a profile of maurice craig
TRANSCRIPT
Irish Arts Review
A Profile of Maurice CraigAuthor(s): Judith HillSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring, 2006), pp. 110-115Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503358 .
Accessed: 14/06/2014 19:08
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Irish Arts Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Arts Review(2002-).
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
A PROFILE OF MAURICE CRAIG
ARCHITECTURE
A Profile of
Maurice JUDITH HILL meets Renaissance man Maurice Craig, a writer whose name is
synonymous with architectural history, yet whose interests and studies have ranged from
bookbinding to steam ships with equal authority
1 Maurice Craig
portrait by David
DavisonOThe Irish
Picture Library
2 The Four Courts
Dublin, as restored
after the destruction
of 1922. Maurice
Craig catalogued the
deviations from the
original in Dublin
1660-1860, and
persuaded the
Board of Works to
reinstate the dies
above the cornices on the wings
3 View along Merrion
Street Upper towards Ely Place; Maurice Craig lived
in an attic nearby in
the late 1940s
As the author of three substantial books on Irish
architectural history, a seminal work on Irish book
bindings and numerous other publications mostly
on Irish architecture, Maurice Craig has a solid if
quiet reputation, as befits a scholarly writer in specialist fields.
Sixteen years ago his wife, Agnes Bernelle, edited D?cantations, a
book of essays by friends in tribute to him, from which he
emerged as an Irish writer of multifarious interests who was par
ticularly inspired by 18th-century Ireland.1 His present house is
almost entirely given over to books; he lives, essentially in a
library. His intellectual lineage is here; rows of 19th-century
^^Hl i* ^JMI^Biii^T^
poets -
Tennyson, Walter Savage Landor, Robert Browning - in
leather bindings, a section dedicated to W B Yeats and the works
of significant 18th-century Irishmen - Grattan, Burke and
Goldsmith. His familiarity with poetry puts him in the Victorian
tradition, as does his appreciation of the Bible as literature. This
tradition is echoed in his cultivated taste for literary rigour - he
particularly enjoys the correct use of vocabulary where it produces
unexpected results. He feels that a good education, rather than
instinct, made him a writer. His library is also a repository of his
own work and that of his friends. There is a shelf of Louis
MacNeice's poetry in first edition Fabers. The work of architec
tural historians - John Summerson, Howard Colvin and
Desmond FitzGerald - are all prominent, and there are sections
on vintage cars, steam ships, bookbinding - all enthusiasms fol
lowed with passion at various times. The books are ordered, but
not rigidly so. Each has its place, but its neighbour is the book
that it has stood beside it for years rather than the book whose
author is alphabetically adjacent.
Maurice Craig a large, vigorous man (Fig 1), and despite his
tastes no relic of a bygone era is willing to talk about his work,
and admits to a feeling of satisfaction in what he has been able to
do; though he is also critical of the results and as interested in
doing the interviewing as being interviewed. He is open and
interested, intellectually stimulating and entertaining, as he was
in his miscellaneous collection of opinion, autobiography and
meditation, The Elephant and the Polish Question. 'One of the
results of having very little talent is that you must put everything
you have into whatever you do. If you manage to accomplish any
thing, there are no reserves left by the time it is done', he writes
in Elephant.1 It is vintage Craig, direct, almost brutally realistic
but not without a sense of satisfaction. An intelligent person who
has encountered a great many talents during his life Craig is
1 i o I
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
4.
^tsu?0^?^?a^^^ ??#?P
.* \{v&?te?
a^T iffe^^^&i?i':]'
*?\lfA?*Vr ' ^
D&?Si ?**!PA
^ ?t^"
c
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
____\ A PROFILE OF MAURICE CRAIG
ARCHITECTURE
1
^^-_?_______________. ?W??k
\^B|k^ ^____^___^
^^^HHES** "^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^BH^^^^^^^S " '
^i^^_^g_____________________\
keenly aware of his abilities and limitations. He has placed him
self in a heirarchy and has then got on with what he wanted to
do. In many ways it is a recipe for a happy working life.
