SOPHIE FORGAN*

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SCIENCE AND THE

IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY
"EVERY BUILDING creates associations in the mind of the beholder, whether the
architect wanted it or not . The Victorian architect wanted it . Nineteenth-
century architecture is evocative architecture", as Niklaus Pevsner wrote .' The
new colleges and universities of the nineteenth century, founded with the
express intention of providing an education in the sciences, might be expected
to evoke associations and express ideas about science as well as ideas about
appropriate architecture for universities . `Collegiate Gothic' is a term often
used, but this is neither wholly accurate nor very useful in explaining the varied
developments of the nineteenth century . There are many problems associated
with buildings used for science, both of method and interpretation, and this
paper does not pretend to offer many solutions . The intention is rather to
isolate some of the key features and to discuss some of the ways in which we
might examine university architecture . At its simplest, if one examines the
building, its creation, construction and adaptation, alongside the changing
nature of the activity it contained, locating it both in architectural context and
in contemporary scientific discourse, then our understanding of both may be
extended .
There were of course many ideas as to what a university should be in the
nineteenth century . Newman's contribution is only the best known . 2 Debate
on the subject flourished . In general, one may distinguish four main strands,
none of which were mutually exclusive . Briefly these were as follows . Should a
university provide a 'liberal education' based on a syllabus common to all, the
classics and mathematics, or should this syllabus be reconsidered and extended
to take account of new fields of knowledge? Or was the main purpose of
universities above all the production of elites, and increasingly, specialist elites?
At the same time, universities were equally useful as custodians of the unruly
young, and were thus no more than simply one stage in the educational
process . Or was a university first and foremost the embodiment of a scholarly
ideal, of research, where teaching had a lesser role? Furthermore, there was

*Department of Design, Teesside Polytechnic, Middlesbrough, Cleveland TSI 3BA, U .K .

Received 28 January 1989 .

'N . Pevsner, A History of Building Types (London : Thames & Hudson, 1976), p . 293 .
2 First published in 1852, revised and altered 1859, published in 1873 with ten additional essays
on `University Subjects' under the title The Idea of a University, Defined and Illustrated .

Stud. Hist. Phil . Sd., Vol . 20, No . 4, pp. 405-434, 1989. 0039-3681789 $3 .00 + 0 .00
Printed in Great Britain Cc)1989 . Pergamon Press ple .

405


4 06 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

little agreement on the ideal organization, whether the German model of state
supported institutions where research and teaching were combined, or the
French model of general faculties with specialized vocational schools . Increas-
ingly the English model of collegiate tutorial system loosely linked to profes-
sorial teaching looked odd, especially to scientists anxious to obtain time,
money and space for their work, and science was greedy of all these, especially
space .
The new universities of the later 19th century did not spring instantaneously
into complete architectural being, nor did the older institutions adapt with
noticeable speed . 3 Much of what we normally associate with the university
environment - the large, light, airy teaching laboratory, the lab bench, the
small research lab, the professorial rooms, the double-height lecture theatre
with long lecturer's desk - are products of gradual change, in teaching
systems, in perceived notions of the division of scientific labour, in ideas
reaching far beyond university walls, as well as incorporating an inheritance of
buildings and practice reaching back some 200 years .
There is also one myth to be disposed of, that scientists were uninterested in
their surroundings, and unconcerned with anything beyond bare functional
requirements . First of all, this tends to imply that those concerned with new
building were the non-scientists . The relationship between architect and clients
was in reality complex, and varied from place to place . The myth of scientific
disinterest is all too often part of that heroic portrayal of the poor over-worked
scientist struggling in obscure provincial squalor, emerging to recognition,
election to the Royal Society, a professorial chair, triumphing over all obsta-
cles in his way . Certainly scientists frequently expressed a greater concern for
the right men than for fine buildings, as Oliver Lodge said to Joseph Chamber-
lain when planning the new University of Birmingham . Rubbish, said
Chamberlain, wiser in the ways of provincial lobbying, put up some buildings
first so that people have something to see and then they will pay out as much
money as is needed for the rest . 4 The majority of scientists newly appointed to
university posts were extremely interested in the design, adaptation and
construction of buildings, spent much time visiting existing models both at

'Much work has been done on aspects of university life and development since the publication
of S . Rothblatt, Revolution of the Dons : Cambridge and Society in Victorian England (Cambridge:
University Press, 1968) . No author has yet however attempted to follow the broad synoptic view of
W. H . G. Armytage, Civic Universities: Aspects of a British Tradition (London : Benn, 1955),
though a recent reassessment may be found in D . R . Jones, The Origins of Civic Universities:
Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds (London : Rontledge, 1986) . Architecture has been neglected,
though college histories, especially in Oxford or Cambridge, often give minutely detailed accounts
of the fabric and stylistic evolution of their buildings . By contrast, P . V . Turner, Campus : An
American Planning Tradition (Cambridge, Mass : MIT Press, 1984), provides an excellent survey of
the relationship of university planning to educational ideals .
°Sir Oliver Lodge, Past Years (London : Hodder & Stoughton, 193t) . p. 319 .
Architecture of Science 4 07

home and abroad, and in one case, that of the chemist T . E . Thorpe at Leeds,
fixed the choice of architect for the whole college .'
Before turning to the actual spaces that scientific activities occupied, it is
worth pausing a moment to consider another manifestation of the idea of a
university, a less tangible one, that expressed in a dream . Dreams of a new
university were something of a recurring motif. In 1855, Charles Daubeny
published his "Dream o
a New Museum" . 6 This was not of course a real
dream, and Daubeny had specific targets to attack at Oxford . But the form of
a dream provides a revealing passage through a landscape with buildings . In
Daubeny's case, the dream university was the celebrated Icaria, located
apparently in Germany .? It did not possess those time-worn and time-
honoured buildings familiar in Oxford, but significantly there were no signs
of trade or manufacture, or even indeed of commerce, for example the
glittering shops and tempting displays of bonnets to be found in Bath . The
buildings were all of the newest taste, ornamented with an endless variety of
external embellishments . Nowhere, however, was there a more complete
Temple of Science, a Solomon's House, than in the courts and quadrangles
through which Daubeny's cicerone led him . He was astounded by the lofty
halls and galleries, filled with magnificent instruments, vast and comprehensive
collections and throngs of youths eagerly engaged in chemical manipulation .
The contrast to the reality of Daubeny's lab at Oxford could scarcely be
clearer .' Somewhat later, in 1879 in Liverpool, Canon Lightfoot also had a
dream, in which he was transported to the year 1914, to a great seaport city
bristling with masts .° Here he found himself standing before a stately pile of
buildings, graceful in character, harmonious in proportions, the University
College . Inside were long suites of museums, libraries, lecture rooms and
laboratories, well arranged and suitably furnished .

'At the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds, all the professors insisted on being on the planning
committee ; Letter 25 June 1877, from Profs Green, Thorpe, Rucker, Miall and Armstrong,
Council Minutes, vol . 1, pp. 269-270 (University of Leeds archives) . T . E, Thorpe, Professor of
Chemistry, in October 1876 borrowed plans of Owens College from H . E . Roscoe. Alfred
Waterhouse was appointed architect in May 1877 . Waterhouse had recently completed the first
stage of building at Owens, where Thorpe had worked under Roscoe before coming to Leeds .
"C . Daubeny, Miscellanies: Being a Collection of Memoirs and Essays on Scientific and Literary
Subjects, published at various times (Oxford: James Parker, 1867), pp . 141-152 .
'/hid., p . 142 . Daubeny may have chosen the name Icaria, which seems to be a reference to the
French futurist utopia of E, Cabet, Voyage en lcarie (1840), as a way of ridiculing opponents of the
new Museum . His attack on the Library Committee and reference to the battle of styles over the
Museum suggest this . On Cabet and his influence in Britain, see A . L . Morton, The English Utopia
(London : Lawrence & Wishart . 1978), pp . 172-179 .
sDaubeny in fact resigned the Chair of Chemistry in 1855 only six years after his lab in the
grounds of Magdalen College was completed . He continued however to instruct Magdalen
undergraduates in chemistry until his death in 1867 ; average attendance was about 10 . R . T .
Gunther, A History of the Daubeny Laboratory, Magdalen College, Oxford (London : Henry
Frowde, 1904) .
'Recounted in Thomas Kelly . For Advancement of Learning : The University of Liverpool
(Liverpool : University Press, 1981) . pp, 45-48 .


