What does it mean to be English?

One of the consequences of endless fiddling with geographical boundaries in Britain over the past 50 years has been a huge loss of local, regional and national identity. Almost everything has been subject to phoney ‘efficiency changes’ with postcodes cast to the winds, counties smashed, big cities drifting in and out of county structures, and in London the dismembering of coherent and logical local authority units into larger and more or less meaningless lumps. Battersea meant something; Wandsworth is too big to do so.

All this has resulted in a feeling of ruthlessness, where you no longer have a clear idea who is responsible for what on your patch: police, fire and health authorities often have boundaries none of which fit exactly with that of other services. Electoral areas, always subject to some revision, now have overlays of European red lines. Regional authorities come and go, as do their fields of responsibility. (The New Localism of all the political parties is a dim-witted attempt to deal with this loss of identity, which will result in further paralysis of the planning and development system.)

When it comes to the idea of a country or ‘nation’ we are all over the place. According to the Rugby Football Union, England is a nation. But according the EU (and the RIBA for that matter) England is only just about a region, unlike Scotland and Wales, which are ‘nations’. The shaven-head fascists of the British National Party lay claim to the whole country but what does this mean when the Scots and Welsh have their own nationalist parties? What it means is that they are laying claim to England.

Until, quite recently, I only thought about being English in relation to sporting events, tending to describe myself as British for official purposes, and a Londoner for mental mapping. I think this began to change when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown started going on about being patriotic, even as they completed the process of splitting off Wales and Scotland. They even had a ‘Minister for Patriotism’, a political nonentity called Michael Wills, who seemed to spend quite a lot of time in Brussels.

But what does the idea of being English imply? And is there such a thing as ‘English architecture’? This thought was prompted by three end-of-year books, each of which has characteristics which I think of as being English. The first is Paul Barker’s ‘Freedoms of Suburbia’ (Frances Lincoln), which deals with that peculiarly English phenomenon, based as it is on a big idea (commuter rail infrastructure imposed on the countryside) and a myriad small ones, that is to say the houses and gardens so admired by Rasmussen in his ‘London, the Unique City’, now apparently out of print.

The second is ‘Custom and Innovation’ (Black Dog), a practice monograph about Colqhoun & Miller/John Miller and Partners, with good essays by Deyan Sudjic, Robert Maxwell, Nicholas Serota and Kenneth Frampton. The English characteristics displayed in the work are those of modesty, restraint, ingenuity and a sensitivity to context and landscape. The work is extremely good but never shows off.

Finally another practice monograph, this time about Procter Matthews Architects. ‘Pattern Place Purpose’ (Black Dog) is a first class piece of design and production, and one gets the feeling that this has been a real labour of love for the practice, which has been described as being English in their approach. Thoughtful essays by Peter Blundell Jones, Jeremy Till and Matthew Wells contribute to the overall quality of the book, but the most interesting piece is by Alan Powers, probably the most perceptive critic of English Modernism and its inheritors.

His analysis of what it is that might constitute an English architecture could equally be applied to the essay itself: modest, restrained, but with flashes of wit and insight, and an enjoyment of moments in occasional work by Procter and Matthews where they look as though they are designing the architectural equivalent of a party.

If you’re looking for a good architectural book for Christmas this is it – whatever your region or nation.