By-pass Variegated is a term coined by the cartoonist and architectural historian

Osbert Lancaster Sir Osbert Lancaster, CBE (4 August 1908 – 27 July 1986) was an English cartoonist, architectural historian, stage designer and author. He was known for his cartoons in the British press, and for his lifelong work to inform the general p ...

in his 1938 book ''Pillar to Post''. It represents the

ribbon development Ribbon development refers to the building of houses along the routes of communications radiating from a human settlement. The resulting linear settlements are clearly visible on land use maps and aerial photographs, giving cities and the countrysid ...

of houses in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, in a mish-mash of architectural styles.

Style

Before 1947 there was no systematic legal control of property development in Britain: landowners could in general build as they wished on their land. Between the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

s speculative builders bought large tracts of land alongside new arterial roads and built mile after mile of mostly semi-detached, and some detached, houses. They were built as cheaply as possible, allowing people with modest incomes to buy a home for the first time, rather than rent. In the inter-war period owner-occupation in Britain rose from 10 to 32 per cent. In a 2010 study of Britain in the 1930s, Juliet Gardiner gives an example of a working-class couple buying a new house of this kind in

Hornchurch Hornchurch is a suburban town in East London, England, and part of the London Borough of Havering. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross. It comprises a number of shopping streets and a large residential area. It historically formed ...

, Essex for £495. In Lancaster's view, houses in the "By-pass Variegated" style were badly designed from both the practical and the aesthetic point of view, combining "the maximum of inconvenience" of layout with an incongruous mixture of old styles jumbled together in the façades, combining features copied from

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, Stockbroker's Tudor,

Pont Street Dutch Pont Street Dutch is a term coined by Osbert Lancaster to describe an architectural style typified by the large red brick gabled houses built in the 1880s in Pont Street in Knightsbridge in London. Nikolaus Pevsner, Pevsner writes of the style ...

, Romanesque and other styles.Lancaster, p. 86 He added that the historical details were "in almost every case the worst features of the style from which they were filched". In addition to the internal inconveniences and the external aesthetic considerations, Lancaster remarked on "the skill with which the houses are disposed that insures that the largest possible area of countryside is ruined with the minimum of expense". He also criticised the typical layout that gave each householder "a clear view into the most private offices of his next-door neighbour" and a disregard for natural light in the construction of the principal rooms. Like several other coinages in ''Pillar to Post'', "By-pass Variegated" has been taken up by later writers. It appears in the journal of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

; ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' used it in its 2015 survey ''A History of Cities in 50 Buildings''. In the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review of ...

'',

Rosemary Hill Rosemary Hill (born 10 April 1957) is an English writer and historian. Life Hill has published widely on 19th- and 20th-century cultural history, but she is best known for ''God's Architect'' (2007), her biography of Augustus Pugin. The book won ...

ranks the term with " Stockbroker's Tudor" as having passed into the language. In ''

The New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'', Stephen Calloway included "By-pass Variegated" in Lancaster's "pin-point-sharp litany of names still widely used today", along with Kensington Italianate, Municipal Gothic,

, Wimbledon Transitional, Pseudish and Stockbrokers' Tudor. The term has been translated into German as "Stadtumgehungsstil".Yapp, p. 206

References and sources

References

Sources

* * * * {{cite book , last= Yapp , first= Nick , language=German , title= London: Geheimnisse und Glanz einer Weltstadt, year= 1999, location= Köln , publisher= Könemann , isbn= 978-3-82-900483-1 Architectural styles British architectural styles