4 08 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

In both dreams the details of the landscape differ, and each dreamer had
different objectives (Lightfoot's particular plea was for cash to endow profes-
sorships), but both included what were deemed to be the essential facilities for
a university . Both emphasized the importance of collections, of laboratories
and instruments, as well as the fact that these were used, were part of teaching,
the main activity . In these cases, the dream was a powerful literary form which
allowed the author to make a number of points, but also, significantly, could
serve as a device to initiate action, and in Canon Lightfoot's case apparently
did so . Architecturally, it depicted a university which might resemble Oxford
or Cambridge in its courts and quadrangles, but differed radically in the use
and disposition of the internal facilities .
It was of course the architecture of the ancient universities which dominated
the vision of new universities . The architectural heritage was important for
later developments . Up to the nineteenth century, English universities were
collections of semi-autonomous colleges, housed in closed quadrangles . Wor-
ship apart, within this form there was little particular allocation of space to
different academic purposes . However, certain specialized spaces had deve-
loped, devoted to one subject or to one type of activity, which were significant
for science . Firstly there was the observatory, arguably the oldest specialized
type of scientific building . By the early nineteenth century, the form of
observatories was broadly similar all over Europe and America ; the spaces
were subdivided, rooms became allocated to precise functions and to different
instruments . 10 The difficulties of mounting instruments firmly and accurately
was understood to require special attention and building skills . While observa-
tories were incorporated into other buildings, more often than not they were
completely separate, especially as they grew larger and contained larger
instruments . In terms of style, this allowed variants of the current favoured
taste, and Greek Revival was particularly popular up to the mid-nineteenth
century . II
Secondly there was the lecture theatre, which derived from the anatomy
theatre of Renaissance medicine . By 1800 this had changed shape and now
resembled the amphitheatre of classical antiquity, semicircular, with raked
seats and domed roof. 12 Well adapted to contemporary ideas of scientific

10 M . C . Donnelly, A Short History of Observatories (Oregon : University Press, 1973) provides a

general overview .
"Cambridge Observatory, 1822-1823 by John Clement Meade, had a Doric portico copied
according to the architect "from the Temple of Minerva at Athens" ; R . Willis and J . W . Clark,
The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge and of the Colleges of Cambridge and Eton
(Cambridge : University Press, 1886, reprinted 1988), vol .3, p . 198 . Durham, 1839-1841 by
Anthony Salvin, was a smaller version of Edinburgh, built 1814-1818 by William Playfair.
"On the use of such theatres, see S . Forgan, `Context, Image and Function : A Preliminary
Enquiry into the Architecture of Scientific Societies', British Journal for the History of Science 19
(1986), 89-113 .


Architecture of Science 409

exposition, early colleges such as University and King's College, London, built
theatres in this form ." Its later development will be discussed below . Thirdly,
there was the laboratory . Until the nineteenth century it is hard to say that any
general form existed for a laboratory, although the ideal `House of Chemistry'
featured early in utopian dreams, and the alchemist's chamber was a favoured
subject for painters . 14 Given the lack of division between different fields of
scientific knowledge this is hardly surprising . Such buildings were generally
private, small, and housed outside in the garden or yard, or in the cellars .
Finally, by contrast, the museum was already a recognizable building type,
where perhaps the architectural form and the ideas underlying the taxonomy
of the contents meshed most closely ." For universities, as for learned societies,
the museum was an indispensable adjunct to learning, a resource for scholar-
ship, the expression of plenitude and reverence for God's created world, not to
mention tangible evidence of the wisdom and generosity of its patrons and
collectors .
A further point, the relative visibility of such buildings, and hence of the
subjects connected with them, changed . Visibility, together with the level at
which particular rooms are located, is often an indicator of status . Astronomy,
always the queen of the sciences, descended to ground level from isolated
towers or a perch atop some college gateway . Because too it was better if
observatories were sited in open space free from any interference with sight
lines, they tended to be set in park land or open countryside, a Greek temple to
observe the stars, and an aesthetic incident in the landscape . However, these
new `domes of enlightenment' were if anything more visible than before,
integrated architecturally, aesthetically and intellectually into the landscape .16
More slowly, the laboratory began its ascent from underground obscurity to
overground prominence . By contrast, the museum and its contents had come
out of the cabinet into capacious storehouses to form a pattern for the
organization of rooms and a nexus of ideas . However, to put all these distinct
facilities into the cloistered courtyards of the ancient universities posed prob-
lems, as much intellectual as architectural . In any case none were necessarily
solely connected with institutions of higher learning . Science had however by

"See illustration in F . J . C, Hearnshaw . The Centenary History of King's College London 1828-
1928 (London : George G . Harrap, 1929), p . 154 . University College London had four semi-
circular theatres, see Fig . 1 .
'"Owen Hannaway, 'Laboratory Design and the Aims of Science : Andreas Libavius versus
Tycho Brahe', Isles 77 (1986), 585-610 ; C . R . Hill, `The Iconography of the Laboratory', Ambix 22
(1975), 102-110 .
"See for example, Thomas A . Markus, 'Domes of Enlightenment: Two Scottish University
Museums', Art History 8, no .2 (June 1985), 158-177 .
'"See p . V . Turner on the observatory and grand sublime views of nature, op . cit ., note 3, p . 106 .
Observatories appear in many prints and watereolours, surrounded by delicate vegetation and
views of unspoiled nature .
410 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

Table I

University Earlier college founded'

1836 London 1826 University College

1829 King's College
1832 Durham 1870 Durham College of Physical Science, Newcastlet
1880 Victoria see below Manchester . Liverpool and Leeds
1893 Wales 1872 University College, Aberystwyth
1883 University College of S . Wales . Cardiff
1884 University College of N. Wales, Bangor
1900 Birmingham 1880 Mason Science College
1903 Liverpool 1881 University College, 1884 affiliated Victoria University
1904 Manchester 1851 Owens College, 1880 Victoria University
1904 Leeds 1874 Yorkshire College of Science. 1887. affiliated Victoria University
1905 Sheffield 1879 Firth College
1908 Belfast 1845 Queen's College
1909 Bristol 1876 University College

-The list excludes medical colleges, which were generally founded earlier, many in the 1830s .
'Not strictly a preceding foundation, but Newcastle was the site of the first successful attempt to
extend the curriculum to the sciences .
University colleges and technical institutes of various types were established in many other
towns, e .g. Nottingham 1881, Reading 1892, Southampton 1902 . Many eventually became
universities .

the beginning of the nineteenth century achieved a toe-hold in the ancient

universities (indeed the Old Ashmolean was something more than just a
toehold) and where spaces were specialized to subject, these were scientific ."
After the foundation of University College and King's College London, new
colleges were relatively slow to get off the ground . The major developments
belong to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and by 1914 there were a
number which had achieved university status (Table 1) . Scotland, with its
different legal, professorial and teaching traditions, has been generally
excluded from discussion .
Most institutions started off in converted premises, but started a building
programme as soon as possible . Arguably this stemmed not only from functio-
nal needs, but also from the desire to establish a presence, a sense of
permanent existence . Colleges were not cheap, the cost of land, new buildings
and equipment was rarely less than £60,000-70,000, and by the end of the
century, Birmingham set their appeal target at a realistic £250,000 . 18 Institu-
tions perforce had to take a piecemeal approach to building, acquiring a site,

''A reassessment of Oxford science is provided by A . V . Simcock, The Ashmolean Museum and
Oxford Science 1683-1983 (Oxford : Museum of the History of Science, 1984) .
'-Leeds' initial appeal only raised £20,000 . The Clothworkcrs Company gave a further £10,000,
and on that it was decided to go ahead with some building ; P . H . J . H . Gosden and A . 3 . Taylor,
Studies in the History of a University 1874-1974 (Leeds : University Press, 1975) . E . C. Robins,
Technical School and College Building ( London : Wittaker, 1887) gives some costs for British and
Continental technical schools in an Appendix at the end of the hook . On Birmingham. see E . W .
Vincent and P . Hinton, The University of Birmingham : its History and .Significance (Birmingham :
Cornish Bros ., 1947), chaps 1-3 .


