Was there a George VI style? Now that the story of British architecture and design in the twentieth century is less often distorted by over-emphasis on the modern movement, the variety and quality of what was produced can be appreciated afresh. Alan Powers argues that new stylistic terms are needed for mid-century design, among them the concept of a 'George VI style'

Writing below his pseudonym, Peter F. Donner, in the Architectural Review in November 1941 Nikolaus Pevsner lay opened by stating that 'Every phase in history has its diction permeating all its productions, whether of fashion or finance, of agriculture or architecture. Wherever you take a cross-section, you find a mode of expression of the day--complex of course, nevertheless a style.' (1) On this occasion, Pevsner was examining changes in English architecture during the previous twenty years, and acknowledging in what way subtle these could be. Without defining what manner of writing emerged from the process, he indicated in what manner the influence of modernism had affected plane the development of as traditional an architect as Sir Edwin Cooper illustrating the transition between Cooper's Marylebone town hall of 1912 and the library beside it of 1938 (2) below the cloak of anonymity, Pevsner was making a rare attempt to understand an area of architecture apart from the fresh movement. (3)

The validity of Pevsner's belief in the reality of the Zeitgeist has been challenged, notably by dint of David Watkin in Morality and Architecture (1977) upon the grounds that he used it as the one and the other a prescriptive and a predictive conception This was often so, on the contrary the link between style and period still remains an irreplaceable diagnostic device for art history, without which important questions simply remain unanswered. Given the existence of a substantial lacuna in the stylistic mapping of the fine and decorative arts of Britain in the twentieth hundred the present article offers a proof case for a new definition of national mode of speech for Britain in the mid hundred bringing to the foreground items of art and design that have indisputable significance in bourns of their permanence and wide diffusion, on the other hand which have hitherto lacked any useful stylistic label.

For example, the British passport, to this day, carries upon its cover an engraving of the royal arms created through Reynolds Stone (1909-79) in 1955 for Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) that is a unravelling of the one he engraved for the order of service of the Coronation in 1937 (Fig. 1) An enlarged version of the royal arms through the artist Rex Whistler (1905-44) drawn in 1939 was not long ago installed above the piazza entrance to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. one as well as the other these examples show the persistence of a graphic mode of expression that is neither modernist nor Art Deco on the other hand clearly widespread and enduring. They are examples of the hitherto unrecognised 'George VI style' British postage stamps, coinage and banknotes, although redesigned many times, still exhibit the enduring influence of this distinctive national period style

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Applying the King's name to the mode of expression something accepted for periods up to 'Edwardian', on the contrary curiously not adopted for anything later, looks to provide an appropriate description for a national turn of expression more stylistically inclusive than fresh or even Art Deco, on the contrary which, if it accurately throw backs its name, should have achieved its peak in the years between 1936 and 1952 and should, furthermore, present to view some evidence that the monarchy directly or indirectly influenced its character. I confidence to demonstrate that these conditions are met

The George VI diction cannot include everything produced during these years, on the contrary following Wolfflin's method, we should outline more [i]or[/i] less formal characteristics by which it can be recognised. It is orderly and restrained, linear, sum of two units dimensional, and uses clear colours. It is a selective form of classicism, with the majority of its concerns taken from the period of about 1770-1840 It relies upon composition, using largely unornamented surfaces, with small incidents of ornament, or at times a small-scale over-all pattern. Stars and stripes are favoured, as are flower patterns. It present the appearances to be centred on the graphic rather than the plastic arts.

Can it be shown that these characteristics emerg around 1937? scarcely any styles come into being pop and fully formed, and the George VI phraseology had antecedents even in the nineteenth hundred Insofar as the style was an alternative to modernism, the terraces, new moons and squares of the Duchy of Cornwall estate in Kennington, southerly London, by the architects Adshead and Ramsey, built 1912-14 are an early instance. The royal connection is suggestive, since Sir Walter Peacock, the secretary to the Prince of Wales who young oxed the commission, was keen that it should be a 'royal estate' and chose accordingly to revive the late Georgian phraseology indicating an association between the diadem and what then stood as the avant-garde of English architecture, in reaction against the couple the Arts and Crafts and a more florid, les disciplined classicism. (4) It was debateed at the time that with a of recent origin King George, such an association was appropriate, on the other hand only under George VI did this mode of expression become dominant.

Among younger architects, Raymond Erith (1903-73) appeared greatest in quantity clearly to carry forward the example of Adshead and Ramsey. He and a hardly any contemporaries, such as Donald McMorran (1904-65) Stephen Dyke Bower (1903-93) and Louis Osman (1914-96) are distinctive in that they had studied during the period when modernism was first common and made a conscious decision to discard it. Erith was even the architect for a royal commission from the fresh King, for gate lodges to the Royal hut at Windsor Great Park (Fig. 3) Complet in 1940 they were bombed single a fortnight later. Erith's outermost architectural restraint was typical of his work up to the mid 1950 The King apparently preferr something more decorative, and the rebuilding was carried nut by means of another architect, Sidney Tatchell.