Do you know these men?!

We are currently compiling a list of architectural and administrative staff employed by the various incarnations of the Fry and Drew partnership, from their pre-marriage work of the 1930s right through to the 1970s. The aim is to include a database in the forthcoming publication.

This image is taken from architect Duncan Horne’s collection of photographs held at Sheffield Hallam University and available to view from their excellent online catalogue, Shimmer.

Horne trained at Liverpool School of Architecture and then worked for Fry and Drew at their offices at 63 Gloucester Place in London. His photograph neatly shows what life was like as a Fry and Drew staff architect around 1960, sat at a drawing board with pipe in hand. The smart chap, far left, is Duncan Horne, according to the Shimmer catalogue – can anyone confirm this?

Fry and Drew had lived and worked at the Georgian terrace since the 1940s, which became an open house for the artistic community at the time. As another former employee Trevor Dannatt commented recently at a docomomo-uk lecture, ‘the Fry’s ran a very hospitable house […] it was a place of great ferment.’

We would be very pleased to hear from anyone who worked for Fry and Drew, or knows of any former employees. Leave a comment or contact us at: jholland@liv.ac.uk

Lahore Model Town: Current Research

By Jessica Holland

January 8, 2013

Lahore Model Town

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The Co-operative Model Town Society: History, Planning, Architecture and Social Character of a Middle-Class Utopian Suburban Residential Development in Colonial Lahore

The aim of Shama Anbrine’s research is to investigate and analyze the building of the Co-operative Model Town Society in Lahore. Popularly known as Model Town, it was conceived by Diwan Khem Chand, a British-qualified local Barrister in 1919 and has strong inspirations from Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, Modernist and the Co-operative Movements. It elaborates upon an ‘Ideal Self-contained Garden Town’; ‘a town with all the conveniences of modern times’ where ‘middle class men, whose incomes were fixed and who by their better training, education and social position desired to live a better life’ were to be provided with ‘cheaper, cleaner and more comfortable houses’ where they would be able to lead ‘better, healthier, happier and longer lives’.

The idea was propagated through personal networking rather than formal advertisements and quite contrary to Chand’s expectations, it was strongly welcomed by the educated classes and was approved and appreciated by the Government. As a unique collaborative project between the British rulers and the local Indians, with a plan finalized through a design competition, a variety of house plans available to suit individual and monetary needs of a family, options of choosing neighbours and grouping of small and large plots in such a way that rich and poor relatives could live near each other make it stand out from its contemporary local urban developments which are usually seen as distinct ‘British’ and ‘Native’ towns.

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‘A’ Class House in ‘G’ Block, Model Town, Lahore.

By investigating and analysing Model Town, the objective is to investigate how ‘hybrid’ forms in planning and architecture resulted due to amalgamation of foreign ideas and the influences of local cultures, religions, traditions and economies; a style which became a hallmark of post-colonial urban development in the region.