Dame Jane Drew (24 March 1911 – 27 July 1996) was an English modernist architect and town planner. She qualified at the Architectural Association School in London, and prior to World War II became one of the leading exponents of the Modern Movement in London.
At the time Drew had her first office, with the idea of employing only female architects, architecture was a male dominated profession. She was active during and after World War II, designing social and public housing in England, West Africa, India and Iran. With her second husband, Maxwell Fry, she worked in West Africa designing schools and universities. She, Fry and Pierre Jeanneret, designed the housing at Chandigarh, the new capital of the Punjab. She designed buildings in Ghana, Nigeria, Iran and Sri Lanka, and she wrote books on what she had learnt about architecture there. In London she did social housing, buildings for the Festival of Britain, and helped to establish the Institute of Contemporary Arts. After retiring from practice, she travelled and lectured abroad, receiving several honorary degrees. She was awarded the DBE in the 1996 New Year Honours, gazetted 30 December 1995, only seven months before her death.
Life Early life (1911–1928) Drew was born as Iris Estelle Radcliffe DrewThe 1911 census of England and Wales, taken on the night of 2 April, recorded her name as Iris Estelle Radcliffe Drew, aged 10 days in Thornton Heath, Croydon (then part of Surrey), but her name was registered a few days later as Joyce Beverly Drew.However on her birth certificate, dated 27 April 1911, her name is registered as Joyce Beverly Drew Her father, Harry Guy Radcliffe Drew (grandson of Joseph Drew), was a designer of surgical instruments and the founder of the Institute of British Surgical Technicians: he was a humanist who "despised the profit motive and abhorred cruelty". Her mother was Emma Spering Jones, a school teacher, who when Jane was only four became lame for the rest of her life as the result of a road accident. She encouraged her daughters in observation of nature and appreciation of art, and she had a keen business sense. Jane had an older sister, Dorothy Stella Radcliffe Drew (1909–1989), who became a physician and student of F. M. Alexander. Jane Drew was educated at Woodford School in East Croydon, then at Croydon High School where she became Head Girl. Among her friends at Woodford School were actresses Diana Wynyard and Peggy Ashcroft. At Croydon High she was friends with the mural artist and book illustrator Barbara Jones and the women's rights campaigner Nancy Seear.
Pre-war (1929–1939) Jane Drew studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (1929–1934). In 1933 she married architect James Thomas Alliston,GRO marriage ref: 1933 Dec, Croydon 02a 865 who had been a fellow-student at the AA. In 1934, Drew found first employment as an architect with Joseph Hill (1888–1947), where she was also introduced to members of bohemian London who would have a lasting impact on her work.p.118, The Architecture of Edwin Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, Routledge (2016) After partnering with her husband, Alliston, they won a competition in 1937 for a cottage hospital in Devon. Their home and small practice (Alliston & Drew) was at 24 Woburn Square in London, and their principal work was housing in Winchester. The couple had twin daughters.GRO birth ref: 1937 Mar, Marylebone 1a 575 Drew and Alliston's marriage was dissolved in 1939.
Modern Movement Drew soon became involved in the Modern Movement, through the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), whose guiding spirit was the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, and became one of the principal founders of the Modern Movement in Britain, which was represented by MARS (Modern Architectural ReSearch), CIAM's British subsidiary. It was an association of architects, painters and industrialists, and its stated principle was the "use of space for human activity rather than the manipulation of stylised convention". It was through this group that she met Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Lutyens and Maxwell Fry (one of the co-founders of the movement). Drew married Maxwell Fry in 1942.Fry, Autobiographical Sketches, p 165
Chandigarh and Le Corbusier After seeing Drew's projects in West Africa, Indian Prime minister Pandit Nehru asked her and Maxwell Fry to design the new capital of Punjab, Chandigarh. She was heavily involved with the Festival of Britain at the time and was unsure of her ability to take on such a large role in the project. Drew used her considerable charm to great effect, convincing Swiss Architect Le Corbusier to involve himself in the project. Le Corbusier was responsible for the main plan of the city and the principal government buildings – the High Court, Assembly, the Secretariat, etc. Drew first met Le Corbusier before the War at C.I.A.M. (Congrès International des Architects Modernes). She was impressed by the breadth of his knowledge, his experience in addressing the problems of housing in under developed countries, by the power of his personality, and the lucidity of his razor sharp logic. According to Drew, despite his greatness, "he made many mistakes – as does anyone who tries anything new. Among these were the concrete brises soleil to his buildings which acted as heat sinks, radiating heat all night, without cooling, before reheating in the sun the following day. Another mistake could have been the separation of shopkeeper's living quarters from their shops. With the greatest difficulty I persuaded him to allow people to live above their shops! Despite everything, we became firm friends."
Pandit Nehru wanted Chandigarh to be a model city for the thousands of refugees who were arriving daily from Pakistan. He did not want to follow the traditions of the past, but to experiment with new forms of design and planning. As a result of his policy Drew, Fry and Le Corbusier were able to integrate schools, family planning and health clinics, open air swimming baths and open air Theatres with the housing. All the houses had proper sanitary facilities and a good water supply. The cheaper housing was all of a terrace type which allowed the occupants to have larger rooms and more security for their money. Before large numbers were built, Drew constructed prototypes of each different house type which were then lived in, criticised, and improved. In this way she found that the Indians were able to experiment with new types of dwelling. Public open space was provided for all low income housing. House rentals were graded so that no more than a tenth of man's income went on rent. The keeping of animals (such as buffaloes and cows) was banned in the housing, since this custom had led to much fly-borne disease. The Indians were to realise that many of their traditional forms of housing were obsolete and were willing to try out new ways of living. The design of new forms of Housing affected house design throughout India.
