Original subtitles

Narrator: We've become accustomed to steel and glass.

But one man continues to draw, design and build

with older methods and materials in the classical style.

John Simpson, a favourite architect

of the Prince of Wales,

follows in the footsteps of Palladio, Nash and Adam

to give the world a 'New Classicism'

which connects the future with the past.

- What needed to happen was actually to update

the tradition and bring it into the 21st century,

to not just meet the needs,

but actually take society forward.

Narrator: And now, after years of designing for others,

John Simpson has made a house for himself.

But, it's not what you might expect.

- It's really a matter

of making the whole thing work,

and finding ways of weaving things into it

and stories into it,

giving it to sort of, much more...

Well, having fun, essentially.

Narrator: Somewhere in England,

and it is very obviously England,

John Simpson has created a house for all ages.

In some senses it's a folly,

a bringing together of architectural styles

down the centuries.

A play on tradition,

but with all the benefits of modern technology.

[upbeat music]

It's an insight into the brain behind a 30-year career

of one of England's foremost classical architects

who long ago rejected modernism,

but recognises that traditional design

can be married with modern convenience.

- It goes on record as one of the prettiest villages

possibly in the whole of England,

and all the buildings are half timbered and thatched.

So clearly if you're going to add a building into there,

that's going to be part of the village,

particularly that it's right on Church Street,

which is the heart of the old village,

that it had to be thatched and half timbered.

[laughs]

Narrator: Research shows that a hall house existed here once

and John Simpson wanted to do justice to that memory

while designing something that fitted in.

Actually, he had to,

because this village is a conservation area.

- Essentially what this building was,

was a building which was 22 metres long

which is about 66 feet

by about six metres wide,

so you get this long sort of half timbred,

thatched building with a double height space

in the middle of it, so you have this huge,

big double height space in the middle of it,

where you can see the hammer beams,

in the green oak, holding the roof up.

With a screen passage across one end

as you would have got in a house of that type,

and an aureole, and of course in those days,

you would have had an open fire in the centre,

which would have vented with the air coming through

the screen passage and then up through a vent in the roof,

which of course we've introduced onto this building.

Except that the vent is now glazed in

and turned into a lantern.

It's a bit like writing a novel.

You know, a Hillary Mantel novel,

you sort of build up a history to the whole thing

as part of your design.

So it's great fun. [laughs]

[soft piano music]

Narrator: Fun, but, once on site,

the challenges came thick and fast.

How, for instance, do you use traditional materials

and ensure they meet building regulations?

Starting with green oak, and a lot of it.

John: We use the oak, which is young.

Put it together with mortise and tendon joints,

so when the timber dries,

it really tightens all the joints

and works that way.

And as the timber dries,

it also twists

and does all sorts of funny things.

[laughs]

Which of course makes it difficult

to seal the building.

And of course back in the 1490s,

people quite liked having this extra ventilation.

It sort of helped with the fires and it ventilated the building,

and probably they were rather smelly interiors in those days.

[laughs]

With modern regulations, you can't do that.

You actually have to, if you're going to comply

with building regs, you have to seal the building.

So we have to come up with all sorts of clever ways

of being able to incorporate this technology

so you could have a proper, traditional green oak frame.

And at the same time, comply with building regs.

None of this is beyond the wit of man, you know?

You just sit down and you look at it

and you find ways to deal with it.

And in this particular case, we designed the timber frame,

then insulated it all around the outside,

and then built the exterior onto that.

So by doing that,

the exterior's the bit that seals the inside,

and the real technology was in finding a way to connect

the exterior of the building with the timber

so that when the timber moved,

it didn't, it didn't affect the exterior.

And the exterior didn't move.

And it's simple, you know, the heart of the piece of wood,

the outside might move, but the heart doesn't.

So once you know that, you know,

that you can drill right into the middle,

fix into the heart,

and then the timber can move as much as possible,

but your fixing stays put.

[laughs]

Narrator: And what of fire,

the terror that stalks those who own thatched houses?

- Most thatched fires take hold

quite quietly underneath.

So what happens is the thatch just smoulders.

And as it smoulders, it burns the structure,

the timber structure, that's holding it up.

And after two, three days of smouldering,

the structure then gives way and it's when it falls down

that the fire really takes hold and goes whoof.

By putting a fireproof layer

between the structure and the thatch,

the thatch can catch fire, it can smoulder,

but it never affects the structure.

[string music]

Narrator: Many architects start their careers

with a commission from a member of their family.

John Simpson's Ashfold House, in 1991, was for his parents.

