reviews
MILES GLENDINNING, Modern Architect, The Life and Times of Robert Matthew, RIBA, London, 2008, ISBN: 9781859462836, £49.99. This tour de force biography of Robert Mathew (1903-75) doesn't sit comfortably within the traditions of British architectural biography. Unlike most other biographies, it doesn't focus on the lone artistic individual heroic master, or trace the development of a career through key, lavishly illustrated buildings. But it's clearly not meant to be conventional. Matthew, the individual, is positioned firmly within an ever-shifting and extraordinary national and international context. It is an interdisciplinary approach with architectural history expertly interweaved with political, social, and cultural processes and development. As historian Andrew Saint claims in his foreword: 'This is a big book about a big but neglected man.' Glendinning's intention is to detail and contextualise Matthew's life and outstanding achievements for the first time, and to emphasise his position as a key figure in postwar twentieth-century Scottish, British and international architecture. After several hundred pages of detailed history and analysis, it's very difficult to disagree with the author.But, this biography extends way beyond the confines of an individual 'life in context' format: it is the culmination of three decades of the author's ongoing research into postwar Scottish architecture, housing and planning history within a European context. In a sense, the book focuses on two men: firstly, the subject; and secondly, the author's prolific and extensive knowledge. Matthew's phenomenal achievements provide a perfect springboard for Glendinning's numerous succinct mini-contextual essays on British postwar architectural debates. He probes Scottish and English planning systems, housing development, architectural education, architectural institutional histories, and, of course, the international architectural organisations often fostered by Matthew personally.The particular strengths of the Scottish context may lead the reader to speculate whether Glendinning's 'contexts' stand on their own without Matthew at the centre? Given that we still don't have a detailed history of postwar Scottish architecture, housing, or conservation, or even monographs on our greatest achievements, such as Cumbernauld New Town, a book ultimately focussed on one individual (however important he was), might appear somewhat indulgent. The wealth of evidence put forward by the author, however, confirms Matthew's pivotal role -as Pat Nuttgens's claimed following Matthew's death in 1975: 'He left scarcely any kind of architecture untouched, and touched nothing that he did not transform.'So what does this 'big book' cover? Matthew's life and times are divided into thirteen chapters, arranged chronologically and grouped expertly into subordinate themes. However, the book is predominantly about Modern architecture in Scotland, Britain, and to a lesser extent internationally, from the late 1940s through to the mid-1970s. It spans the ...