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Port Sunlight

Chapter 7: The Result.
By T. Raffles Davison
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ArchitectureArtHistory - Modern (1750+)

About This Book

The work describes the conception, planning, and built result of an industrial model village created to provide well-designed housing and communal facilities for employees. It explains the founding ideal and practical foundations, documents architectural characteristics and the overall plan, and illustrates cottage types, public buildings, tree planting, and landscape features. Photographs, plates, and plans accompany discussions of materials, ornament, and arrangement, showing how aesthetic considerations were integrated with health, recreation, and social services to shape a cohesive, philanthropic urban experiment.

W. & S. OWEN,
Architects.

10. HALF-TIMBER COTTAGES IN PARK ROAD.

The Result.

11. EMPLOYEES’ PROVIDENT STORES AND COLLEGIUM.

DOUGLAS AND FORDHAM, Architects.

It is only by comparing the conditions at Port Sunlight with those of other residential areas that the full measure of their value can be ascertained. In some respects the outsider is perhaps a better judge of the success of such a village than are the residents, who come to take a good deal for granted. Thus the visitor who now for the first time goes to Port Sunlight and realises the extent and quality of the work done is naturally much impressed by the variety and interest which the whole village affords, whilst those who are in constant residence may not realise it so keenly. It is hardly possible that those who live in the many charming cottages which have sprung up in this country in recent years, or who have lived a long time in some of the best of our old English cottages, can take that delight in their appearance which the detached observer feels. It is quite possible that wide staring panes of glass and sash windows and treeless streets have as many admirers amongst the average public as are found for the quaint latticed windows and leafy avenues of Port Sunlight. But the air of detachment which inevitably goes with the outside observer of new places is an element of some moment in arriving at an estimate of results. It is obvious that the estimation of a place like this may be based upon practical issues chiefly, or from the purely artistic standpoint, or again, from a point of view which includes both. The main concern of this book is to emphasise the artistic and picturesque qualities of the village whilst not overlooking the fact that artistic values should not be obtained by the sacrifice of practical needs. This could be the only possible point of view which would give final satisfaction to the business man. It is maintained that no undertaking in the world which has been based on purely artistic desires and which has had no basis of practical value has been of any lasting value. The whole foundation of Port Sunlight is believed to consist of practical values and sound business principles.

12. COTTAGES IN CORNICHE ROAD.

GRAYSON AND OULD,
Architects.