It made his name.

But he'd been preaching the new classicism creed

for a decade before that,

influenced by Georgian architecture

and the work of Sir John Soane.

And he found that his appeal for a return to buildings

which respected their neighbours and their settings

was well received.

- If you appeal to the general public,

you're actually getting support.

And what tends to happen with orthodox development

is people immediately think, oh my goodness,

we're going to have something terrible here,

and they turn immediately against it.

Whereas if you first convince them

that this is going to be beautiful,

this is going to be wonderful,

then they take a very different attitude.

Narrator: After Ashfold House came work

for Cambridge University,

a new dining room for the fellows at Gonville

and Caius College,

Simpson even designed the chairs.

And in 1999, he won the competition

to redevelop The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace,

following in the footsteps of John Nash.

- Nash, Renn, Law,

and so a whole series of architects.

And that's where you really have to be careful,

because you're, you're adding to a building.

It's a bit like a city.

You're adding to a building,

which is a conglomeration of other people's work.

Each sort of adding to the work of their predecessor.

And you're having to do the same and do so

and at the same time create a whole which works.

Narrator The Queen's Gallery renovation

and extension, completed in 2002,

put John Simpson firmly in the spotlight

but, by then, his principles were fully formed.

Making an addition to Buckingham Palace

was just the kind of project he loved

because it contained the twin challenges

of providing a functioning interior

and an exterior that enhanced the public realm.

- If you're doing something in the public realm,

which of course architecture after all

is all about the public realm as well,

and contributing to the public realm

and creating the public realm,

as well as the private space behind it,

you do have to have something which relates

and something that people can understand.

And you do have to communicate with other people.

And to do that, you need to use a language.

Because after all,

you're not just expressing your own feelings

and your own ideas within the architecture

that you're creating.

But you also need to have buy-in

so that society too can understand that,

and other people too can understand that.

So that what you're building contributes culturally

to the whole of society, and not just for yourself

and your own private aggrandisement or own career.

We as human beings are very social creatures,

and we live in towns, cities, villages,

and each building...

..together with all the other buildings around it,

creates that public realm.

And because we're social creatures,

and because...

..to create something that everyone can subscribe to

and everyone can believe in

and everyone can feel belongs to them,

because that public realm belongs to everybody,

you need to have some sort of language

that allows you to be able to add to buildings,

to an existing city.

And do so in a manner which is respectful

and which actually works as far as everybody's concerned,

and also allows future generations to add

to what you've done.

So that you get the sort of places

that we all love in cities, like Trafalgar Square in London

or the Piazzetta in Venice.

And it's that at the end of the day

that we're all after,

creating these wonderful cities that we can all enjoy

and live together harmoniously in these places.

[laughs]

By doing that, you're able to begin to develop something.

It's a bit like writing a novel.

You know, if you didn't do it in English,

how could you write the novel?

And that's why you need that language,

to know how to respond to things.

And respond to things in a manner which is informed

and something that you can then take

and then start fine tuning and composing.

And relating to all the various different things

that you have to relate to.

And you're building a new building on a site,

the building's next door.

Buildings behind.

What it looks like from points of view.

If it's in the city or in a town,

the sort of different,

different context that you see it within,

how you approach it,

all that sort of thing is all to do

with how you're developing the composition.

And what's working within a traditional style

that allows you to do is to refine all this

and create something, which is going to be enjoyable,

beautiful and attractive to people.

Because at the end of the day,

you're using the might of everything

that's been developed before you, to your advantage.

You know, why does the entasis of a column feel so nice?

You're not inventing that from nowhere.

You're taking it and putting it there.

Nobody really understands why the volute on an ionic capital

looks so brilliant where it is on the top.

But you can use that.

And you can sort of develop on it

and put it together in a way that uses all this knowledge

and all this invention which has happened

generation after generation, and use that to your advantage.

And then you can get on with the next bit,

rather than developing everything from scratch.

Narrator: Behind all this lies a message,

that classicism can play a part in modern life.

John Simpson even took that message to New York,

knitting in four apartments in a building

that respects the area on the Upper East Side,

said to be the first truly classical building

to be constructed in Manhattan since the 1960s.

And in 2014, his practice won the competition

to design the new School of Architecture

at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana,

the world's leading institution

teaching the classical tradition.

In Venice, he's tenderly re-modelled the Palazzo Grimani

where a complete 18th century decorative scheme

was hidden and revealed.

It's in projects like this

that the Simpson attention to detail

comes into its own.