Architecture of Science 41 1

agreeing a block plan, and carrying out bits of the building when and as
finance permitted . Starting in the 1870s or 1880s, it was often 20 to 30 years
before the main buildings were completed, and then often not to the original
plan . Most institutions were heavily dependent on patronage and their ability
to tap local resources, which was not always easy . Not all institutions could
persuade local worthies to dig deep enough into their pockets, and their
relationship to the town was often equivocal . Few town councils initially
considered such an institution would be an ornament to the town, a view no
doubt reinforced by the shabby premises many institutions started offin -
Leeds in converted shops, a dancing academy, gymnasium and the former
bankruptcy courts ; Liverpool in a lunatic asylum; and Durham-Newcastle in
the attics and cellars of the Coal Chambers ." Finding new sites was not easy
in rapidly expanding industrial towns . Green field sites were rare . The Liver-
pool site was in a rundown, semi-slum area . A spacious and salubrious suburb
not too far from the city centre, such as Edgebaston in Birmingham, was ideal .
At Newcastle however a desperate search for sites included the local college of
medicine, a brewery, Bamburgh Castle, the fortress-like Morpeth county gaol
and the local cricket field .2" In short, such costly enterprises, doubtful of
success, should not be regarded as ornaments of civic culture in their early
years . 2 r
Turning now to particular ways of looking at the development of university
architecture, these concern the development of new types of plan, the use of
particular models for building and organization, the problem of discipline,
and, lastly, the manufacture of tradition . Each in their way relate directly to
the intended type of university and the role played by science within it,
Firstly, the plan : in terms of space, science and technological subjects took
the lion's share in almost all the new foundations of the nineteenth century .
This needs re-emphasizing, especially as a recent historian of the civic

''The Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds, first premises are illustrated in A . N . Shimmin, The
University of Leeds: The First Half-Century (Cambridge : University Press, 1954) . p . 12 . The actual
designation of the various parts of the row of houses is taken from a plan attached to the
conveyance, University of Leeds Archives . On Liverpool, see T . Kelly, op. cit ., note 9, p .8L In
Newcastle the Coal Chambers also housed the North of England Institute of Mining and
Mechanical Engineers .
"The various demarches at Newcastle were described by G . A . Lebour, one of the first
professors, in J . T . Fowler, Durham University : Earlier Foundations and Present Colleges (London :
Sheldon Press, 1904), chap. 8 . The reference to Morpeth County Gaol may however be a joke
perpetuated by Lebour, as there is no mention in the minutes of this particular possibility . On this
and other aspects of Newcastle's history, I am grateful to Dr Constance Fraser for allowing me to
see her unpublished manuscript, `An Outline History of the Newcastle Division of the University
of Durham', 1961 . For a useful brief history, see D . M . Beltenson . The University of Newcastle
upon Tyne : A Historical Introduction (Newcastle : The University Press, 1971) .
"The term `civic universities' itself tends to encapsulate an idea of civic pride and progress. The
term was coined as early as 1904 by R . B. Haldane: see Armytage . op. cit ., note 3, p. 247. Despite
the topsy-like proliferation of such institutions, in many cases their early years were financially
extremely insecure .
41 2 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

fig . 1 . University College London; plan by' William Wilkins . Only the central portion, as shown in the
plan rather than the elevation, was built initially . Reproduced by courtesy of University College
London Library .

universities argues that the traditional view that these were institutions set up
largely in response to demands for technical and scientific education is
erroneous, suggesting that it would be more accurate to say that there was
merely tincture of science . 22 The plan however is revealing . Three main types
may be distinguished in the course of the century . Early plans were based on
the traditional quadrangle, but open at one side, as in University College
London, with a strong axial emphasis (Fig . 1) . The plan is articulated round
the provisions of museum and library in the prime position either side of the
grand entrance, with lecture theatres at either end . A great hall, so necessary
later for examinations as well as for ceremonies, directly behind the entrance,
was not finished immediately, and was used initially for a number of different
purposes . The actual arrangement of rooms put chemistry and medicine in
close proximity, but had no other specific logic . The general arrangement
however suited a professorial and a lecturing based form of teaching, rather

22D . R . Jones, op. cit . . note 3, chap, 4 . Jones is right to emphasize the substantial demand for
Arts subjects, but the demands on space of these subjects were modest, at least until it became
necessary to build a proper library .


Architecture of Science 413

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but probably ca 1831, when T. M . Greenhow gave a paper to the Newcastle Lit & Phil suggesting the
establishment of a college . Reproduced by courtesy of the University Library, Newcastle upon Tyne :
ref, Local Illustrations B261 .

than a tutorial . 23 It was of course wholly non-residential, and therefore non-

collegiate in the traditional sense . Similar types of plan, embodying an
emphasis on lecturing, may be founded in unrealized projects elsewhere, as at
Newcastle (Fig, 2) .
The second generation of plan, mid-century, was quite different . This one
may call the `integrated museum' plan, and was the way the ancient universi-
ties tackled the problem . Science was difficult if not impossible to fit into
existing colleges and a new site had to be found . At Oxford, space in the Old
Ashmolean building had long ceased to be sufficient, and due largely to the
efforts of Henry Acland, the scientific teaching activities and museum were
moved to a new building, the University Museum (Fig . 3) . 24 Here the museum,
the collections, were the centre and heart of the building . Lecture theatres were

23N . Harte and J, North, The World of University College, London 1828-1978 (London: 1978),
pp . 10-31 .
24A . V . Simcock, op. cit ., note 17 . Henry W . Acland and John Ruskin, The Oxford Museum
(London : George Allen, 1st edn, 1859, with additions, 1893) .


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Architecture of Science 415

of course provided, but the principal emphasis was on the museum - as the
name suggests - with the scientific departments circling the collections in
carefully disposed order. Rather than a professorial type of plan, it emphasizes
study, research, the collections, and attached laboratories and experiment . The
style too is quite different, and raises the question of what should be the most
appropriate style for scientific buildings . 25 Its balanced massing and strong
profile, the picturesque Glastonbury Abbey kitchen annexe, the use of
materials, fine modelling and carved ornament provided a superb exposition of
Ruskinian principles (Fig . 4) . As Eve Blau has said, Gothic was here freed
from ecclesiology and antiquarianism and able to embody new associations
with science . 26 However, one is also reminded of Viollet-le-duc, and his
emphasis on purpose, structure and technology in architecture . Indeed, the
entire building is a didactic device, not merely a storehouse of knowledge, but
a sort of mnemonic devised by John Phillips "with so much of system as to
help the memory" . 27 The structure incorporates different geological specimens
in the shape of the stone pillars round the central court, arranged in an order
which instructs the visitor, igneous rocks on the ground floor, sedimentary
rocks above, and so forth . Furthermore, although it appears that the plants
chosen to ornament the capitals of the pillars bear no relation to their
respective geological shafts, they were (at least in part) arranged according to
the most up-to-date taxonomy available, the putatively evolutionary Bentham
and Hooker classification . 2 8 It is hardly surprising to find John Phillips taking
this sort of care, given his long and innovative career in museum arrangement .
Gothic, rapidly becoming the most popular of available styles, was chosen
partly because of the direct influence of Ruskin, but also it was seen to be the
most adaptable and appropriate for any function . One might argue that this is
even true of chemistry . For Ruskin, only the vaulting and strong buttresses of
Gothic could withstand the heat of the crucible and blast of the furnace . 29 A
romantic and archaic image of chemistry no doubt, but arguably this was the
first occasion when an attempt was made to give chemistry appropriate form
and style . Up to this time, chemistry labs were either hidden away under-
ground (as in the Old Ashmolean), were variants on the garden shed (the
Pharmaceutical Society), or looked something akin to a converted stable (the

