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Its positivism, its Cartesian Method for splitting that which was complex into "sub-problems" of mechanistic reduction became in the end narrowed down to a doctrinaire "Modernismus." Neither Joyce's Dublin nor Eliot's Waste Land stood to gain by sub-division into the Four Functions of the Athens Charter.

And so it was doubly important to unearth the testimony of those earlier voices of protest that came from within the modern movement itself; and the authority of those who had protested was further confirmed by the survival in exceptionally good condition of much of their built work (which is to say that it has been taken to the heart of its inhabitants). I have accordingly tried in case studies of Aalto, Scharoun, Lewerentz, Asplund and Rietveld, to bear witness to a handful of these "Outsiders."

That this group now takes on the aura of a Rogue's Gallery is no fault of theirs; the fact is that, when Siegfried Giedion published his grand testament of the CIAM in 1941 entitled Space, Time and Architecture, there was no mention of Haering, or Scharoun, Asplund or Lewerentz or Aalto. One could therefore even go so far as to infer the existence of an Other Tradition, a tradition furthermore whose origin lay in the English Free School.

To its further credit it is a tradition that, since it never conformed to the shot-gun pact of CIAM and The International Style has, in turn, as little to do with the shot-gun marriage-of-convenience that calls itself Post-Modernism. And it is in my view the true inheritor of the rich and complex Modernism of the early 1920s.

Aalto himself, the youngest of the Masters of the Heroic Period, came to stand for a critical resistance of a special kind: he was the first for whom the enemy was not so much the idols of the Old Order as the false gods among the New. He was particularly contemptuous of the increasing preoccupation with "formalism" that he saw in America ("the smell of Hollywood") and on the other hand of what he called "the slavery of human beings to technical futilities."

His own credo is summed up in the statement, "We cannot create new form where there is no new content," and for me his status as an exemplary resistance-fighter was epitomised in his Discourse at the RIBA in 1956 when, in speaking of "the architectural revolution that had been taking place during these last decades," he said, "It is like all revolutions: it starts with enthusiasm and it stops with some sort of dictatorship."

He identified a deep link between a hard-fighting critical doubt and the highest form of creativity; and he spoke of the need to make up your mind where you must take your stand in the heat of battle. —Sandy Wilson

Grantchester Road, 1961-1964

The design of the two Grantchester Road Houses in Cambridge explored the conventional idea of a mixed residential, terraced street architecture. Although only a pair of houses were built, they were based upon a system of elements whose combination could have extended the pair into a whole street with many variations.

The common elements were a modular eight-by-four-inch grid (a 200-by-100 millimeter grid in anticipation of the impending change to metric measurement) and a constant building line on the street front. The entrance loggia, back entrance, larder kitchen and dining room facing onto a walled patio were also common to both houses. For the remaining elements, the two houses differed widely.

The site was a former kitchen garden purchased by Dr. Peter Squire, a Fellow of Churchill College, and Wilson. It was divided equally into two 50-by-150-foot (15.2-by-45.7-meter) plots. Each house has three bedrooms and a similar internal arrangement.

However, behind the unifying screen wall to Granchester Road, the Wilson house is moved west along the grid lines into the garden with an entry courtyard on the street frontage accessed under the drawing office for the practice. Further, its living room was developed into a double-height space with a library gallery at the rear, where the Squire house had its principal bedroom over a single-height living room.

Both houses were constructed externally and internally in fair-faced concrete and concrete block (Abergele Limestone and white cement), the first time block was used as a finish in the United Kingdom. Floors were in white rubber and all timber detailing was dark-stained.

The monumentality of the blockwork columns on the street frontage continues through the interior to the garden elevations. A game is played with the unifying appearance of the unadorned street-level colonnade and punctuated solid first floor wall, through double-bay spaces for parking and public access to Wilson's offices. This defines the character of the individual houses within the whole.

The total construction costs for the two houses were £13,000 and £10,000. —Roger Stonehouse

Spring House, 1965-1967

Designed by Wilson with his wife, M.J. Long, the Spring House is located on the western edge of Cambridge. The site is approached from a private road which forms its northern boundary, opening out diagonally to the southeast to a view of fields and a small wood. The site had originally been part of the client's parents' garden.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE An entry loggia is common to both units, though one has a courtyard beyond, while the other does not. Photo: Courtesy Black Dog Publishing Extra Large Image The living spaces of both Grantchester Road units face a onto a rear walled patio. Extra Large Image First-floor plan drawing of Grantchester Road terrace houses. Image: Colin St. John Wilson Extra Large Image Spring House first-floor plan drawing. Image: Colin St. John Wilson Extra Large Image The Spring House in Cambridge was designed by Sandy Wilson and his wife, M.J. Long, for painter Christopher Cornford. Photo: Courtesy Black Dog Publishing Extra Large Image Rounded timber columns support timber trusses at the Spring House, the layout of which centers on a double-height living room. Photo: Courtesy Black Dog Publishing Extra Large Image The client's requirements included specific lighting conditions for several areas. Photo: Courtesy Black Dog Publishing Extra Large Image Colin St John Wilson: Buildings and Projects by Roger Stonehouse. Image: Black Dog Publishing Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.