[orchestral music]

- I enjoy designing big things.

I enjoy designing small things, you know.

And we design anything from a city to a candlestick,

so... [laughs]

So that's a nice thing to do.

But actually to do it all in relation to a building

or a specific group of buildings is marvellous,

because you can see the whole thing through

from the large scale to the small scale,

and if you like,

invent a whole world of your own.

[laughs]

And what you do,

is you study the buildings that are there,

and then you work out

what the natural development form is.

And then you start to work within that.

I mean, that's what I mean about a language.

So you're starting with a language

that you understand

And you look at it in particular to that location,

and then develop a design within that.

Narrator: John Simpson feels comfortable in Venice,

the city of Ruskin.

This, after all, is Italy, the home of Andrea Palladio

whose architecture pattern books helped spread his designs

all over Europe.

Then, craftsmen were all working to the same standard.

Not now.

- In the past, this existed.

It always existed.

And, and you didn't have to work with the same craftsmen

all the time.

You could work with any craftsmen,

because they were all educated in that particular way

and knew what you wanted.

And, and when you,

you could speak in shorthand to them.

You didn't have to put so much detail on the drawing,

because they automatically did it.

Now you have to draw absolutely everything,

and you have to make sure it's all there,

because they won't know otherwise.

Unless you're working with somebody

you've done this all before with,

and then that can be carried through.

And the same applies

when you're designing something much smaller,

something you haven't done before.

You just have to research it, find someone who can make it,

discuss things with them, and then work with them.

Architecture is one of those things

when you're working with the builder,

you're working with the client,

you're working with the other engineers,

and you're sort of pulling the whole thing together.

It's not sitting in a room just imagining it all.

[laughs] That's only a small part of the whole process,

Narrator: Now, in a Hampshire village,

John Simpson has built a house for himself and his wife

that playfully covers all the architectural traditions

which have made him famous.

Narrator: John Simpson has invited Marcus Binney,

former editor of Country Life,

architecture correspondent of The Times

and Executive President of SAVE Britain's Heritage,

to see his latest project, a house in Hampshire.

It's a building that sums up his approach to architecture,

using classicism

and traditional methods of construction

but not afraid to include all mod cons

to produce a home for him and his wife.

There's even a swimming pool.

And it's a house full of visual and practical tricks.

- Well, to open this, you just move the furniture.

And then do a little dance.

[LAUGH]

Oops.

And there you are.

The floor's up, and you open the watergate.

And you're ready to go into the pool.

If you're building something

which alludes to something quite old,

I mean, we started here with a design

which has, has its roots in 1490s.

So, so it only makes sense,

you wouldn't just build,

it's a bit artificial building a building

which is pure 1490s,

and has, and has never, nothing's happened to it since.

Marcus: Right, yeah.

- So, and anyway, I wanted to get a bit more,

you know, more interest, more classicism.

I couldn't have a building

without anything classical in it anyway.

[laughs]

So the idea of doing something which had a history to it.

You know, starts in 1490

and then has had things added to it

and adjusted from there.

And then you have later, classical bits.

And then of course, contemporary bits

in the way the sort of, the swimming pool works

and all that kind of thing is, is pure 21st century, isn't it?

Narrator: John Simpson has designed

not only the watergate here,

but also much of the Empire furniture,

the classical columns, the wallpaper,

he is the architect's architect.

And, though this is intended to be a hall house,

nodding to what he believes was previously on this site,

it's a hall house that's considerably more comfortable

that the original.

John: To create something like this,

you really have to do it authentically.

So we went to somebody who builds

timber frame buildings, like this, using green oak.

And doing it in the traditional manner.

But of course it's all very well saying you get to do that,

but in the in the 1490s and thereabouts,

of course, people liked quite a lot of ventilation

and kept the smoke down from the fires,

and they sort of kept the smells out of the house.

[laughs]

To fit in with modern day regulations of course.

And where the buildings need to be sealed and all that,

once we really got to adapt all this

and make it work for the modern context.

So yes, a bit of technology

and sort of being clever about it

and detailing the whole thing

so that you can make the thing work.

And make it work within a modern context.

Marcus: The paintings on the ceilings,

how were they done?

- Yes, well,

I certainly couldn't have afforded to have somebody

sitting up there painting it all on.

[laughs]

And of course these days, I mean, which is again,

where the 21st century comes into it,

it's the sort of thing you can do quite easily,

if you use the technology that, that is available today.

I mean, these patterns that were up there,

were really just drawn on a computer digitally

and then, what we did is we...