2 BThe building itself aroused considerable controversy ; see Simcock, op . cit ., note 17, notes 138-
145 ; and E . Blau, Ruskinian Gothic: The Architecture of Deane and Woodward 1845-1867
(Princeton: University Press, 1982), chap. 3 .
76 Blau, ibid., p.49 .
27 Acland and Ruskin, op . cit ., note 24, pp . 29-33 description, and pp . 91-100, letter from Prof .
Phillips, 21 June 1859 .
28G . Bentham and J . D . Hooker, Genera Plantarum ad eremplaris imprtmis in herbariis
Kewensibus servata definata (London: 1862-1883), 3 vols . I am grateful to David Allen for this
information .
2 "Acland and Ruskin, op. cit ., note 24, p .66 .
Fig . 4 . The University Museum en 1860, The main chemistry laboratory was housed in the "abbot's
kitchen" annexe in the foreground of the picture . The separate building in the background was the
Curator's house . Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.


Architecture of Science 417

Birkbeck Lab at University College London) . 3 p At Oxford, chemistry was

housed in a piece of architecture, not in a mere building without solidity and
mass . The irony is that chemistry indeed escaped from the basement of the Old
Ashmolean and the cellars of Balliol (in other words service areas of low
status) to be housed in a building which above all expressed a service, cooking
sort of activity ." But then again, the connection between chemistry and
cookery was a familiar one with a respectable ancestry in the person of
Berzelius . Berzelius' laboratory was next to the kitchen, indeed overflowed into
the kitchen, and his cook Anna appears to have done duty as assistant and
washer-up . Victorian chemists such as Thorpe and Roscoe reminisced nostalgi-
cally about Berzelius' lab, and as Bunsen himself said, ", . . such a kitchen!
There was never a kitchen like it" . 32 If chemical kitchens were built elsewhere,
at Toronto in 1856 and as late as 1870 in Glasgow, then the stylistic metaphor
must have struck a receptive chord, despite its obvious functional short-
comings .
At Oxford therefore structure, ornament and function formed a coherent
whole, but the design also embodied a finiteness, an idea of permanence and
stability, which was increasingly ill-adjusted to the dynamic, impermanent and
unstable boundaries of scientific knowledge . Coherence was lost if sufficient
room was not available for extension . In Cambridge, where science buildings
developed similarly on the Museums site, this rapidly became overgrown, and
all sense of order and arrangement was lost . 33 Here again the word `museum'
similarly describes the science area, emphasizing the necessary connection
between the collections and teaching and research . The Oxford example was
attractive, and replicated in museums in many parts of the world . 36 As the
model for university teaching however, it seems to have been chosen only once,
by Alfred Waterhouse in his early plans for the Yorkshire College of Science at
Leeds, where it was soon abandoned, ostensibly because of cost .
The third generation of plan was a variant on the old form of quadrangle,
though in some places this degenerated into a squashed courtyard . This is the

3 "The Pharmaceutical Society's lab built in 1845 was on the ground floor and had to be
extended out into the garden . The Birkbeck lab, 1846, is depicted in N . Harte, The University of
London 1836-1986 (London : Athlone Press, 1986) . Both labs were however top-lit .
31 On the Balliol cellars, which B . C . Brodie Jr . was only too eager to quit, see T- Smith, `The
Balliol-Trinity Laboratories' in John Prest (ed.), Ba//iol Studies (London : Leopards Head Press,
1982), pp.185-223 .
3 "H . E . Roscoe,
Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (London : Macmillan, 1906),
p . 88 .
"Willis and Clark, op . cit., note 11, vol . 3, pp . 145-190 . See also plans of the New Museums and
Downing Sites in The Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely (London :
Institute of Historical Research/Oxford University Press, 1959), vol . 3, facing p . 274 .
34 For example, Melbourne ; Susan Sheets-Pyenson, 'Henry Augustus Ward and Museum
Development in the Hinterland', University of Rochester Library Bulletin 38 (1985), 38-59 .
 THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE,
LEEDS .

PROPOSED BLOCK PLANS .

ALFRED WATERHOUSE E S Q°`
ARcxtmcr .
0 CT1877

Fig . 5 . Yorkshire College of Science . Proposed Block Plan, by Alfred Waterhouse, October 1877 .
Reproduced by courtesy of the University of Leeds Archives .
Architecture of Science 419

type most generally found in the later nineteenth century foundations (Fig . 5) .
Buildings were arranged around an area called a quadrangle, or a series of
quadrangles, in which differentiated activities were arranged in a logical order .
Such a plan provided above all for lecturing, teaching and workshop practice,
and was also very practical where the complete plan could not be implemented
all at once . Laboratories and lecture theatres were arranged with supporting
preparation and store rooms . Certain subjects were put in separate wings and
separate buildings, especially engineering, which interfered with physics teach-
ing . Conveniently, such messy and noisy subjects could be hidden away from
the public facade . The corridor in such plans served to articulate the whole
building, providing communication and access in the proper order . Separate-
ness rather than general connectedness was the inevitable result . 35 On a
practical level, the courtyards and quadrangles also provided outdoor space
for certain teaching needs, especially in chemistry . 36 The trend towards
separate buildings for separate subjects and schools continued, perforce in
London because of the built-up nature of most sites, and also in those
universities which opted, as at Birmingham, for a beaux-arts style of plan
(Fig. 6) . Birmingham's plan was quite different from the picturesque groupings
of a Waterhouse plan, and expressed in a more formal sense the separate
nature of each field of learning .
Turning now to the internal arrangement of these buildings, where for the
first time scientists were consulted about their needs and had the opportunity
to shape their space as they desired, what were the models they most admired?
In general, they looked to Germany, where so many mid-Victorian scientists
had been trained . This is no surprise, but what they saw in German universities
was of course a very different model of academic life, based on research and
teaching, where the professoriate were civil servants paid by the State . How-
ever, what interested British scientists engaged in lobbying for support, or
planning their new buildings, were certain specific facilities (Fig . 7) . In German
buildings the space allotted to the professor's rooms seemed by comparison
magnificently generous, with personal research laboratories as well . Living
accommodation was generally provided for the professor within the building,
something which never happened in England . In terms of a research ethos,

"See the numerous plans in E . C . Robins, op . cit ., note 18 . Previously, when rooms were
connected en filade, with an absence of corridors, the sequence of rooms entered was a predeter-
mined process in which no room could be omitted, and inevitably reflected underlying theories of
classification ; Thomas A . Markus, op . cit ., note 15 . For an analysis of access and spatial
arrangement . see Markus, 'Buildings as classifying devices', Environment and Planning B: Planning
and Design 14 (1987), 467-484 .
' 6 T . E . Thorpe to H . Sales, 31 August 1874, "The yard is an admirable provision . Indeed one
could not hope to work the Laboratory comfortably without some outside place where the furnace
operations, chlorine manufacture (sulphuretted hydrogen) could be carried on ." Leeds University
Archives, Hl7 Early Letters from Professors. At the Cavendish. all the first floor windows
overlooking the courtyard have wide projecting sills on which to put apparatus .
 A
0
O

Fig. 6 . Birmingham University . Plan by Aston Webb, showing the first four blocks erected . This was
the only part of the original plan actually implemented; The Builder (13 July 1907) .