Maurice Craig is most readily associated with Dublin where
he has lived for forty-five years and about which he has written
so much. His roots though are in Belfast. Here his father was an
eye surgeon, and he was brought up in cloistered comfort, largely
untroubled by religion or literature. From here he was sent to
boarding school in Dalkey and later to Shrewsbury School in
England. He never returned, and the impression is that Belfast
is forgotten. However, in 2005 he told an Irish Times journalist
that he treasures Hubert Butler's 1948 translation of CP
Cavafy's poem 'The City'. Butler was a friend and he had dedi
cated the translation to the memory of James Joyce and Trieste;
at nineteen Craig had sought out Joyce in Paris and been
rewarded with conversation. But the poem, which starts with the
poet's desire to leave his home for a 'worthier town' and con
By the ultimate test of architecture the Casino succeeds
beyond a doubt: it has repose. The balance between lightness and stability must always be
struck, though the precise blend will vary enormously
tinues with the realisation that his home city will accompany
him wherever he goes, is also perhaps significant.
It was in Cambridge, where he had won a scholarship to read
history at Magdalen, that he began to develop the interest in archi
tecture that had been awakened in his time in Paris. In 1941 - he
unapologetically avoided the war - he went to Dublin to study the
poet W S Landor for a Phd at Trinity College. He would not leave
the city until 1951. Once his Phd was completed, and supported
by a small private income, he pursued the interests that were pre
occupying him. And Dublin began to possess him. He lived in an
attic flat on the corner of Merrion Square, Upper Mount Street
and Lower Fitzwilliam Street (Fig 3). It is at the heart of Georgian
Dublin, and from there the city still stretches away in four wide
uninterrupted lengths of magnificent brick Georgian terrace. At
that time many of the houses were still inhabited by families and
Craig particularly remembers the felt hung over the doors in sum
mer to protect the paintwork from the sunshine.
Inspired by the beauty of the Casino at Marino (Fig 7) and by
easy access to the Charlemont Papers in the Royal Irish Academy,
Craig's wrote a biography of the first Earl of Charlemont, The
Volunteer Earl, which his friend from Cambridge, John Haywood
of The Cresset Press, published in 1948. In many ways the real
subject of the book is the earl's buildings. In Elephant Craig writes
that the aesthetic element lies at the root of all his responses and
decisions. By then he could also identify it in the mundane, the
112 I
IRISH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2006
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
incidental and the vernacular. In the 1940s he found it where peo
ple traditionally found it; in great art. 'By the ultimate test of archi
tecture the Casino succeeds beyond a doubt: it has repose. The
balance between lightness and stability must always be struck,
though the precise blend will vary enormously', he wrote with a
slightly heavier hand than he would in his succeeding books.3
By 1951 Craig was married and in need of a job and he was
appointed Assistant Inspector of Ancient Monuments in the
Ministry of Works in London. The work, which entailed reporting
on buildings for which grant applications to the Historic Buildings
Council had been made, strengthened his appreciation of the
functioning of buildings and honed his observational skills.
Dublin 1660-1860, researched and written out of his enchantment
with the city, established Craig's reputation as an architectural his
torian.4 In the preface he confidently cleared an intellectual area
for himself: the book was more 'portrait' than ... 'history', based
on observation rather than sources, with only passing references
to political context; it was structured around people who had
contributed to Dublin, but was not to be the aimless chitchat that
he assumed Cresset, who had commissioned the book, expected.
With its urbane easy-going style, its stories and absence of sus
tained argument, it is of its period. But, focusing steadily on the
development of the city, it is an early study in urbanism, inspired
by John Summerson's similarly engaging Georgian London of
1945. Although Craig often focuses on the great classical build
ings of Dublin (Figs 2 6k 10), the book also deals with city ter
races built without architects, and thus he began to investigate
less exalted and vernacular architecture. He was also defining as
Irish an architecture that was popularly associated with British
culture and rule and in many quarters despised (Fig 8). The book
found a much wider audience when it was reprinted in 1969. By
then modest prosperity was beginning to threaten Dublin's
18th-century heritage and the book raised awareness of what was
being targeted. It helped to fuel the conservation movement.
