Tiled mural by Gyula Bajó at former Co-operative House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire

Summary

Tiled mural by Gyula Bajó of the Co-operative Wholesale Society Architects’ Department, attached to Co-operative House, the former commercial premises of the Letchworth, Hitchin and District Co-operative Society, built between 1956 and 1958, now Primark.

Description

MATERIALS: The tiled mural is composed of 800 vitrified ceramic tiles with coloured enamel glazes, which were fired at 900 degrees Centigrade.

PLAN: The former commercial premises of the Letchworth, Hitchin and District Co-operative Society, now Primark, stands at the south-east corner of the Town Square at the junction of Town Square and Queensway. The tiled mural is located at the east end of the north elevation and spans the first and second floors, measuring approximately 8m x 6m (27 ft x 20 ft). The mural is 25 tiles wide on the Town Square elevation and extends around the Queensway elevation with a line of single tiles.

DESCRIPTION: The painted scheme depicts the ‘four cornerstones of a balanced economy – Industry, Commerce, Transport and Agriculture’ (CWS, 1960). The architecture of the New Town is depicted in the top-left corner, heavy industry and transport in the top-right corner, stylised female figures with a spinning-wheel and finished products represent textiles and consumer goods, and the bottom half of the mural represents agriculture and the family unit. Beneath the mural, a cantilevered canopy serves to underline and emphasise the tiled mural whilst pilotis attach it to the ground and define the canted entrance to the building. A Primark sign was attached to the north-east corner and electrical signage added over the cantilevered canopy in the early C21; this signage is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 29 April 2022 to correct a typo in description.

History

Stevenage was the first of a group of eight English post-war settlements established under the New Towns Act in 1946, intended as ‘self-contained and balanced communities for work and living’. Of the new towns around London, only Stevenage, Harlow and Basildon offered the opportunity for a wholly new town centre. Located a mile south-east of Stevenage old town, the new town centre was surrounded by six neighbourhoods, each intended to house around 10,000 people and have their own neighbourhood centre and facilities, including shops, schools, churches, community centres, pubs and recreation grounds. Work on planning Stevenage's new town centre began in 1946 and continued throughout the early 1950s, with the final scheme approved in December 1954. Informed by the ideas of architects and planners including Gordon Stephenson and Clarence Stein, the detailed design was undertaken by Stevenage Development Corporation under Chief Architect Leonard Vincent. The first phase of construction of the town centre, comprising a shopping precinct, surrounding car parks and a bus station, commenced in 1956 and officially opened in April 1959. The fully pedestrian precinct is one of the earliest examples of this kind of development in the world and on a scale unequalled in Europe at the time of its initiation.

As was stated in the Corporation’s journal in 1955, all multiple stores were built under a common contract ‘to secure uniformity in design and construction’. For a few key companies building stores in prominent locations, their premises were designed by in-house architects or consultants, and then modified where necessary by Chief Architect Vincent and his team. This was the case with Co-operative House, the ‘Stevenage Super Store’ of the Letchworth, Hitchin and District Co-operative Society (LHDCS), where the LHDCS engaged the architectural and design services of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). Prominently situated on the south side of Town Square, it was the first major retail premises to open in Stevenage Town Centre (in June 1958). An advertisement of 1959 noted that the Co-op – visited by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in August that year – was ‘remarkable for its architectural style embodying the spirit of the New Stevenage’, adding that it was ‘regarded as one of the outstanding stores in the co-operative movement and has been the subject of praise from all parts of the country’. A ground-floor restaurant was introduced in 1961, and the building was later adapted for use as a Primark in the early 2000s, following the closure of the Co-op store in 1999.

