2020 Wotherspoon lecture
The architecture of Herbert J. Rowse: Building a Monumental Merseyside
Delivered by Prof Iain Jackson, University of Liverpool
Thanks to the assistance of Rathbones, our 2020 Wotherspoon lecture was delivered via Zoom (a first for Art Friends!)
The City of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Architecture have been incredibly important to all of these projects, and it has been a pleasure to work more closely to home on Herbert Rowse, and his monumental projects in Merseyside.
From iconic buildings such as the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, India Buildings, the Queensway Mersey Tunnel, and Ventilation Stations to a number of public and private commissions, the work of Herbert J Rowse is perhaps not as widely known as it should be but remains an intrinsic part of the fabric of the city.
Iain Jackson is a professor of architecture and research director at the Liverpool School of Architecture. He practised architecture in Liverpool and Manchester before undertaking a PhD on Nek Chand’s Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India. Iain’s drawings produced for this project are now held in the permanent collection of the John Michael Kohler Arts Centre, Wisconsin. Iain continued to work in Chandigarh after his PhD, investigating the housing, schools, colleges, and clinics designed by Modernist pioneers, Edwin Maxwell Fry and Jane B. Drew. This research took him to West Africa where he researched the buildings Fry and Drew designed there, including Ibadan University in Nigeria. His latest project will investigate the contribution made by the United Africa Company to the West African city, using the archives held at Unilever.
2020 Wotherspoon Lecture: The architecture of Herbert J. Rowse: Building a monumental Merseyside