House With Garage, Raised Terrace and Plant Boxes

Details

833/0/10146

114, KENILWORTH ROAD,
House with garage, raised terrace and plant boxes

29-OCT-04

II

Private house. 1956-7 by Robert Harvey of Yorke, Harper and Harvey for his brother, J G Harvey. Brick with steep tile roof above deep eaves. Chains carry water from the roof to the ground. Thick timber windows, pivot-hinged doors and exposed brickwork internally. Largely single storey, but with higher entrance; asymmetrical `T'-shaped plan around central stack. Low-slung, with a compact brick plan. The living area is concealed by the entrance and carport, themselves set behind thick brick pier with timber screen between the two elements and with low timber ceiling. Low catslide roof to adjoining store forms a physical barrier between entrance and garden facades. Bedroom wing terminated by angled end walls and enlivened by elaborate brickwork under the eaves. Living area which extends into the roof space and with boarded ceiling incorporating diamond-shaped rooflights and a low timber cornice containing recessed light fittings; the angle used to create a conservatory. Bedroom ceiling of cedar and mahogany, with built in fittings for Harper's three nephews. Kitchen set to side of living area with built-in cupboards set into the eaves space under low boarded ceiling.

Terrace to living room provides a physical and visual link to the adjoining garden, and brick planting boxes enhance this sense of integration. Included as a complete and particularly romantic example of Harvey's work in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright. Robert Harvey was born in Coventry in 1919 and studied architecture at the Birmingham School of Art, the source of many modern architects in the inter-war period but which encouraged a strong interest in Wright's work then and later. In 1950 Harvey joined the office of J Brian Cooper, whence he was given a day off work that year to hear Wright speak at the Architectural Association. Then he joined the office of Leonard Harper, father of his contemporary and friend Ross Harper, whose house in Solihull is already listed. In 1951 this practice amalgamated with that of F W B Yorke, father of the noted modernist architect F R S Yorke, and Harvey took over the latter's Stratford office, specialising in private houses. In all he designed over fifty houses, mainly in Warwickshire. Harvey's work combines a sensitive approach to materials, an ingenious manipulation of room heights, floor levels and interior spaces that reveal a concern with the psychological and emotional aspects of domestic architecture. His houses exhibit a mixture of natural materials and man-made ones, and modern mechanical gadgetry, yet nevertheless have a robust, sometimes homespun quality well seen here. This was arguably Harvey's first house in his mature style, with its large eaves eschewing downpipes, and the integration of garage area within the framework of the house. `[A] distinguished representative of modern design' (Coventry New Architecture). The neighbouring house, also by Harper, has been altered.

Sources:
Grant Lewison and Rosalind Billingham, Coventry New Architecture, Warwick, 1969, p.81
Louise Campbell, `Against the grain: the domestic architecture of Robert Harvey', in Twentieth Century Architecture, no.4, The Post-War House, London, Twentieth Century Society, 2000, pp.51-9.

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