ST OLAVES COURT

St Olaves Court was designed by Harley Sherlock (1927-2014). He was an architect and author, and an enthusiastic supporter of city living.  In the 1950s and 1960s Sherlock kicked against the prevailing orthodoxy that concrete tower blocks represented the future of urban architecture. Sherlock forged his reputation during the great postwar rebuilding of London by disproving the dictum of the Modernist movement that high density housing could not be achieved without building high.

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To Sherlock, it was elementary to create a modern version of the Georgian terrace. In his architectural practice, Andrews Sherlock & Partners, he developed a humane solution to the present-day pressure on space, designing four-storey terraced housing.  With his partner Malcolm Andrews, he did this at Blenheim Court in Archway, and Southwood House in Highgate — both faced in “London vernacular” brick that has made a renaissance in residential schemes in the capital in recent years. Each block was divided into two maisonettes with a garden for the lower floor and a roof garden for the upper.  His methods would prove influential on modern-day practices such as CZWG and Levitt Bernstein which now design a lot of housing in London.

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“In the hurry to get people rehoused after the war, my contemporaries tended to see the tower block as the answer,” said Sherlock. “As students, we were all inspired by the idea of Le Corbusier-style tower blocks in parklands. What I hit upon was a modern equivalent of traditional four-storey housing.”

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Sherlock cared passionately about Britain’s built environment and was particularly concerned about the creeping hegemony of the car that was having the effect of choking Britain’s towns and cities, causing pollution and traffic congestion. As chairman in the 1980s of the green transport charity, Transport 2000 (now the Campaign for Better Transport), he campaigned for more investment in public transport and more punitive measures to discourage people from using their cars. In later life Sherlock wrote several books, the most influential of which was Cities are Good for Us (1991). The book presented many ideas of urban regeneration that would later be championed by new Labour and the architect Richard Rogers in his influential report Towards an Urban Renaissance (1999).

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Sherlock was chairman of the London branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1984-86), and chairman of RIBA's planning advisory group (1986-88). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (1987), received an honorary degree from London Metropolitan University (2003), and appointed MBE for services to architecture, conservation, and to the community in Islington (2009).

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Sherlock was also well known as a founder member of CAMRA, the campaign for real ale, which has had a notable impact on traditional pubs across London.

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To hear Harley Sherlock speak on his design philosophy 

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