International studio (16.1902)

W. H. Bidlake


BIRMINGHAM ARCHITECT—
W. H. BIDLAKE. BY A. S.
WAIN WRIGHT.

There is probably no architect in
Birmingham who has influenced and guided, the
younger men of his profession to the same extent as
Mr. W. H. Bidlake.
Though his earlier architectural training was
acquired in London, where, amongst other awards
for special merit he gained the R.I.B.A. Pugin
Travelling Scholarship, he has, since his residence
in Birmingham, closely identified himself not only
with his profession, but with its highest ideals, and,
above all, with its teaching.
For ten years he was instructor at the Central Art
School in Margaret Street, until pressure of work
compelled him to relinquish a position in which
he holds the remark-
able record of never
having once missed a
class or lecture through
the whole of his tenure
°f office. He still re-
tains the post of lecturer
uPon Architectural
Mistory at the school.
With Mr. Bidlake’s
Public buildings this
article does not con-
Cern itself, nor is it
Necessary to more than
record in passing his
£teat love of Gothic,
and his belief in its
vitality.
The Kyrle Hall in
Birmingham, and St.
Agatha’s and St. Os-
wald’s churches, are
aftiongst his notable
Achievements; but it
ls of his work as a
designer and builder of
Private houses, and of
principles under-
y*ng his work, that we
Msh to speak here.
Mr. Bidlake takes
Option to the term
D
V,
father

Uildi

and prefers
“ Domestic

of his preference he argues that in past times the
house, built more or less according to traditional
rules by the workmen of the district, was the simple
and direct outcome of those rules applied to the
wants of the owner and to the limitations of the
site and local materials. It is because some special
architectural effort has been made that much good
house-building has been marred, and the “suburban
villa ” has become so painfully obtrusive.
In fact, the “suburban villa,” with samples of
every manner of building—brick, half timber, tile
hanging, and rough cast—all crowded into the
space of one small house, with the addition,
perhaps, of terra-cotta string courses and carved
stone lintels, which must be provided, as every
sane man knows, at the cost of the general excel-
lence of material and workmanship, is to Mr.
Bidlake an ever-present example of the very points

ng.” In support

“WOODGATE,” FOUR OAKS, NEAR BIRMINGHAM W. H. BIDLAKE, ARCHITECT

245