserving. One of his earliest battles was for the preservation of Bedford Park - an estate built in 1889 and originally conceived as a sort of artists' village for West London - and a cartoon from 1963 entitled The Battle of Bedford Park shows Betjeman, architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (later to be regarded by Betjeman as an enemy) and their supporters going into action against a host of bowler-hatted bureaucrats with the area's pretty Queen Anne-style Classical and Art Nouveau buildings in the background. But Betjeman wasn't simply in the business of preservation. He wanted people to look at buildings too, to spot things they hadn't noticed or had taken for granted. Betjeman originally proposed the county Shell Guides in 1933 and we see a selection here with their quirky combination of archaic typography and avant-garde photographs (the cover for the Wiltshire guide shows photographs of its bucolic inhabitants arranged in a Dada-like collage). After the war he would contribute to the Murray Guides, and we're given a striking example with the 1984 guide to Buckinghamshire, its cover having a picture of the door of Dinton Church superimposed on a red and black triangular background.

A simplistic interpretation of Betjeman's life and works have led to him being regarded as a cosy character, giving him the status of a national treasure. But this title is a backhanded compliment. It elevates the outward and visible characteristics of the person on whom it has been bestowed whilst accidentally - or intentionally - obscuring anything dangerous which they might have to say. Betjeman was no fogey. Its been forgotten that Betjeman helped create that most modern of figures, the television personality, except that, unlike today's personalities, he had substance as well as style (and how many TV personalities today have either?). But, deep down, it's difficult not to feel that he's regarded by the arts and architecture establishments as a threat. He doubtless doesn't tick the right boxes for either the DCMS or the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. His geniality is dangerous, the smile of the assassin before the knife goes in. Indeed, it was his seeming teddy-bear cuddliness that helped to give him his media status - and, thus, the prominence - that helped him to wage successful campaigns for conservation and against negativist Modernism. Some might think that's maybe why this small but perfectly formed exhibition isn't being held in a larger venue. But it's worth a visit, and not just to see what made him tick. It's also a reminder of the need for someone to arise with his powerful blend of eccentricity and erudition to continue his work. With a new wave of destruction to the built environment upon us, that person can't come too soon.

Till 30 December 2006.