Architecture of Science 421

Rooms on GuousD Faoou .

4v
10 0 10 70 70 40 00 00 10 00 00 IW DO.Y.

Fig . 7 . Plan of the Chemical Laboratory, Bonn, 1866 . Reproduced in A . W. Hofmann, The Chemical
Laboratories in Course of Erection in the Universities of Bonn and Berlin (London : W. Clowes,
1866), p.16 .


422 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

increasingly promoted as the raison d'etre of scientific activity, Germany was

the often quoted exemplar . 37 With regard to general teaching at a university
level, British scientists carefully studied the large German laboratories . A lab
was one of the first requirements for any new college . German labs were
divided into elementary and advanced, and increasingly into the various
specialist areas within each subject, qualitative, quantitative and so on, with
free standing benches in formal rows . They noticed less the central role which
the great lecture theatre played in German plans, crucial in Germany because
the professor was paid pro rata for the number of students at the main lecture
courses, which ensured that the professor gave the lectures himself, and
delegated much of the practical teaching to assistants .
By the 1880s, specialized architectural literature on the construction of
scientific buildings was beginning to appear in Britain, and there were a
number of institutions which all prospective builders visited . 38 If possible a
Continental tour was made . William Ramsay even spent his honeymoon
looking at the labs at Bonn, Heidelberg and Stuttgart ." In Britain visits were
made to the Finsbury College, the Central Institute at South Kensington,
Owens College at Manchester, the Yorkshire College at Leeds, and the
laboratories at Cambridge, especially the Cavendish4° If time permitted,

"Germany seems to have been regarded as the fount of all knowledge as far as labs were
concerned . Even Kelvin, who loyally promoted the antiquity of Scottish labs, was obliged to pay
homage to Liebig : W . Thomson, Baron Kelvin, `The Bangor Laboratories, Popular Lectures and
Addresses (London : 3 vets 1891-1894), vol .2, pp . 475-501 . For details of the development of
German physics labs, see David Cahan . 'The Institutional Revolution in German Physics, 1865-
1914', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 15 (1985), 1- 455 . Particularly detailed examples of
chemical munificence may he found in A . W . Hofmann, The Chemical Laboratories in Course of
Erection in the Universities of Bonn and Berlin, a Report to the Committee of Council on Education
(London : William Clowes . 1866) . Hofmann could not resist exulting in the superb professorial lab
and living accommodation, which must have been galling to his ex-colleagues, to whom lie
probably distributed copies of the Report . University College London Library possess a copy
inscribed by Hofmann to William Sharpey, professor of Anatomy and Physiology, who later gave
it to the College. Inside the book is a rough note, almost certainly in Sharpey s hand, with notes of
the square footage of the 'Building at South Kensgn' (.sic). Hofmann's Report gives precise
dimensions for all the rooms in the Bonn and Berlin laboratories .
3 BThe change may be seen in-the two decades between 1867 and 1887 . Joseph Gwilt, The
Encyclopedia of Architecture, Historical . Theoretical and Practical (New York : Crown Publishers,
1982 reprint of 1867 edn), barely includes colleges among the section on public buildings, save to
refer to Queen's College, Oxford, as an example of bad taste and a model to be avoided . In 1887,
Robin's book (note 18) gives many plans and discusses specialized fittings, ventilation, sanitary
arrangements and so on in great detail .
'Sir William A. Tilden FRS, Sir William Ramsay KCB FRS . Memorials of his Life and Work
(London: Macmillan, 1918), pp . 214-216 .
a 0 R . 1 . Johnson . architect of the College of Physical Science at Newcastle, was Diocesan
Surveyor and adviser to Durham Cathedral and Chapter . He had a varied practice in Newcastle,
but no experience in college building . He rapidly set about remedying his lack of expertise by
visiting Finsbury, the Central Institution at South Kensington . The Yorkshire College Leeds,
University College Nottingham and Glasgow . lie gives quite a detailed account of the various
technical requirements as well as stylistic approach in a pamphlet, R . J . Johnson, The Durham
College of Science [Plans] 1888, University of Newcastle Archives, ref . 378 4281-DUR . I am
grateful to Andrew Roberts for information about Johnson and his practice .


Architecture of Science 423

Glasgow and university colleges elsewhere were also visited . On the other
hand, Edinburgh and Oxford (at least until the Clarendon was built) were
generally not . By the end of the century however, America and Canada were
looked to as models . A committee of three from Birmingham toured North
America in 1899, inspecting buildings, equipment and estimating costs . 41 It
was felt in this case that American methods of teaching applied science were
especially valuable . If we knew more about the migration of the first genera-
tion of academic scientists from institution to institution, it would be possible
to assess more clearly how they were instrumental in imposing certain models
of scientific practice and teaching, and thus specific layouts of facilities . 42
What is evident in these new buildings is, I would argue, a concern with
order and the need for discipline . The new colleges were non-residential, and
students were not exposed to tutorial restraint or collegiate regulation in the
same way . Despite Rothblatt's view that the excesses of young bloods at
Oxford and Cambridge softened with the growth of Thomas Arnold's ideas on
the proper conduct of young gentlemen, there is ample evidence that students
were not the best behaved of people . 43 Medical students had long had a
reputation for licentiousness and rowdiness 4 4 The lectures to medical students
at University College London were known as the "bear-garden" . 45 This
reputation was rapidly equalled by engineering students . In one incident in the
1880s at South Kensington, benches were torn up and a small riot ensued, until
quelled by the police-46 High-spirited pranks such as making a bonfire of one's
landlord's furniture on Guy Fawkes' night, could not be tolerated . 47 Student
numbers, after a slow beginning, increased rapidly from the late 1880s and
1890s . Workshop and laboratory subjects, often dirty and noisy in themselves,
needed to be extremely carefully ordered, both in terms of curriculum and
spatial arrangement, to impose proper discipline .

41 Vincent and Ifinton, op. cit ., note 18, pp . 25-28 . Andrew Carnegie, who donated £50,000 to
the university, suggested that an American university such as Cornell should be taken as a model
rather than Oxford or Cambridge .
°'With regard to physics, this has been partially done by R . Svicdrys, 'The Rise of Physics
Laboratories in Britain, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 7 (1976), 405-436, showing the
gradual domination by 1919 of academic physics by Cavendish graduates . Work currently being
done in Cambridge on the prosopography of the Cavendish should fill the gap concerning the
earlier period .
43 Rothblatt, op . cit ., note 3, p .2f0.
44
For example, James Paget made efforts to improve the situation by setting up a residential hall
for medical students at Barts on the Oxbridge model . The warden would advise on studies, break
up noisy parties, rebuke coarse ill manners, correspond with the student's parents and so on ; S .
Paget (ed .), Memoir and Letters of Sir James Paget (London : Longman, Green, 1901),
pp .122-129 .
45 Tilden, op. cit., note 39, p . 110 .
4'E . T . McCarthy, fncidenrs in the I. je of a Mining Engineer (London : George Routtedge, 1919),
p . 5 . The same author recounts that Edward Frankland, whom he disliked, had a bucket of water
poured on top of him from an upper corridor .
`C . Fraser, op . cit ., note 20, p .59, an incident in the 1890s .


