By Sarah Watson<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most people at the University of Sussex haven\u2019t heard of Sylvia Crowe. Her legacy at the University is strong, but generally silent, existing in the spine of trees that cut across the centre of campus, the cloisters, courtyards, and pathways that give context to our teaching spaces. Crowe, the University\u2019s landscape architect, still choreographs us through our campus, yet most of us are completely unaware that she is doing so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Sussex we like to talk about the beginnings of the University. When we do, we never fail to speak of the campus\u2019 renowned architect, Basil Spence. It was Spence who commissioned Crowe as landscape architect, seeking her advice on how to make the University buildings (to use Spence\u2019s words) \u2018grow out of the soil of Sussex\u2019 (1964, 204). Spence sought the expertise of Crowe, whose work changed the face of twentieth-century Britain as she acted as landscape consultant on the construction of towns, motorways, power stations. Despite these accomplishments, little has been written about her, and she remains absent from most publications about the creation of Sussex. Where she is included, it is only in passing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an article entitled “Why the Fame of Anonymity is the Greatest Fame of all”, Mathew Parris writes that it is wonderful to have created something enduringly famous while remaining anonymous (1998<\/a>). Parris included Crowe in his list of unknown artists, and claimed that creators like her were happy with their anonymity. That somehow their invisibility brought them closer to God. I find it hard to share Parris\u2019 view. Not that I\u2019m claiming to know whether Crowe cared that her contributions to the University went relatively unrecognised. It seems presumptuous to associate anonymity with power, especially when we consider the women who have been silenced in a world that prioritises giving the platform to men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In celebration of International Women\u2019s Day, this blog post starts to unearth the impact of Crowe at Sussex. This task is made difficult because Crowe is missing from almost every publication about the University. I\u2019ve had to look for her elsewhere, in her own writings and on the few writings about her. In these texts, Crowe comes across as commanding and loud, famous in her circles for fierce eye-contact and persuasive communication (British Forestry, 1998<\/a> and Collens and Powell, 1999). With this in mind, it seems strange that she has such a small presence at Sussex, prompting me to consider the legacy of her silence. Crowe is missing from the 1964 seminal publication on the founding of Sussex: David Daiches\u2019 The Idea of a New University. <\/em>This book is a key reference point upon which future discussions about the institution have developed. Because Crowe wasn\u2019t included in conversations from the beginning, it has become very easy to neglect her as time has moved on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Crowe\u2019s legacy at Sussex, and in her landscape designs in general, can be defined as sympathetic to the natural context. In 1955 she wrote that \u2018every landscape has its own character which reacts differently to the incursion of crowds and buildings.\u2019 The architect must ‘design in sympathy with each particular landscape (Crowe, 1955, 250). Almost ten years later, in The Idea of a New University<\/em>, Spence echoes Crowe in his chapter on the building of the Sussex campus. He writes: \u2018Because of the lovely site I was against building high; the trees should top the buildings and continue to form the skyline. The materials should be sympathetic to the location \u2013 a Sussex brick, concrete, knapped flint, copper, timber and white paint\u2019 (Spence, 1964, 205). Although Crowe\u2019s influence underlies Spence\u2019s chapter, he fails to mention her. Perhaps I\u2019m reading too much into this oversight. But if it doesn\u2019t seem strange that Crowe\u2019s influence isn\u2019t credited, then why isn\u2019t it strange that Spence credits far more distant influences, like Robert Adam, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and even Archimedes. The credit to Archimedes compounds the issue of Crowe\u2019s omission. In 1961, the year the University of Sussex opened, Crowe gave a lecture called Civilisation and Landscape,<\/em> which praised the geometry of Greek architecture. She describes=d how the Parthenon is \u2018imperceptibly curved to acknowledge the land formation of its hill\u2019 and reflected on how \u2018the Greeks knew that geometry and natural form were two facets of a single truth\u2019 (95). Once again, in echo of Crowe, Spence\u2019s 1964 chapter heralds the architectural harmony of Athenian colonnades, describing their influence over the University\u2019s physics building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The main aim of this blog isn\u2019t really to criticise Spence for his omission of Crowe, but rather to begin revealing more female aspects of our University heritage, which can be so easily buried beneath the weight of men. It was almost a hundred years ago that Virgina Woolf, in A Room of One\u2019s Own<\/em>, lamented the very heavy, and very male, foundations laid at Oxbridge. It was funding from men that laid the first stone and established the first scholarship. And, as a result of this patronage, Woolf describes how women at Oxbridge, even in 1928, weren’t allowed to walk on the grass. That privilege was still reserved for the male fellows and scholars, who were set to protect \u2018their turf, which has been rolled for 300 years in succession\u2019 (Woolf, 2000, 8). With the building of the 1960s plate glass universities, like Sussex, came new ways of doing things. The turf at our campus wasn\u2019t rolled out by a man, but by a woman, and Crowe\u2019s landscape should be celebrated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we begin to unearth Crowe, it becomes clear that there\u2019s more to Sussex than first meets the eye. Our campus reveals itself as a complex organism\u2014\u201cof which man is only a part\u201d (Crowe, 1961, 95). I suggest we delve deeper into Crowe\u2019s presence at Sussex. Who knows what we might uncover?<\/p>\n\n\n\n British Forestry (1998) \u2018A tribute to Dame Sylvia Crowe’s landscape work for British Forestry\u2019, Forestry<\/em>, 71(1), pp. 83\u201385. Available at: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/forestry\/71.1.83<\/a> (Accessed: 10 May 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crowe, S. (1961) \u2018Civilisation and landscape\u2019, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts<\/em>, 110(5066), pp. 93\u2013102. Available at: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/41367049<\/a> (Accessed: 10 May 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Collens, G and Powell, W. (1999) Sylvia Crowe<\/em>. Reigate, Surrey: LDT Monographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parris, M. (1998) \u2018Why the fame of anonymity is the greatest fame of all\u2019, The Spectator<\/em>, 3 January, p. 8. Available at: https:\/\/archive.spectator.co.uk\/page\/3rd-january-1998\/8<\/a> (Accessed: 10 May 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spence, B. (1964) \u201cBuilding a New University.\u201d In Daiches,<\/em> D (ed.)The Idea of a New University<\/em>. London: Andre Deutsch, 201\u201316. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Woolf, V. (2000) A Room of One\u2019s Own<\/em>. London: Penguin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Sarah Watson Most people at the University of Sussex haven\u2019t heard of Sylvia Crowe. Her legacy at the University is strong, but generally silent, existing in the spine of trees that cut across the centre of campus, the cloisters,…<\/span><\/p>\nReferences <\/h3>\n\n\n\n