Charles W Hutton

THE architect Charles William Hutton, who died aged 90, was born in

Annan, Dumfriesshire. His father was a ship-building engineer and Hutton

spent his early years in Sheffield, then in Glasgow, where he attended

Bellahouston Academy.

His early talent for art was encouraged at Bellahouston and he

subsequently became apprenticed to a Bolton architect and successfully

gained a scholarship to study architecture at the Liverpool School under

Professor Charles Reilly.

The emphasis in the school was on the classicising tendency of the

Ecole des Beaux Arts, an influence which is evident in his war memorial

at Rawmarsh, Yorkshire, which was built in 1926. However, this work also

presaged a more progressive tendency which would find its expression in

his subsequent London works.

From 1929 to 1936 he was chief assistant to Doctor Charles Holden.

Holden, steeped in the English Arts and Crafts tradition, was also

heavily influenced by his visits to Holland, Germany, and Scandinavia

which brought a clarity and power of expression, evident in the large

number of underground stations which the practice created for the

Piccadilly Line and elsewhere.

Perhaps the best-known of these is Arnos Grove Station, a composition

of brick, reinforced concrete, and metal windows, in the form of a drum

upon a block, which powerfully exhibits the influence of Gunnar Asplund,

the most important Swedish architect of the twentieth century.

While he was heavily involved in the creation of underground stations,

Hutton's most notable work from this period with Holden is the

spectacular Senate House at London University.

During the late 1930s Charles Hutton returned to Liverpool to teach in

the Architectural School and he also taught in what is among the most

internationally known of architecture schools, the Architectural

Association of London.

The level of respect in which Hutton was held is indicated by his

subsequent position as deputy to Sir William Holford (later Lord

Holford). He worked with Holford to create munitions factories in Kirby,

Walsall, and Wolverhampton. Just before the end of the War, Hutton

opened his own practice in Welwyn Garden City.

His subsequent practice created the Murphy Radio Factory at Welwyn,

the Oxford University Field Station, and a number of notable industrial

and school buildings. In all of these, Hutton's translation of

traditional idioms and building techniques into carefully balanced and

more contemporary forms is apparent, his eye for detail always to the

fore.

In his late years, Hutton spent a great deal of time at the Art

Workers' Guild which he had joined in 1951. He was made Master in 1968,

and worked for a further 20 years as the guild's honorary architect.