J. Lewis Womersley CBE, FRIBA, FRTPI, Hon. LL.D and MA (12 December 1909 – 28 October 1990) was a British architect and town planner best known for his work as City Architect for Sheffield, leading the team that created the Gleadless Valley, Hyde Park and Park Hill estates. Womersley’s passion was "incorporating buildings, roads, paths, play-grounds, schools and superb landscaping as the complete architectural environment."
Principles
Working under a Labour local government, Womersley believed strongly in creating a better, more egalitarian society through the re-building of post-war Britain. He believed that ordinary people deserve and benefit from thoughtful planning and good architecture, improving tenants’ living experience through the preservation of woodland and separating pedestrians from road traffic. In a letter to The Times (8 July 1965) Womersley laid out his ideas about the coexistence of man and machine:
Traffic should serve not master people. Urban motorway proposals should include careful analysis of the human unhappiness and environmental destruction that will result.
Womersley was dedicated to providing social housing that improved not only quality of living, but quality of life. His housing estates in Sheffield and Northampton were laid out in "crisp and modern style" with "detail and care often missing from later social housing." The scale of urban transformation that Womersley invested during his time in Sheffield remains unique in this country, his department committed to, "creating houses for working people as monuments for future generations rather than shamefaced hutches."
His most famous construction, Park Hill, continues to be celebrated today and at the time of its construction was considered "a brave, enlightened approach to housing – people coming across the world to see it. We are unlikely ever again to see architecture, let alone housing, delivered in such a confident and optimistic way."
Delivering a paper to the Architectural Association in 1966, Womersley was clear that architectural creativity and emotional well-being are not mutually exclusive:
If we are to have joy again we need to make creative design once more the motive force in town and country planning – making a whole-hearted attempt to produce something worthy of today when judged by those of tomorrow.
Womersley’s Local Authority office invested in building schools, churches and other public buildings that were valued locally, but it was their social housing that became of world importance. With his team, Womersley was able to pioneer new building technologies that fostered creativity that placed Sheffield in the forefront of social housing, culminating in the city hosting the RIBA annual conference in 1963.
Training
Womersley was born before the First World War and, in his youth, would have been aware of the hardship endured by ordinary people during the Depression Years through unemployment, poor housing and bad living conditions in the tightly packed Industrial cities of the North. His father, a Huddersfield cloth designer, was unable to see the potential in his son and declined to fund his university education. At Huddersfield School of Architecture, Womersley received a rounded basic training in practical design, building construction and professional practice. He was mentored by Norman Culley, First Head of the school. Writing in his obituary, Womersley described Culley as a man who "had that vital spark that turns a teacher into a leader: boundless enthusiasm, perpetual youthfulness and the power to enthuse and inspire." Both men shared the belief that in order to produce buildings that are worthy of heritage, the architect must strive for ‘beauty through simplicity.’
Following his study of Architecture, Womersley completed a degree in Town Planning and developed a keen interest in the work of the Garden City Movement and sought to emulate for his generation the high qualities of housing layout and amenities achieved in Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. He became a powerful supporter of the movement to create a better, more egalitarian society in the re-building of war-devastated Britain.