Justin Blanco White
Architect
1911 – 2001
01Profile
02 Main Projects
03Employment
04 Awards and Honours
01PROFILE
Margaret Justin Blanco White was born on 11 December
1911 . She came from an intellectually distinguished family.
Her father, George Rivers Blanco White, was a lawyer who
defended suffragettes and ‘Irish conspirators’. Her mother
was the writer Amber Pember Reeves .
From September 1929 she studied at the Architectural Association in London. In 1931 she was awarded a travelling
scholarship by the AA with which she visited Austria. In 1932
she travelled in Russia and Germany and the following year,
1933 , she was Henry Jarvis Student and made a study tour
of France. She sat the RIBA final examination in July 1934 .
She married Conrad Hal Waddington, a lecturer in Genetics
and Fellow at Christs College Cambridge in 1936 and designed housing in the city for a number of years. A notable
example is the modern movement “Shwams” house in Cambridge 1938 – 1939 , which is now Grade II* listed. She was
elected ARIBA in 1939 , her proposers being Howard Robertson, E Maxwell Fry and C Dudley Harbron.
In the years leading up to and during the Second World War
Justin Blanco White worked with Mary Crowley and Erno
Goldfinger developing design proposals for housing, nursery and holiday camps for families. This influenced much of
her future work and career.
In the late 1940 s Justin Blanco White took a post with the
Civil Service in Edinburgh. Blanco White took a significant
role in the formation of statutory development plans for
Scottish cities and boroughs during the 1950s. She pioneered development work in standards for low-cost houswomen in architecture Creating Change ing and contributed to the design of houses for the elderly.
Whilst working at this large scale there was an increasing
interest in her early private housing projects. In 1958 Pat Merton, a physiologist, purchased a site adjacent to “Schwams”
House and decided he wanted Blanco White, to design his
house. As she was living in Edinburgh she enlisted the help
of Cambridge architect David Croghan.
Blanco White’s research and articles were published in the
1940 s, 50 s and 60 s. Focussing initially on: planning, modern
methods of construction and urban and rural housing, she
was also increasingly involved in research and development in the fields of health and education. In 1948 she wrote
“The School Looks Around” with Elizabeth Layton, it was
published by the Association for Education in Citizenship
(whose board included Anthony Eden and then Prime Minister Clement Attlee). It promoted the concept of the local
survey by school pupils as an adventurous process, a “voyage of discovery into the life, history and organisation of the
locality”. She wrote what was to become a definitive work
on the design of hospital casualty and out-patient departments, a book later used across the United Kingdom.
In the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 1975 she was
awarded an OBE for her work as superintending architect
of the Scottish Office. She was survived by her daughters,
Dame Caroline Humphrey, an anthropologist and Professor
Margaret Dusa Waddington McDuff , a mathematician, both
of whom are highly distinguished in their fields.
Justin Blanco White
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02 MAIN PROJECTS
1938 “Shawms” House, Conduit Head Road,
Cambridge
1939 RIBA Industrial housing competition entry,
with Erno Goldfinger and Mary Crawley.
1939 Building Centre: School and holiday camp
competition with Erno Goldfinger and Mary
Crawley.
1957 Leith Fort Housing, Leith, Edinburgh with Rachel
Wilson and Albert Abbott, 21 storey point block,
7 storey access deck housing an courtyard
housing. Won Civic Trust commendation 1966
1961 12 Lansdowne Road, Cambridge with David
Croghan
1960s Redesign of the studio of the artist John Piper
03EMPLOYMENT
1938-39 1939 1940s 1957 Working in studios USA
Working in studios in Hull
Civil Service, Edinburgh
Practice Edinburgh, Rachel Wilson and
Albert Abbott
1960/70s Superintending architect to the
Scottish Office
04 AWARDS AND HONOURS
1931 1933 1975 Awarded AA Travelling Scholarship: Austria
Henry Jarvis Student Award
Awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE )
women in architecture Creating Change Justin Blanco White
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