Designing for the future in 1950s London

Margaret Willis is a Peabody resident who worked as a sociologist in the Architect’s Department of the London County Council during the 1950s. She advised architects and planners about building design after collecting “criticisms and suggestions” and spending a good deal of time interviewing housewives in their homes. With her permission, we reproduce below her essay about her work.

My job
by Margaret Willis

A sociologist in the Architect’s Department of the London County Council

Whenever people ask me what my job is with the London County Council and I say “a sociologist”, they usually look rather blank so perhaps I’d better start by telling you what a sociologist is and what sort of work I do.

I study social behaviour and I’m especially interested in the way we live together in towns. With the information I get I am able to advise the architects and planners who are designing our new homes and our cities of the future. You might say I’m a sort of liaison officer between people like you, the housewives and the Council’s technical men and women who make the plans in the drawing office.

I’m sure you’ve often wished you had the opportunity to tell the architect a thing or two about the way your house has been planned. Perhaps you’ve even felt you’d very much like to make some suggestions for improving your neighbourhood. Well, it’s my job to collect these criticisms and suggestions and I spend a good deal of my time interviewing housewives in their homes. And I must say I find everyone is most friendly and generally only too pleased to help.

Some of them, I feel sure, are flattered when we ask their opinions, while others are rather glad to have someone to talk to especially if they don’t get out and about much. Frequently, I’m offered a cup of tea and once it was a piece of wedding anniversary cake and a glass of sherry. I’m shown photos of the family or invited to see their new furniture or even to listen to a piece of music on the piano which an elderly man had composed himself.

When the husband is at home he’s brought into the conversation too, even if he is in the middle of shaving, like one man who came to the front door and talked to me with his face covered in lather!

A little while ago, one of the things I had to investigate was the best design for windows which a housewife could clean herself even though she lived in a flat about ten storeys up. The architect wanted to know how far an average woman would stretch out to clean a fixed window pane and I went round to see how housewives were managing in blocks of flats where windows were of different sizes.

You’d be surprised at some of the antics the housewives get up to to clean a window. I remember one rather small but determined person who gave me a demonstration and she hung so far out of  her window – she was eight storeys up – that my heart was in my mouth, but when she had finished and was safely inside the flat, all she said was, “It’s a bit breezy today”.

These high blocks of flats that architect and planners are designing for the centre of our cities do save land but, you may ask, what about the people living in them, do they like it and what are the advantages and disadvantages as they see them? This was the job for me and off I went to find out how these families liked living up in the air.

I must say, I didn’t start too well because I got stuck in a lift, you know, one of those small enclosed lifts that they have in blocks of flats and which you operate yourself. This one I was in just wouldn’t stop and I went up and down feeling more and more panicky. In the end, I got the right buttons to work and escaped. However, when at last I did step out some nine storeys up the view was magnificent and many of the housewives said that this advantage, together with the healthy air and the greater quiet, made it worthwhile living high up.

Of course children in flats are one of the big problems and I did a special study on the sort of play spaces that were wanted. I went round all kinds of housing estates and watched and photographed the children just playing naturally with whatever came to hand.

Young children especially are really fascinating when they are absorbed in some game and I got some charming snaps, like the two little girls who were giving a Punch and Judy show with one of their dolls and a homemade stage, or the sweet little two year old boy who was solemnly digging with a wooden spoon in a small patch of earth by a tree while all around him was an expanse of hard tarmac.

However, it’s generally because it is difficult to find somewhere for the children to play in safety that many mothers, especially those with toddlers, are anxious to have a house and garden in exchange for a flat.

I once did an interesting enquiry into the popularity of private gardens in the centre of London. Many of them were very small and some were separated from the home. However, it seems that most housewives want to give their washing a good blow in the garden – even in sooty London.

Then of course it’s a hobby for the old man as it gives him something to do in the evenings instead of sitting cooped up indoors or spending money down the pub.

I’ve seen some really lovely displays of flowers in small gardens in the heart of East London and they were such a colourful contrast to grimy walls and grey streets.

Planners and architects do realise how important gardens are to many people and they are doing their best to provide them even though land is very scarce in the centre of our cities.

One of their ideas is to build a sort of compromise between a house and a flat, it’s a four storey building like a house on top of a house. The bottom house has its garden attached and the top house has a little garden at the back. From my interviewing it seems that not only are the gardens popular but that people prefer this type of building to a flat because they like going upstairs to bed.

I have given you just a few examples of the sort of work I do. As you can see these sociological studies are something rather new but I hope they will play an ever-increasing part in improving our towns of the future.

Also in the news: