page_title: Giles Gilbert Scott
section_title: 1920s
hierarchical_section_title: Giles Gilbert Scott / Life and career / 1920s
caption_attribution_description: Cropthorne Court, en:Maida Vale, London. en:1930 by en:Giles Gilbert Scott; the unusual treatment of the front is in order to obviate the need for lightwells. en:Category:Images of London
context_page_description: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott OM RA FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on the Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and designing the iconic red telephone box. Scott came from a family of architects. He was noted for his blending of Gothic tradition with modernism, making what might otherwise have been functionally designed buildings into popular landmarks.
context_section_description: As Liverpool Cathedral rose Scott's fame grew, and he began to secure commissions for secular buildings. One of the first was for Clare College, Cambridge, Memorial Court, which was in a neo-Georgian style on the west bank of the River Cam. This style was also used for Chester House, a house he designed for himself in Clarendon Place, Paddington in 1924, which won the annual medal for London street architecture of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1928. Scott's residential buildings are few; one of the best known is the Cropthorne Court mansion block in Maida Vale, where the frontage juts out in diagonals, eliminating the need for lightwells.
  Scott continued working on churches during the inter-war years. Shortly after his work on the nave at Downside Abbey he was commissioned to design the small Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady & St Alphege, Bath, the first part of which was completed in 1929. His design was inspired by the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. Scott's distillation of the main elements of that large and ancient church into the much smaller Bath parish church has been described as "a delight" which "cannot fail to astonish". Some 25 years later he wrote "The church was my first essay into the Romanesque style of architecture. It has always been one of my favourite works". On the capital of one of the pillars beneath the west gallery W. D. Gough carved a representation of the architect, and a shield inscribed "Aegidio architecto" (By Giles the architect) – possibly the only depiction of Scott in stone.
  Scott's most ubiquitous design was for the General Post Office. He was one of three architects invited by the Royal Fine Arts Commission to submit designs for new telephone kiosks. The invitation came at the time Scott was made a trustee of Sir John Soane's Museum. His design was in the classical style, topped with a dome reminiscent of the mausoleum Soane designed for himself in St Pancras Old Church yard, London. It was the chosen design and was put into production in cast iron as the GPO's "Kiosk no. 2" or "K2". Later designs adapted the same general look for mass production: the Jubilee kiosk, introduced for King George V's silver jubilee in 1935 and known as the "K6", eventually became a fixture in almost every town and village.
caption: Cropthorne Court, Maida Vale (1930).
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