Roxanne Ravenhill
The Importance of Being Specialist? The Impact of Component Suppliers on Metropolitan Building Practices, 1850-1914
Summary
‘The architect can no longer sit down and say, "What are these new products and inventions to me? — they cannot alter or improve my art; they are merely modern productions and have no value to the real artist"...' (Building News & Engineering Journal, 1899)
Between 1850 and 1914, London witnessed an exponential rise in the number of decorative and built components manufactured and stocked by specialist firms. This thesis argues that these prefabricated components were not only shaped by existing methods, they helped to establish new practices, modes of organisation and cultures of consumption within built production. Attention is given to the broader socio-material networks that were involved in their production, their promotion, selection and display, and the ways in which specialised construction work was contracted, managed and paid for.
Background
From cast fibrous plaster ceilings to circular iron staircases to plumbing goods, prefabricated stock elements increasingly formed part of the building site. Their suppliers formed part of the building coalition and the resulting builds formed part of London's urban space. Previous studies have identified this growth in the number of building-related firms in the capital between 1850 and 1914. But, the operations of components suppliers during this period remain understudied.
Historians have instead concentrated on the work of the highly integrated master builder, separating studies of construction from design, which has generally been treated as resting solely in the imaginative capabilities of the architect. This focus has led to a misconception in the existing literature: that it was only in the late 1930s that branded products and specialist subcontracting became common phenomena in construction, transforming the shape of London’s building world. By combining methodologies from both design and architectural history, the project aims to present a far more complex, co-opted chain of urban production.
Archival materials
This research considers how and why these earlier shifts towards specialisation occurred? To examine this core question, the research utilises under-explored materials from the Victoria and Albert Museum alongside collections held by the London Metropolitan Archive, National Archive, R.I.B.A and local record offices. The types of materials examined include sales accounts, design books, builder's ledgers, architectural journals, catalogues, exhibition literature, models, surviving objects and buildings, contracts, site books, correspondence and the records of professional institutions.
Research methods
Each of the thesis’s three sections - 'making', 'communications' and 'contractual relations' - work together to analyse the commercial development of components across several scales: from the skills, materials and laws that shaped their manufacture; to the novel communication channels that aided their marketing and the spread of technical knowledge; to how their inclusion in contracts repositioned the professional boundaries between the architect, contractor and client.
Through this overview approach, the thesis ultimately contributes a new interpretation of the collaborative networks, technologies and experiences involved in nineteenth century construction. It does so from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on concepts from economic geography, the history of technology, sociology and urban studies.
About
Roxanne is an architectural historian interested in the design, organisation and construction of Victorian London. She holds a Master's degree in Design History from the joint RCA-V&A programme and a Bachelor's degree in Art History from the University of Warwick. She was awarded an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award to further her MA work on nineteenth century socio-material networks and the working methods of late Victorian master builders.