424 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

Let us look first of all at the spatial arrangement of the laboratory . Early
laboratory layout had a bench against or around the wall and a table in the
centre . Liebig's great contribution to laboratory design was to free the bench
from the wall, and place free-standing benches in the room . In such an
arrangement, more people could be accommodated, and the room and its
occupants were comprehensible at a glance . German professors tended to walk
round the laboratory, selecting which students they wished to speak to at
greater length, a method used by Hofmann at the Royal College of
Chemistry ." One is reminded indeed of the doctor doing his rounds, walking
the wards, pausing at the bedside of those patients whose symptoms were of
clinical interest . But the approach neatly combined proper recognition of the
professorial hierarchy with a strong tutorial emphasis . Many British scientists
who had studied in Germany looked back warmly to the effective and fruitful
contact the morning round provided between professor, student and his
work . 49
In Britain, similar layouts were adopted, and in many places a similar
pattern of morning rounds was made by the professor, as by Roscoe in
Manchester ." But an analogy here may be made not only with hospital wards,
but with certain aspects of school design ." Indeed, the bench running round
the wall was a feature of early-nineteenth-century schools, and was used for
writing . When the central space of the class-room was filled with desks, these
were long benches, though shortened by the later nineteenth century, and
arranged in rows . Curtains were used to partition off the space when the large
class was divided up, again a feature occasionally found in laboratories . It
could be argued that laboratories in Britain were arranged much like class-
rooms, with benches in rows and schoolmaster's or demonstrator's desk at the
front, a layout which is especially evident in botanical or biological labs
(Fig . 8) . 52 This is also because any subject that involved the use of microscopes
meant maximizing the available light, so that the easiest functional solution
was to line students up in rows facing the window . Such labs often had
windowed galleries, allowing more light in -and extra space for working tables .

45J
Bentley, `The Chemical Department of the Royal School of Mines . Its Origins and
Development under A. W. Hofmann , Ambix VII (1970), 153-181 .
49 For example, Arthur Schuster on his studies with Helmholtz at Berlin ; A . Schuster, The
Progress of Physics during 33 Years (1875-1908) (Cambridge: University Press, 1911), pp . 16-18 .
soRoscoe's method of working his department was based on that of Bunsen at Heidelberg ; Sir
Edward Thorpe, The Right Hon . Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe PC DCL FRS: A Biographical Sketch
(London : Longmans, 1916), p. 98 .
"M_ Seabome, The English School: its architecture and organization 1370-1870 (London :
Routlodge & Kcgan Paul, 1971), remains the standard work on the development of school
architecture . Sec also E . R . Robson, School Architecture (Leicester : University Press, 1972. reprint
1874 edn) .
52 See also, P. L. Haring (ed .), The Owens College, Manchester (founded 1851), A Brief History
of the College and Description of its Various Departments (Manchester : J . E. Cornish, 1900) .


Architecture of Science 425

Fig. 8 . Biological laboratory as seen in the booklet The University of Leeds (7 July 1908) .
Reproduced by permission of the University of Leeds Archives .

At the same time, of course, it was easy to supervise a large number of

students . There is a further point of comparison with school design . Just as the
school-child had his desk, so the student had his lab bench place . His place
would be reserved by depositing caution money, and had to be booked at the
beginning of the session . 53 The design of benches underwent considerable
refinement, a key feature being that they were provided with lockable cup-
boards and drawers underneath where the student could keep his notes and
equipment. 54 Even the design of keys was considered . In all, the layout
emphasized visibility, ordered rows, and personal space allotted to each
student . No wonder when such a visitor as Henry Becker toured the new South
Kensington laboratories, he commented approvingly on the prevailing sense of
order, with rooms, as he put it, "well fitted with quiet, silent workers, each at
his table busily engaged . . . . Every place is occupied . . . 11 55
Some of the same considerations apply to lecture theatres . Earlier lecture
theatres, semi-circular in shape, were ideally suited for display, for spectacle .
Such theatres were rarely found in the later nineteenth century . Most new
colleges certainly built, or hoped to build, a big theatre holding 700 or more,

"Standard practice and printed in laboratory regulations in most college calendars annually .
74 E . C . Robins, op. cit ., note 18, chaps 5 and 6, especially p . 118 . Robins however did not
approve of layouts which isolated the student completely from his neighours, or inhibited the clear
visibility of the professor, as in Alexander Williamson s lab at University College, London ; p . 120 .
55 H . Becker, Scientific London
(London: Henry S . King, 1874), pp . 178-179 .


4 26 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

Rig. 9. Typical lecture theatrejound in late-19th-century institutions .

for public lectures and ceremonial occasions . Prize-givings were often held in
such theatres . 56 But the normal type of lecture theatre was one where the seats
are arranged in straight rows (or perhaps slightly curved rows), more or less
steeply raked, seating anything upwards of a 100 (Fig . 9) . Such a form is
economical of space, and makes it easy to provide efficient access both from
the front and the rear, a necessity when lecture rooms had to be rapidly
emptied in order to take the next class . Lecture theatres were treated in a not
disimilar manner to classrooms . This is hardly surprising when one recalls that
sloping galleries in infant schools were much favoured ; and sometimes the
whole floor was sloped so that the master could see every child (Fig . 10) . 59
According to the theories of Samuel Wilderspin, to hold the interest of the
class, and thus keep class control, it was vital that the teacher could maintain
eye contact with every pupil . It was also an easy way of noting absence. There
was even a form of lecture-room/laboratory devised which embodies all the
notions of control and discipline touched on above . At Liverpool, in the
practical chemistry class-room, the benches were arranged in curved rows,
raked gently upwards from the lecturer's desk (Fig. 11). E . C . Robins, author
of a valuable manual on Technical School and College Building, 1887, con-
firmed that it was intended that the students should "follow by actual

56 F . J . C . Hearnshaw, op . cit., note 13, p . 154 . George Gissing, Born in Exile (Hassocks:
Harvester Press, 1978, reprint of 1892 edn), opens with an account of a prizcgiving in 1874 at
'Whitelaw College', which Gissing based on Owens College .
"As in the Lancasterian model school, M . Seahorne, op. cit ., note 51, p . 137 . 142- 145 .


Fix, 10-Sto a
 42 8 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

A . WATEHHOuSE, F . A . AAOIHCCr.

Fig . 11 . Plan of Liverpool University College, ground floor, with practical chemistry 'class room' on
the right . Reproduced in E . C. Robins, Technical School and College Building . 1887, pl . 30.

experiment on their own part the demonstrations given by the lecturer" .G 8

Such an arrangement supposes an exceedingly didactic, controlled and orga-
nized form of teaching . Obviously, spatial arrangement on its own does not
necessarily create a disciplined class, but put it together with teaching methods,
an increased emphasis on exams, the imposition of college regulations . wearing
of academic dress and so forth, and it forms a coherent picture .
As institutions grew bigger, spaces were increasingly appropriated and
specialized to particular subjects . This is evident in lecture theatres, although
overcrowding often meant that physics, maths, Latin, Greek and English
lectures might have to be held in the same place, a constant cause for
complaint . 59 Subject theatres were appropriately fitted out . At Leeds for

'"E . C . Robins, op . cit ., note 18, p. 101 . University College London had a similar arrangement
in the zoology and comparative anatomy students' "working room", with three rows of raked
benches ; Building Plans, File III, Folder 1. 30, University College London Archives .
59 As at Newcastle. T . Kelly, op . cit ., note 9, pp . 81-82, cites similar complaints at Liverpool .
Indeed in the 1880s when the numbers in the engineering class rose to 12, the professor could only
enter the room by crawling under a table, hardly a means of engendering respect, p . 70 .
Architecture of Science 429

example the engineering theatre was equipped with desk-like drawing places,
so that the student could copy or draw exactly what was on the table or
blackboard .°O Blackboards were of course essential, preferably ones which
could be moved or drawn up, and other diagrams suspended in their place .
Physics lecture theatres had heliostatic devices and piers for magic lanterns .
The lecturer's desk also developed, for technical reasons obviously, as supplies
of gas, water and electricity had to be provided to perform experiments . 61
Significantly too, it became longer, stretching in the case of the Maxwell
theatre in the Cavendish, the entire width of the theatre .° 2 Such a layout
emphasized the demarcation between teacher and taught, and created a space
which the student could not penetrate . Impressive as a theatre like the Maxwell
is, it is a world away from those earlier theatres where science was an edifying,
instructive and entertaining spectacle . The ability to lecture well was still much
admired, but the lecture theatres of the later nineteenth century were designed
for teaching, for repetition, for the same experiments and work, repeated
perhaps year in and year out, not for single, unique occasions .
It may also be argued that such layouts reflected not simply `discipline' in
the sense of a concern with student behaviour, but also 'disciplines' in the sense
of the emergence of scientific disciplines . Academic scientists were an impor-
tant part of the organization of a discipline, charged as they were with defining
and handing on an agreed body of knowledge by agreed techniques of
transmission . Spatial arrangements in laboratory and lecture theatre facilitated
the exposition and transmission of knowledge in organized ways . A series of
experiments could be set up on the long lecturer's bench, which were then
worked through . Permanent experiments were set up in laboratories, as in
Ayrton's domain at the City & Guilds . 63 Becker commented on the fact that
clearly work was being done "on a system" .° 4 At the Cavendish, Glazebrook
introduced the system where a board was hung on the wall with two sets of
cards, one bearing the students' names and the other the names of the
experiments to be carried out . Under such a system, classes of 20 could be

"Photograph in The University of Leeds, pamphlet, Leeds. 7 July 1908 .

