Arne Jacobsen and the 'Total Design’ of St Catherine’s College, Oxford

St Catherine’s College, Oxford: landscape and buildings designed by Arne Jacobsen. Image Andrew Lawson

Having written books on the gardens of both universities, Tim Richardson describes St Catherine’s (universally known as St Catz) as the premier modernist exercise among the Oxbridge colleges. In this talk he describes the genesis of the design and Jacobsen’s uncompromising approach to every detail. The design is unusual in that Jacobsen oversaw both building and landscape in a spirit of complete equality, lending the whole a balance and seamlessness which is rare indeed. Nevertheless, our speaker has certain reservations about the result, in terms of its fitness for purpose as a college and as a home for students.

Tim Richardson is a garden and landscape historian and critic and the author of a number of books including The Arcadian Friends: The Invention of the English Landscape Garden, Avant Gardeners and The New English Garden, as well as books on the gardens of both Oxford and Cambridge. He is a columnist on the Daily Telegraph, art critic for The Idler magazine and formerly gardens editor at Country Life. He teaches landscape history at London University and wrote Oxford University's course on English garden history. He is founder-director of the Chelsea Fringe Festival.

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