You can have them sent off and then printed

onto a wallpaper, in effect.

Which in the past would have been quite expensive.

But these days with, with digital technology,

it's quite easy to do.

And very economic.

And then it's just...

..you put it up there and stick it up there.

Marcus: But as well as the oak hammer beams

and roof we see, you've got this beautiful screen here

with these classical columns, these Roman Doric columns.

John: Uh-huh. That's right. Marcus: So how are they made?

Are they single shafts or what are they?

John: Oh, they, they were made,

I mean, they were made in the traditional manner,

rather like a barrel.

Where it's all made in segments.

And they're all fixed together.

And then, and then it's turned.

And if you turn so you then get it

to the right sort of emphasis and make the whole thing work.

These skills are still around and that people can do this,

and know exactly how to do it,

and of course with modern technology,

it's actually a lot easier than it was in the past.

[laughs]

- All around us are these delightful conceits.

And you can't resist using mirrors.

- Well, it's something that I've done on many projects.

It's one of those things that's, I suppose,

it's a preoccupation of mine,

trying to make the most of the place

by, by, by, and the light as well,

by using mirrors reflecting things

and making things look bigger

and giving the illusion to some extent

of something which, which, which in this particular case

was fairly significant.

Because at some point, when the building was going up,

I came in and thought, oh my goodness,

I should have made this a bay bigger.

It's really too small.

[laughs]

But of course on the other hand,

it, it, it's, despite that I didn't want

to make it just into a big hall.

I mean, this this is a house, it's got to be comfortable.

And to some extent, although this is a hall,

it's also rather comfortable drawing room to some extent,

or dining room.

So this was a way of getting both things, actually.

Getting something which is nice and comfortable

and enjoyable to live in on a day-to-day basis

and yet having that illusion

of the grand, large, medieval hall.

[laughs]

Narrator: Under a thatched roof there's a library,

four bedrooms, a modern kitchen, drawing room, pool room

and that double-height hall complete with lantern,

and weathervane.

John: The lantern, which, of course, sits centrally

over the great hall,

and of course, historically

would have been where the fire was, the brazier,

which would have sort of vented up at the top,

and of course, that's been, historically would have been

replaced sometime later with a, a lantern

for, to let the light in.

I rather fancied the idea, of being able to tell

which way the wind was blowing before I went out

into the cold winter air.

[laughs]

So we actually connected the arrow on the underside,

so when the weather vane turns around,

it actually operates the arrow on the inside

so you can see which way the wind is blowing.

[laughs]

Narrator: And here,

after nearly 40 years in practice,

John Simpson, whose father was an architect before him,

has stamped his mark on something

that is entirely his.

- What I had to do here,

having decided to have an oriel window like this,

which of course has to have some stained glass in it,

I had to sort of work out something

that I could put in there which actually was relevant.

So on the one hand, you've got on the left,

my father's heraldic achievement,

with his, with the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem,

the Hospital of Jerusalem, which he designed and built.

In the centre is my maternal grandmother's coat of arms,

which goes back to...

..ancient Constantinople.

[laughs]

And on the right, of course, is my own coat of arms.

I suppose it's a bit like writing a book.

you know, you sort of...

..build in all the things that, that you find interesting.

And then you have to find ways to do this.

You know, and ways to build in,

and this here in particular,

because we have had,

I was building something I'm not quite used to,

sort of building a thatched, medieval house.

I needed to bring in some of the things

that I find very interesting.

You know, having to do with classical tradition

and all that, and sort of the idea of actually finding

a rustic way of introducing that into the whole context

of a thatched medieval house like this,

I found rather interesting.

It's really a matter of making the whole thing work,

and finding ways of, of weaving things into it

and stories into it,

and giving it a sort of, much more,

well, having fun, essentially.

[soft music]

Narrator: John Simpson has never felt

the odd man out in a profession that is overwhelmingly attracted

to modernism.

His new classicism is admired not only by the Prince of Wales

but also by dozens of clients all over the world,

private and institutional.

He keeps alive the old methods, including sketching and drawing,

keeps artisans in business,

and worries that traditional skills are being lost.

- They don't draw now, unfortunately.

And that I think is, is a great tragedy,

because they end up sitting before computers

and before these screens

and they spend all these hours

sort of sitting there, sort of clicking on a mouse.

And it is nowhere near as instructive or as enjoyable

as it used to be

when I would be sitting there and drawing with a pencil

or a pen,

because you can actually feel the building a lot more

as you draw it by hand.

