- Cecil Clavering
John Cecil Clavering OBE (
17 April 1910 –6 October 2001 ) was an Englisharchitect , best known for his work designingOdeon Cinemas as part ofHarry Weedon 's architectural practice in the 1930s, and his later work as the architect of thePublic Record Office inKew ,London .Life
Clavering was born and educated in
Sunderland , the son of a schoolmaster. At the age of seventeen he was articled to a firm of architects inSouth Shields while studying architecture at Armstrong College, Newcastle, where he was introduced to the work ofLe Corbusier ,Willem Marinus Dudok ,Erich Mendelsohn andBerthold Lubetkin . With a travelling scholarship he visited the major architecture centres ofItaly ,Austria andGermany in 1929 and 1930.cite news|title=Cecil Clavering|url=|work=The Times |publisher=Times Newspapers Ltd|page=19|date=2001-10-24|accessdate=]Clavering's work at the time included the draughtsmanship or design of several cinemas in South Shields and
Newcastle upon Tyne .cite news|first=Allen|last=Eyles|title=Obituary: J. Cecil Clavering|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/j-cecil-clavering-729627.html|work=The Independent|publisher=Independent News and Media Limited|page=6|date=2002-01-02|accessdate=2008-06-28] Clavering was unhappy with the classical detailing that was required for the cinemas, however - feeling that such ostentatious decoration was inappropriate in poor areas and also presented practical problems when reproduced interracotta orfaience - and concluded that "the answer appeared to be the new architecture advocated byLe Corbusier and the Germans".cite book|last=Eyles|first=Allen|title=Odeon Cinemas 1: Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation|year=2002|publisher=BFI Publishing|location=London|isbn=0851708137|pages=50|chapter=]Clavering's opportunity came when
Harry Weedon was commisioned to redesign the interior of a cinema being built inWarley forOscar Deutsch , owner of the expandingOdeon Cinemas chain. Weedon's practice at the time numbered only six architects, none of whom except Weedon himself had any experience of cinema design, so Clavering was recruited to complete the job.References
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