On its north elevation facing the Town Square, the former Co-op features a colourful tiled mural by Hungarian-born artist Gyula Bajó (1907-84). Bajó held his first exhibition in Budapest in 1932 and received a doctorate in art in 1942, after which he sought refuge in England. He and fellow Hungarian artist and architect Endre Hevezi (1923-2017) were taken on as labourers for the pottery firm of Booths and Colcloughs in Stoke in 1948. In their spare time they designed what became known as ‘Bajó Ware’, a popular modern tableware with unusual designs based on historical and mythological themes. Both men left the firm around 1953, Hevezi to continue his architectural studies, while Bajó joined the Architects’ Department of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) as an architect in their London office.

The first of the murals designed by the CWS Architects’ Department appears to have been a two-storey high, hand-painted ceramic tile panel designed and executed by the department’s London branch for Guildford’s new Co-operative Corner site in 1956 (Pearson, 194). The multi-coloured mural ‘depicting local and national aspects of co-operation’, occupied the building’s canted corner above ground-floor level, the design featuring a family, and rural and urban scenes (including the town’s cathedral, then under construction) with a clock at the apex. The Guildford mural was destroyed by a fire in 1963, and Pearson suggests it may have been designed by Bajó. Next came seven small hand-painted tiled panels on the catering department (1956-7, WJ Reed) of the London Co-operative Society at their Stratford administrative centre, the panels depicting modern tableware resembling Bajó Ware. A variation of the Stevenage mural (1957-8) was installed on the side of the LCS administrative centre in Stratford (1959-61) and was most likely also by Bajó; the building has since been demolished, and no detailed photographs of the mural survive (Pearson, 195). The Stevenage scheme is the earliest of the four major surviving Co-op murals of the 1950s and 1960s, the others being located in Ipswich (1963 by Bajó with Endre Hevezi, not listed), Hull (1963 by Alan Boyson, listed at Grade II), and Scunthorpe (1963 by Derek W Brown, not listed).

A CWS pamphlet on ‘Co-operative Architecture’, published in 1960, explains that the Stevenage mural ‘symbolises the spirit and activities of the Co-operative Movement as a whole and in relation to Stevenage’; the iconic form of St Andrew’s Church and hall in Bedwell is recognisable in the top left corner (built in 1954, since demolished). The mural depicts the ‘four cornerstones of a balanced economy – Industry, Commerce, Transport and Agriculture… A spinning-wheel and finished products represent Textiles and Consumer Goods, while the steelworker of Heavy Industry is beside the teaching figure which stands for Science and Technology. The lower part of the picture shows Agriculture – the primary but indispensable branch of production – as a background to the fundamental social unit, the Family’ (CWS, 1960). The mural aroused considerable interest in architectural circles, both in this country and abroad, and was praised by the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and France’s Revue Moderne.

Reasons for Listing

The tiled mural by Gyula Bajó of the Co-operative Wholesale Society Architects’ Department, cladding the north-facing corner of Co-operative House, the former commercial premises of the Letchworth, Hitchin and District Co-operative Society, built between 1956 and 1958, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as an accomplished and high-quality work of art, which emphasises the prominent corner entrance to the former Co-operative House;
* as a fine example of the pioneering commissioning of art works by private companies and local authorities for exhibition in the public realm in the post-war era;
* for its design by Gyula Bajó of the Co-operative Wholesale Society Architects’ Department, a Hungarian-born émigré artist who specialised in ceramics and designed a number of tiled murals for Co-op stores;
* as the earliest of the four major surviving Co-op murals of the 1950s and 1960s, the others being located in Ipswich, Hull and Scunthorpe.

Historic interest:
* as a key piece of public art from the first phase of development of Stevenage New Town centre;
* for the national and international significance of Stevenage New Town centre as one of the earliest examples of a fully-pedestrian shopping precinct in the world.

Group value:
* for the strong group the tiled mural forms with two contemporary pieces of public art on the Town Square, the Grade II listed ‘Joy Ride’ public sculpture by Franta Belsky (1958-9) on the raised platform overlooking the Square (NHLE 1031588), and the Grade II listed clock tower and surrounding raised pool (NHLE 1246827).

External Links

Historic England Listing

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