Geoffrey Bazeley (1906 – 1989) was a British Modernist architect, born in

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

into a family of

shipowner A shipowner, ship owner or ship-owner is the owner of a ship. They can be merchant vessels involved in the shipping industry or non commercially owned. In the commercial sense of the term, a shipowner is someone who equips and exploits a ship, us ...

s and traders. In 1935, he was commissioned to build Tregannick House in Cornwall and set up his own practice there. Tregannick has been described as "one of the best Modern Movement houses in the west of England".

Career

Bazeley studied architecture at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

(1926–29) and then at the Architectural Association in London (1929–32). He was known for his

Modernist architecture Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural architectural movement, movement and architectural style, style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco Architectu ...

. He was first employed as an assistant to George Grey Wornum on the

RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130

building on Portland Place, London W1. In 1933 he began working for the Russian-born Modernist Serge Chermayeff (who co-designed one of Britain's most iconic 1930s buildings, the De La Warr Pavilion), acting as the principal assistant for Shrub's Wood in

Chalfont St Giles Chalfont St Giles is a village and civil parish in southeast Buckinghamshire, England. It is in a group of villages called The Chalfonts, which also includes Chalfont St Peter and Little Chalfont. It lies on the edge of the Chiltern Hills, we ...

, Buckinghamshire. Bazeley started his architectural practice in Penzance in 1936 and after the war opened branches in

St Austell Saint Austell (, ; ) is a town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. At the 2021 Census in the United Kingdom, census it had a population of 20,900. History St Austell was a village centred ...

and

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

. He went into partnership with Peter Barbary. The firm had a very good reputation and won an award for Housing in the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

in 1950. They received a substantial amount of work from the

War Office The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at ...

, and were also responsible for the cinema in

Hayle Hayle (, "estuary") is a port town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated at the mouth of the Hayle River (which discharges into St Ives Bay) and is approximately northeast of ...

, an hotel in Penzance, the Farley Building in Plymouth and the English China Clays headquarters in St Austell. Barbary died in 1970 and Portland Square was put under compulsory purchase by the Polytechnic in 1972. After this Bazeley merged into partnership with Mr Miller-Williams in Looe Street, the Barbican, Plymouth. In 2001, Bazeley, Miller-Williams and Corfield merged with The Jonathan Ball Practice to become The Bazeley Partnership.

Selected works

In 1935, he was commissioned to build Tregannick House in Cornwall and set up his own practice there. It was his first major solo commission, and it clearly shows how he had imbibed the lessons of both Serge Chermayeff and his partner,

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (); 21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German-British architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinem ...

. Bazeley’s later projects included the modernisation of the Seaton Barracks in

, offices for the ECL group in St Austell, and the new See House for the Bishop of Truro.

References

External links

Hilltop house at Tregannick
from themodernlocation.net
Tregannick from Timesonline

The Farley building, Plymouth
from 'Derelict Places' website {{DEFAULTSORT:Bazeley, Geoffrey 1906 births 1989 deaths Architects from Cornwall People from Penzance 20th-century English architects