4 Timoleague Friary Co Cork. The
illustration used in The Architecture
of Ireland with Craig's Delage parked
conspicuously in front. Craig considered the Delage to be the 20th
century equivalent of the 18th
century books of Irish Bookbindings
5 The Trench Mausoleum at
Wood lawn, Co Gal way. The largest Mausoleum in Ireland and one of
many drawn by his son, Michael
Craig for Mausolea Hibernica
6 Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin
cl780. A place defined by the
unpretentious but well-proportioned
buildings that Craig delighted in - the
harbour has now been filled in
7 Casino at Marino. Admiration for
the building which was designed
by William Chambers and built in the
years after 1798 led Maurice Craig to write his biography of its patron, Lord Charlemont
?--~,J?" ' ' .1 I.I
SPRING 2006 IRISH ARTS REVIEW | 113
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
^B A PROFILE OF MAURICE CRAIG ARCHITECTURE
8 No 38 North Great
George's Street, Dublin c.1785, illustrated in Dublin
1660-1860. The
residence of John
Pentland Mahaffy, Provost of Trinity
College in the late
19th century, by the
mid- 20th century it was subdivided
into flats
9 Kilcarty, Co Meath,
designed by Thomas
Ivory and probably built 1770-1780.
Modest, perfectly
proportioned and
occupying a 'pivotal
position on the
frontier between the
farmhouse and the
mansion', it is a
classic Irish house
of the middle size
10 River front, Custom House,
1781, designed by James Gandon
rebuilt after 1921
externally little was
changed except for
the use of
Ardbracean rather
than Portland stone
for the dome
Craig's sense of responsibility to the
past is extended to the present and he is also keen that contemporary designers have their opportunities too
During these years in Dublin Craig was also gathering rub
bings, photographs and notes on Irish 18th-century bindings,
encouraged by William O'Sullivan of Trinity College Library.5
Having been persuaded to make a book of his findings, he care
fully applied an archaeological approach gleaned from Harold
Leask, Inspector of National Monuments and a friend. He cate
gorised the work by observing the binding materials, the use of dif
ferent tools, page layout, places of printing and early ownership,
giving many categories, particularly the binders of 18th-century
Irish parliamentary papers, code-names rather than trying to iden
tify individuals. The result is a book which is almost incompre
hensible to the non-specialist but within the field is still regarded as indispensable.6 For Craig it was 'the happiest of all my books by a large margin'. It is also the most beautifully produced of his
books (Craig is highly sensitive to all aspects of book design), not
least because of its confident 1950s modernism. In 1976 Easons
published a very readable account, proposed and written by Craig,
for its Irish Heritage Series. Craig revealed his particular talent
with his work on bookbinding: he focused on an unsung craft and
then homed in on its most outstanding examples; the work of the
Irish 18th-century Parliamentary Binders is unparalleled.7
Craig returned to Dublin in 1970 as Executive-Secretary of
An Taisce. When this post folded he worked freelance for devel
opers, and later for An Foras Forbartha, reporting on buildings.
He also began writing books again. Although a supporter of the
conservation movement in Ireland his work prevented him
being very active, and occasionally he has confounded the con
servation lobby by, for example, arguing against keeping a build
ing that has been compromised with later additions. In his
contribution to the debate in 1975, European Architectural
Heritage Year, he argued for the retention of relatively ordinary
urban buildings where they form a remarkable cityscape, before
this position was popular.8 But his sense of responsibility to the
past is extended to the present and he is also keen that con
temporary designers have their opportunities too: even quite
large areas of central Dublin, he wrote, could be transformed
without 'robbing us of anything that we ought to value'.9
In 1976 he published the quirkily but aptly named Classic Irish
Houses of the Middle Size.10 Here, applying the sensibility he had
shown in Irish bookbindings to Irish architecture, he highlighted often well-crafted, sometimes architect-designed, but until then
largely unsung, 18th-century houses whose qualities he described
and assessed, in the process identifying an Irish type (Fig 9). The
type lies between the great and the low, the fine art tradition stud
ied by connoisseurs and the vernacular tradition investigated by
archaeologists and anthropologists, confirming the 18th-century as
a period when there was a continuum between these two extremes.
