Interview with Chris Woodward (part 1)
Chris Woodward describes his education, his early interest in architecture, and decision to study at the Architectural Association (AA) in London. They discuss the AA’s philosophy, and Chris describes its teaching by practitioners; many MK architects were associated with AA. Chris talks of his enthusiasms and inspirations, and comments on views of the early (smaller) new towns in the 1957-62 period. After graduation, Chris initially worked on a project on traffic in towns, employed by the Ministry of Transport, which was useful for later work on road layouts in CMK. He was an architectural assistant for Lyons, Israel and Ellis; he was then headhunted by Smithsons Architects (he says: ‘this is like a newly qualified actor getting a call from … Peter Hall at the National Theatre’), where he worked for 7 years; Chris talks of his work there: ‘a great apprenticeship in the importance of detail’.
He then describes how he was approached by Derek Walker and Stuart Mosscrop in 1970/71, while he was working on an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, and asked if he would come and join the MK team. He recalls discussing the job at Wavendon Tower. Around this time he had been sacked by Smithsons after disagreements, so started work on the CMK team in 1971.
Chris goes on to talk of early days of the team tasked with implementing the CMK Plan. He recalls reading the ‘Green Book’; Derek Walker then referred them to the Masterplan section on the City Centre (‘paragraphs 1305 to 1311’). In their view: ‘…we thought, this has all been approved, …this is our job. We don’t have any problem with any of this … How might we draw something which matches this written description?’. Chris comments on the Masterplan ideas and why they appealed to the team. He notes that the Masterplan showed a more ‘lazy’ grid, whereas their final design was orthogonal. But in his view the final design is still ‘lazy at a very large scale’, so does not dehumanise the space. He comments: ‘there’s no strong ideological reason behind what we did’.
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