"Robins gives details or a 30' long blackboard used by Perry at the Finsbury College ; op . cit .,
note 18, pp. 152-153 . On the lecturer's desk and lecture room fittings, see Robins, pp . 12(-128,
p1 .41 . Heliostatic devices were initiated by Clerk Maxwell at the Cavendish, and widely copied
elsewhere .
b 2 A History of the Cavendish Laboratory 1871-1910 (London : Longmans, Green, 1910), plate
facing p. 6-
63 Memorandum of Proceedings at A Drawing Room Meeting for the Promotion of 'Technical
Education, held at the House of Mr E. C. Robins, F.S .A . (No . 8 Marlborough Road, St . John's
Wood), on the Evening of the 5th March, 1887, under the Presidency of Professor Huxley, FR .S.
Printed for Private Circulation, London, 1887 (copy in Imperial College archives, London) . See
p . 14. Huxley and Robins were neighbours, which no doubt helps to explain the latter's enthusiasm
for proper scientific and technical expertise .
"Becker, op . cit ., note 55, p . 179 .
430 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

efficiently handled by one man ." Here the image is less of a school, but
something more akin to a factory where careful management resulted in
effective production . `System' was taking over, the space colonized according
to the special needs of each subject, the discipline visibly present .
Finally an examination of the manufacture of tradition provides a useful
perspective . After all, a university should look like a university, not like a
mechanics institute or a board school . It should also visibly appear to be a
community - the wearing of academic dress was at least one denominator of
membership . Many institutions were conscious of their youth and relative lack
of ancestry . and while Victorian Gothic architecture might appear to our eyes
to provide "instant history", it was to nineteenth century eyes clearly a form of
modern, not medieval, Gothic . Furthermore, as mentioned earlier . Gothic was
not the only style adopted by university builders . The Durham College of
Physical Science at Newcastle was of the "early Jacobean English type, some
parts of the portion now being built being almost of the later Tudor charac-
ter", as were the first buildings at Bristol ." Gothic at Bristol was only adopted
in a later phase of building from 1904 . Birmingham was a version of Byzan-
tine. Some early college buildings appear to make direct reference to Oxford or
Cambridge colleges, as Sheffield does to Clare and Newcastle to St . John's .
Historic styles certainly appealed to builder and clients alike, and such
references seem to indicate the hopes and ambitions of the institution con-
cerned .
Science however contributed in other ways to the formation of tradition .
Buildings were of course named after donors and patrons, whose arms were

emblazoned on the walls, and their industrial wealth transmuted into philan-
thropic endowment, as in the Whitworth and Bayer labs at Manchester .tr Past
professors, such as Schlorlcmmer at Manchester, or founding fathers of new
branches of science, such as Gallon at University College London, were
commemorated in the names of new laboratories . Patrons apart . the most
common references were to the ancestry of science . In the Oxford Museum, as
at Bonn and Berlin, statues were set up of great scientists ; so the whole of past

65 R . T . Glazebrook, 'The Rayleigh Period', in A History ol'the Cavendish laboratory 1871-

1910, pp .40-74, especially pp .44-45 . Ayrton had a similar system at the Central Institution, South
Kensington, see Memorandum of Proceedings, note 63, p. 15 . Students were given printed instruc-
tions on the first day, and as many as 30 or 40 students, divided into groups, would work through
a prescribed series of quantitative experiments, each group completing in due course all the
experiments .
° 6 Johnson, op . cit ., note 40 . p . t L For Bristol, see plates of quadrangle in B . Cottle and J . W .
Sherburne, The Life of a University (Bristol : The University/J . W . Arrowsmith . 1951) .
6'The arms of the Duke of Devonshire surmount the entrance to the Cavendish ; those of the
Bell and Armstrong families are on the Victoria tower of the Durham College of Science, which
was rechristened Armstrong College in 1904 . This was not because Armstrong had given vast
suns, he had not, but he served as a suitable name of local eminence and national repute to dignify
the latest fund-raising drive .


Architecture of Science 43 1

science could be `attached' to the institution . 68 On the walls still standing of

the chemistry wing of the Royal College of Science in London, one may see
medallions bearing the names and dates of the ancestors of modern science
from Archimedes to Torricelli . Professors sometimes proclaimed their intellec-
tual loyalities by installing pictures or busts, even in the laboratory . In J . B .
Coheri s organic chemistry lab at Leeds, a bust of Liebig looked down as if to
say "All is well here" . 6 ° In youthful institutions, even former students could be
pressed into service, though it was perhaps better if they were dead, as at
Newcastle, where one unfortunate ex-student was killed in the defence of
Peking, and another attempting a heroic rescue in a mine fire at Kimberley .
Memorial tablets were erected, and evidently a scientific education had rein-
forced those qualities of courage and self-sacrifice so beloved of Victorian
Boy's Own Paper authors . 70 By the 1890s it was customary in many depart-
ments for group photographs to be taken annually, which were no doubt then
pinned on the walls and along the corridors ." Gifts of busts, sculptures,
portraits, books, medals, medallions were welcomed . Colleges, inside and out,
were soon `dressed' with the appropriate imagery . The scientific contribution
to the icon was to reinforce the image of the unbroken progress of intellectual
discovery from classical to modern times .
By the end of the century and the beginning of the next, debate on the
nature of a university was more vigorous than ever . The evident need for
technical instruction, fears of foreign competition and a knowledge of superior
provision in Germany and America helped fuel the debate . One need not go
into detail, but most agreed that a university should provide a so-called `liberal
education', and that science was part of that education, so long as it was not
too technical - the place for mere technical training was elsewhere . The
Universities Congress of 1912 provides an appropriate point at which to take
stock . Here for the first time, the meaning of university architecture received
some critical attention . The critic was Charles Robert Ashbee, architect,
designer, guildsman and theorist for the Arts and Crafts movement . Ashbee
had assembled a considerable amount of material about university architecture
for a report to the Hungarian Government, and much of this he put on in the
form of an exhibition for the Congress, accompanied by a short catalogue

°"Acland and Ruskin, op. cit., note 24, pp . 102-104 . At Berlin . Hofmann recounts that there was
"a lengthy and animated discussion" before the great names of chemistry were agreed upon, up .
cit ., note 37, p .71 . At Birmingham the choice was conventional, and over the main entrance are
statues of Beethoven, Virgil . Michelangelo, Plato and Shakespeare for the arts, and Newton, Watt,
Faraday and Darwin for the sciences .
"Obituary of 1 . B . Cohen, in Nature 136 (1935), 171 .
'"North corridor, Armstrong College : Fowler, op . cit ., note 20, p.219.
"For example, numerous annual group photos survive of the various departments of the
component colleges of Imperial College .