When Sam Carr of Batsford asked Maurice to write a general
history of Irish architecture Craig was glad to accept the com
mission.11 He had turned down two earlier requests on the
grounds that not enough was known about the buildings, but by
the early 1970s what might be regarded as the second generation
of Irish architectural historians -
Alasdair Rowan, Charles Brett,
Desmond FitzGerald, Edward McParland, Rosemary ffolliott,
Roger Stalley, Rolf Loeber - had laid down a fairly broad base of
1 1 4 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2 006
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
J, i ai
l??ll
,'i^^.
m
knowledge. Craig had contributed to this with his books,and
with his discovery of some of the buildings of Edward Lovett
Pearce.12 He rose to the challenge with The Architecture of Ireland
from the earliest times to 1880: 'There is a great deal to be said for
arriving on the scene at or soon after the birth of an academic
discipline ... one is in a position
... to help in framing the rules
by which the game is thereafter played.'13 One of his aims was to
discuss unregarded but distinctive vernacular building types such
as Catholic barn-churches of the early 19th century. One of his
achievements was to integrate popularly regarded medieval archi
tecture with still derided post-1700 buildings in a continuous
narrative which intermittently addresses the issue of the
Irishness of Irish architecture.
Maurice Craig, never a theorist, retained his conversational,
urbane tone in the book which, although it has its disadvantages
(an occasionally frustrating vagueness about economic or political
background for example), has the great advantage of matching the
elusiveness of his material. There was (and is) much still to learn,
and the flexibility of Craig's approach easily accommodated this.
The writer of The Architecture of Ireland (Fig 4) appears happiest when he has a definable group of buildings
- early 19th-century
courthouses, for example - about which relatively little is known
but about which he can say a great deal by observing their simi
larities and differences, tracing influences, suggesting groupings,
asserting quality. His ability to observe, note and assess is his
great strength, and it is this element in Architecture which makes
it a still indispensable and enjoyable book.
His last book is Mausolea Hibernica, written in collaboration
with his son, Michael who contributed the delicately detailed
robustly representative drawings (Fig 5). It appeared in 1999
almost as a postscript to his oeuvre. An authoritative account of
a neglected building type there is, ironically, given the subject, a
joie de vive in the production in his relish for the subject and in
the symbiosis of text and illustration.
JUDITH HILL is an architectural historian and writer.
With the exception of Fig 1 all photography ? Maurice Craig, courtesy of the Irish
Architectural Archive, Dublin. An exhibition in tribute to Maurice Craig runs at the
Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin, 20 April - 22 September.
1 Agnes Bernelle, ed, D?cantations, A tribute to
Maurice Craig, The Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1992
2 The Elephant and the Polish Question, The
Lilliput Press, 1990, p. 51
3 The Volunteer Earl, being the life and times of
James Caulfield, First Earl of Charlemont, The
Cresset Press, London, 1948, p. 138 4 Dublin 1660-1860, The Cresset Press, London,
1952, reprinted Allen Figges Ltd, 1969, 1980,
Penguin, 1992
5 William O'Sullivan, 'Binding Memories of Trinity
Library', D?cantations, op. cit, pp. 168-176
6 Irish Bookbindings, Cassell & Co Ltd, London, 1954
7 Joseph McDonnell, Five Hundred Years of the
Art of the Book in Ireland 1500 to the Present, National Gallery of Ireland in association with
Merrell Holberton, London, 1997
8 Maurice Craig, The Architectural Historian, atti
tudes in context', Architectural Conservation: An
Irish Viewpoint, a series of papers read to The
Architectural Association of Ireland, Dublin,
1975, pp. 9-20
9 Ibid, p. 19
10 The Architectural Press, London, 1976.
Reprinted, Architectural Book Publishing Co, New York, 1977. A new edition due in 2006
11 The Architecture of Ireland from the earliest
times to 1880, Batsford, London, 1982, paper back edition, 1989
12 Architectural Drawings in the Library of Elton Hall
by Sir John Vanbrugh and Sir Edward Lovett
Pearce, edited by Howard Colvin and Maurice
Craig, Oxford, 1964, for the Roxburghe Club
13 Elephant, op cit, p. 59
14 The Lilliput Press
SPRING 2006 IRISH ARTS RE VIEW | 1 1 5
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:08:24 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions