Philip Morton Shand

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Philip Morton Shand (21 January 1888 - 30 April 1960) was an English architect and design critic, a proponent of modernism, and wine and food writer.

Contents

[edit] Life

He was educated at Eton College, King's College, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne[1].

Reviewing the Exposition Internationale in Paris of 1925, he coined the term "Swedish grace" for Scandinavian design[2][3].

He was a translator and correspondent of the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius[4]. Shand with Jack Pritchard helped with Gropius's emigration in 1934[5]. With Wells Coates and Maxwell Fry he founded the MARS Group (Modern Architectural Research Group), in existence from 1933 to 1937[6]. It came into existence at the prompting of Siegfried Giedion, after Shand wrote to him[7]. A series of articles under the title Scenario for a Human Drama, in Architectural Review of 1934-5, was Shand's attempt to document and place the contemporary architecture in Europe[8]. In seven parts it set out ideas on the evolution of Continental modernism[9].

With Geoffrey Boumphrey, he set up a company Finmar in 1933 to import Alvar Aalto's furniture into the UK[10]. He set up a London exhibition for Aalto[11]. In 1935 he visited Aalto's factory in Finland, with Jack Pritchard and Graham Reid[12].

[edit] Works

  • A Book of French Wines (1925)
  • A Book of Food (1927)
  • A Book of Other Wines - Than French (1929)
  • Bacchus or Wine To-Day and To-Morrow (1929)
  • Modern Theatres and Cinemas (1930)
  • Building: The Evolution of an Industry (1954)

[edit] Translations

  • Arthur Schnitzler, Playing with Love
  • Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus

[edit] Family

He was the son of Alexander Faulkner Shand (1858-1936), barrister and writer, and his wife Augusta Mary Coates. He married four times. His children include Bruce Shand and Elspeth Howe, Baroness Howe of Idlicote (by his fourth wife Sybil Mary Sisson).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Alan Windsor, Letters from Peter Behrens to P. Morton Shand, 1932-1938, Architectural History, Vol. 37, (1994), pp. 165-187.
  2. ^ Katherine E. Nelson, Raul Cabra, New Scandinavian Design (2004).
  3. ^ See also sv:Swedish grace
  4. ^ SERIES PP/29
  5. ^ http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1251640, note 34.
  6. ^ The MARS Group / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum : - Design/Designer Information
  7. ^ Eric Paul Mumford, The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928-1960 (2000), p. 91.
  8. ^ Theme: Centenary, 1935-1951. (architecture) - The Architectural Review | Encyclopedia.com
  9. ^ Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968 (2005), p. 314.
  10. ^ MOMA timeline
  11. ^ Alvar Aalto: Through the Eyes of Shigeru Ban
  12. ^ 1935


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