An ordinary brick terrace, until you go round the back. There stands an extension that Le Corbusier opened.
At a glance
Scroope Terrace runs behind Trumpington Street in Cambridge. Numbers 1 to 7 were built in 1839 and numbers 8 to 12 in 1864, to match. The University’s School of Architecture moved into numbers 1 to 3 in 1924 and took numbers 4 and 5 as it grew. The terrace has been listed since 1972, and in 2013 the listing was revised to include the rear extension of 1958–9.
Key facts
- Built: numbers 1–7 in 1839, numbers 8–12 in 1864 in a matching style
- Ground: the northern part was let by Gonville and Caius College on building leases of forty years
- School of Architecture: moved to numbers 1–3 in 1924, expanding into 4 and 5 through the 1950s and 1960s
- Rear extension: 1958–9, by Colin St John Wilson with Alex Hardy
- Opened by: Le Corbusier, with the sculptor Henry Moore, in June 1959, after both received honorary degrees
- Listed: since 1972, with the front railings; the listing was revised in January 2013 to cover the Wilson extension
- In the garden: a geodesic dome of the Buckminster Fuller kind stood until 2000; a studio building by Mole Architects followed in 2006–07
- GPS: 52.1983, 0.1214 · Open in Google Maps
History
The terrace was speculative housing. Gonville and Caius College let the northern ground on forty-year building leases, and the first seven houses went up in 1839; five more followed in 1864, built to match so that the street reads as one piece.
The University moved its School of Architecture in in 1924, taking the first three houses. Teaching architecture in a row of Victorian family houses sounds like a compromise, and it was, but it also gave the school something a purpose-built faculty rarely has: rooms of domestic size, and a garden.
The school outgrew them. In 1958–9 Colin St John Wilson, who would later build the British Library, designed a rear extension behind number 1 with Alex Hardy. In June 1959 Le Corbusier and Henry Moore came to Cambridge to receive honorary degrees, and opened it.
The dome in the garden
For some forty years the faculty garden held a geodesic dome of the type devised by Buckminster Fuller — a teaching object as much as a structure, and the sort of thing a school of architecture builds for itself. Sources disagree on when it went up. It came down in 2000, and a studio building by Mole Architects took its place in 2006–07.
What you see
From the street, brick and sash windows behind iron railings: a terrace that could be in any English county town of the 1840s. The twentieth century is behind it, not in front, which is why the listing had to be revised to say so.
Sources & resources
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