And I hope technology is going to develop,

because I think we're probably in the early days

of electronic technology and I'm sure it's not long

before people will be drawing with a stylus again.

And it might be picked up on a computer

because there are lots of brilliant things

about a computer.

You know, it records all this information accurately,

carries it through.

So I mean, it's not, we use them all the time,

because there's this great benefit in doing that.

But at the moment, there is a great disadvantage

for the poor human being who's having to interact with it.

And I hope that will all put itself right

over the next 10 or 20 years.

Narrator: What of the future?

John Simpson can't go on forever.

That he knows,

and apart from the architects in his own practice,

to whom he gives credit for his success,

he's keen to pass on his style.

So, he's establishing a new School of Architecture

at the University of Buckingham

which will teach traditional architecture

but use 21st century technology, computers and robotics

to put that architecture into practice.

John: What's really essential

and what really needs to be done at the moment,

is actually to have a school of architecture

which gives you the whole basis

of what architecture is all about,

so you understand it.

And then for the students to decide

what they want to do from there.

Narrator: The Simpsons are settling in

and unpacking in their new, old house.

John Simpson is taking time out

to think about what his long career

in new classicism means

and how, consciously and sub-consciously,

he's brought all his ideas together

in a thatched house

that those who pass by may think was built

in the fifteenth century

but which was, in fact, designed in the twenty-first.

It's back to that idea of architecture as a language.

John: Just like, say, spelling in English.

Why do we use a 'T' in often?

We've forgotten. We don't know why.

But we, we do it.

And it's all part of the language.

And part of the grammar in the sense that

if that capital on an ionic column

wasn't used at the top but at the bottom,

everyone would know, what's he up to there?

[laughs]

When you're dealing with a half timbered house...

..you don't have such a developed language

to deal with,

and it's not quite like working with classical ornament.

So if you do add any ornament to the building,

it tends to mean more.

And of course if you're putting up

a great, big oriel window

you have to put some stained glass in it.

And if you put the stained glass in this oriel...

..you do have to invent some sort of reason

as to why you're putting it there,

what it's all about,

and what it means,

because traditionally,

you would have had your coat of arms up there

and it would have meant, you know, it was,

a celebration of the owner and who the owner was

and all that kind of thing.

So you do need to sort of build up a sort of history,

if you like,

because the, the, all the decoration

is so much more iconographic, and less just a language.

Narrator: For Marcus Binney,

himself educated in the classics,

the visit to John Simpson's house

has proved to him that classicism is not dead.

Marcus: You're a torchbearer for classical architecture.

Greek Revival, Roman Revival, Regency, Empire.

But here, we're in a different world.

- Well, yes, but it's all part of a tradition.

And of course the basis

of what classicism and tradition is all about,

is that you're not just building a building

as an entity in itself.

You're actually building it so as to contribute

and create a village or a city or a whole neighbourhood

that the building needs to relate to.

Here, of course, we've got a village

which is full of thatched, half-timbred houses.

So that was the place to start.

It just made sense to start there.

Because that thing adds to the whole village

and it becomes part of the whole thing.

And it builds on the history, so it's, and the identity.

Which is what it's all about.

And that's really having that flexibility,

ability to work with all that,

which is what tradition

and classicism is really all about.

Narrator: So, what's the verdict?

What would the architecture writer

write about John Simpson's latest creation?

- All his life, he's designed wonderful houses and buildings

for other people.

But here, this is his own house

and he has been able to do what he wants

and bring together a whole lifetime of ideas

in microcosm,

but with a sense of surprise wherever you turn.

It looks like a traditional thatched house

in a lovely unspoiled village.

And I had no idea what was going to be inside

in terms of the sense of space and style.

He's been able to do what he wants

to exercise his own imagination,

to introduce conceits, tricks, wonderful use of materials.

You know, every idea,

he hasn't had another client he's had to convince.

He's only letting his own imagination develop.

Because this is the architect's house.

Narrator: Next time...

Opened in May 1873, Alexandra Palace

was hailed as the 'people's palace'.

Two weeks later, it burned down.

Rebuilt, it became famous as the first home

of BBC television in 1936,

and the mast which transmitted

the world's first fully electronic television pictures

survives.

The theatre wasn't so lucky.

Used by the BBC to store props,

it's been hidden from public view for 80 years.

Now, this sleeping beauty has been restored.

But this is no ordinary restoration.

The architects who took it on settled on a design philosophy

that said decay was part of the story

and should stay.

Captioned by Ai-Media ai-media.tv