432 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

raisonne . 72He covered all the universities of the Empire and also of North
America, from Aberdeen and Allahabad to Toronto and Yale . He had of
course his own particular preferences, but the spirit of Ruskin sounds clear in
his view of the architectural function of a university . Architecture here should
define the relationship between cultural function and social organization, it
should express the continuity of cultural life in a city, and it should provide for
the existence of corporate life . In this last Ashbee was particularly interested,
as he had himself designed a student residence for London and, as a true
guildsman, greatly favoured the student fraternity house . 73 He was not wholly
hostile to science, as one might have expected . He admired universities where
the scientific subjects were related to each other in a logical order and thus
determined the plan, as at Aberdeen or Birmingham . He praised institutions
which served their local trades and industries, but, in addition, did not ignore
the importance of domestic life or life in the country, and taught for example
domestic science as at Belfast, or agriculture, as at Dublin, Bristol was
especially praised for its effort to reclaim "submerged cultural traditions",
where it seemed that the Gothic tradition could be applied to modern scientific
requirements . 94 Inevitably Ashbee's greatest praise was reserved for those
American universities set in a beautiful landscape, with lakes, Hellenic theatres
and proper facilities for athletics and outdoor activities . 75 But while he
accepted the place of science, pure or applied, in a university, with appropriate
architectural form, Ashbee did detest what he termed untamed `Mechanism',
ugly industrialism, sordid utilitarianism, artificiality and imitation . For all
these industry had much to answer for, though the `confusion and mischief'
occasioned might be redeemed by the "spirit of modern science" .' 6 Nor was
Ashbee a great admirer of the major university architect of the nineteenth
century, Alfred Waterhouse . By 1912 anyway Waterhouse was out of fashion,
and the somewhat grandiose styles of Aston Webb preferred for new buildings,
as at the Royal School of Mines in London, and of course Birmingham . For

"Exhibition of University Planning and Building . Being A 'Catalogue Raisonne' Together With
An Introductory Study On the Architectural Significance of Modern University Development ;
Prepared For The University Of London And The Delegates To (he Universities Congress Of 1912 .
By C. R . Ashbee, M . A . (etc .). The full `Survey', I vol
., is in the Ashbee MSS, King's College,
Cambridge ; this consists of the printed catalogue and additional typescript notes . A folio of plans
which originally accompanied the Report is not in King's College archives . I am grateful to
Felicity Ashbee for allowing me to quote from the Ashbee MSS . On Ashbce's life, see Alan
Crawford, C. R . Ashhee: Architect, Designer and Romantic Socialist (Newhaven and London : Yale
University Press, 1985) . On the Congress, see A . Hill (ed.), Congress of the Universities of the
Empire, 1912. Report of Proceedings (London: University Press/Hodder & Stoughton, 1912).
"Ashbee, op. cit., note 72, see Introduction, pp . 9-11 . and comments on Edinburgh, p . 17, and
London pp . 19-20 . Student union buildings and better facilities for student life were also beginning
to be erected at this time .
"Ibid., p . 13 .
"For example Berkeley and Stanford, also Pennsylvania; ibid., pp . 14, 22 .
"'Ibid., p . 13 .
Architecture of Science 433

scientists however, the problems of achieving a functional and durable building

were not simple, especially when monumental exteriors were demanded . Ash-
bee included in his catalogue a letter from Walter Vaughan of McGill
University, which had recently built superb physics and engineering labs,
workshops and teaching facilities in two large and solid buildings . 77 The
physics building resembled a Romanesque chateau, and was praised at the time
for its impression of permanence and stability . Vaughan was not very happy
with the monumental aspect, but he had a suggestion for the future :
if a University were started with a sufficient area of land I should very much like to
see the experiment tried of constructing its buildings somewhat on a factory plan : i .e .
having all laboratories one storey (or possibly two storey) buildings in a number of
sections with northern sky-lights . This would not only result in a greater economy of
working and supervision, this would allow of expansion at a minimum of cost
without detriment to the existing structure . The great fault in the construction of
modern University buildings appears to me to be that they are erected as finite
structures, so that they cannot be conveniently or economically extended or
altered' 8

It has already been suggested that the need for discipline together with the
establishment of disciplines, resulted in arrangements which were a world away
from a simple room or two for a professor with a few devoted students and
assistants . Academic life could not be divorced from modern industrial prac-
tice . Modern physics in particular needed extensive workshop skills and
resources . How should the workshop, "these shaks [sic] for machinery" as
Ashbee termed them, be introduced into a university in a way that did not
negate the idea of a liberal education? 79 The words `workshop' and `factory'
were often used loosely, referring to much the same sort of thing . Vaughan
certainly used the image of a factory explicitly, and for scientists (as later for
architects) it was not an image incompatible with their desires for flexibility
and adaptability . The term does seem to have been used not infrequently
around this period . Just a little earlier the philosopher of science, Pierre
Duhem, had decried the French tendency to build temples to science and called
instead for factories .a o In the longer term, the consequences however were to
open the way for the idea of a university to evolve into something closer to a

"McGill College and University, Montreal : Opening of Engineering and Physics Buildings
(Montreal, 1893), especially pp . 40-42, Details on the construction and facilities may be found in
Lewis Pyenson, `The Incomplete Transmission of a European Image : Physics at Greater Buenos
Aires and Montreal, 1890-1920', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 122 (1978), 92-
114 .
' 8 Ashbee, op . cit ., note 72, p . 20 .
'-ibid. . P .9 .
"Harry W . Paul, From Knowledge to Power : The Rise of the Science Empire in France !860-
1939 (Cambridge: University Press, 1985), p. 171-172 .


434 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

model of a teaching machine, It is perhaps not surprising to find that anomie

and anomynity were problems of the later campus .e 1
The new university buildings of the nineteenth century represented a com-
plex reaction, architectural, intellectual and practical to new demands and
changing ideas of a university . At one level it may appear that secularizing
scientists took over ecclesiastical styles in architecture, in other words that
science buildings represent an architecture of acceptance, of integration, of
urban pride . But there was more . The idea of a university was reflected in quite
different plans to the old collegiate quadrangle ; new layouts in lab and lecture
theatre gave us many familiar facilities, but also created a new landscape of
discipline ; space had to be divided according to subject and new territory
acquired for particular activities, especially research . Above all, the architec-
tural dress had to be appropriate to a number of different fields of learning,
and employing new and old emblematic traditions could emphasize the worthy
ancestry of science and its integration into a liberal education .
Universities can change rapidly and it is not always easy to recover all the
factors and ideas which shaped the university environment under the accre-
tions of later years . The language of architecture changes, as do attitudes to it .
Several decades after it was built, the Cavendish was deemed to be a medieval
slum, and the overgrown Downing site the scientific equivalent of Peabody
tenements . Why, lamented the author of Cambridge New Architecture, did the
labs and lecture theatres of Cambridge science not reflect some of the lucid
passion of experiment that possessed those for whom they were built?" That
they certainly did, if we can but recover the language in which they spoke .

Acknowledgements - I am grateful to many people for their comments and generous

help, especially David Allen, Bill Brock, David Cahan, Frank James, Owen Hannaway,
Martin Rudwick, Thomas Markus, Simon Schaffer, Anthony Simeock . Jim Stewart,
Hugh Torrens . William Stansky kindly sent me a copy of Ashhee's exhibition cata-
logue, and Alan Crawford guided me to the relevant Ashbee manuscripts . The archives
of many universities have been unfailingly helpful, and I am grateful to University
College London, to Newcastle and to Leeds Universities for permission to reproduce
the plans and photos included here . I also benefitted much from the papers and
discussion at the conference on `Continuity and Change in the European University in
an Age of Liberal Revolution 1760-1830' held at Magdalen College, Oxford, in March
1987 .

"Robert Sommer, Tight Spaces: Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It (New Jersey :
Prentice-Hall, 1974), chap . 8 .
"Nicholas Hughes, Grant Lewison, Tom Wesley (eds), Cambridge New Architecture (Cam-
bridge: Trinity Hall, 1964), pp . 33-34 .