War time (1939–1945) Architecture at the time was a male-dominated profession. When Jane practised alone in the war years between 1939 and 1944, her office was at 12 King Street, St. James, London. Initially she employed only female architects, though later this changed. Her work included: 1940 Walton Yacht Works at Walton on Thames, near London 1941 Kitchen Planning Exhibition, Dorland Hall, Lower Regent Street, London 1941–1943 Consultancy to the British Commercial Gas Association 'designed by women for women' 1943 The 'Rebuilding Britain' exhibition at the National Gallery, London 1944 Temporary office at 12 Bedford Square after the King Street office was bombed (with Riehm Marcus, Trevor Dannatt, K. Linden and F.I. Marcus) 1944–1945 Assistant Planning Adviser to the Resident Minister for the West African Colonies
Post-war period (1946–1959) After the war she went into business partnership with Maxwell Fry as Fry, Drew and Partners, then later with others. From January 1946 their practice was at 63 Gloucester Place, London W.1. (above which she and Fry had a flat which was their home),Mentioned in a letter from her sister Dorothy Drew and in 1962 a second office was opened at 3 Albany Terrace. She was in practice with Max Fry until 1977. 1946–1950 Practised as Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew 1946–1962 Jane was founder-editor and joint editor (with Trevor Dannatt) of the Architects' Year Book, brainchild of publisher Paul Elek 1946 The 'Britain Can Make It' exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum 1948 Ghana: Mampong Teacher's Training College and Prempeh College in Kumasi (with Maxwell Fry) 1949 Hospital building for the Kuwait Oil Company 1949 Harlow New Town: The Chantry and Tanys Dell estates: 3- & 4-bedroom terraced houses and 4-storey flats (with Maxwell Fry) 1950 Ghana: Adisadel College and Wesley Girls' High School in the town of Cape Coast (with Maxwell Fry) 1950 Passfields flats in Lewisham, London (with Maxwell Fry) 1950 Interior design for the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) at 17/18 Dover Street, London (with Maxwell Fry, and the collaboration of Eduardo Paolozzi, Nigel Henderson, Neil Morris and Terence Conran). Jane played an important part in its relocation to Carlton House Terrace in 1964. 1951–1958 Practised as Fry, Drew, Drake and Lasdun (with Lindsay Drake and Denys Lasdun) 1951 New Schools building, the Waterloo entrance tower and the Riverside RestaurantMary Banham & Bevis Hillier (eds), A Tonic to the Nation: The Festival of Britain 1951 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1976), p. 103 Jane Drew The Riverside Restaurant for the Festival of Britain (with Maxwell Fry) 1951–1953 in collaboration with Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, Jane and Max worked as senior architects on much of the housing of Chandigarh, the new capital of western part of the divided Punjab in India. Jane persuaded Le Corbusier to involve himself in the project and he redesigned Albert Meyer's original master plan. Le Corbusier left most of the design to Jane, Max and Jeanneret, and they had the collaboration of a team of Indian architects (including B. V. Doshi) on this vast project.
Other works
1953–1959 Buildings in Ibadan, Nigeria: the University College (with Maxwell Fry), the Cooperative Bank, and an Assembly Hall and Maisonettes 1953 Flats at Whitefoot Lane, Downham Estate, Lewisham, London (with Maxwell Fry) 1955 Housing at Masjid-i-Suleiman (the first oil site in the middle east) for Oil Company employees and planning of a new oilfield town at Gachsaran, South Iran 1955–1958 Worked with Denys Lasdun on the design of the Usk Street Housing Estate in Bethnal Green, London 1958–1973 Practised as Fry, Drew and Partners (with Frank Knight and Norman Creamer) 1959 Cooperative Bank, Offices and Shop, Lagos, Nigeria 1959 Cooperative Bank, Assembly Hall and Maisonettes, Ibadan, Nigeria 1959 Gulf House, Gulf Oil Company, London
Later years (1960–1979) 1960 Lionel Wendt Art Memorial Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka 1960 House at Hyver Hill, Hendon, London for Mr & Mrs BroadbentCountry Life, 14 April 1960 1962 Fry, Drew & Partners opened a second office, at 3 Albany Terrace, London NW1 1964 Training Centre, Apowa, Ghana 1964 Housing in the towns of Hatfield and Welwyn 1964 Shell House, Singapore 1964–1966 Conversion of 12 Carlton House Terrace for the ICA, London 1965 Ahmadu Bello Stadium and Swimming Pool, Kaduna, Nigeria 1965 Women's' Teacher Training College, Kano, Nigeria 1965 Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka 1967 Margaret Pyke Memorial (Family Planning) Centre, London (opened by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) 1968 Torbay Hospital and Nurses' Residence, Torquay, Devon 1968 School for Deaf Children, Herne Hill, London 1968 Mauritius National Assembly, Port Louis, (with Maxwell Fry) 1968 Mauritius Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Hospital, Pamplemousses 1969–1977 Buildings for the Open University, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire 1970 Carlton House Terrace for the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London