Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An architect who designed his own house and garden, and served as principal of the AA School.
On the island
Eight records
Macbeth: Act I, Scene 2: "Nel dì della vittoria io le incontrai... Vieni! t'affretta!"
He was the sort of chap that I most admire. A complete autocrat. He had a farm. He had a passion for farming. He loathed the press. He loved brass bands. He was a complete one-off character.
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595: II. Larghetto
Wilhelm Kempff with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Oh, I don't know, just because it was the sort of record I'd love to hear thrown up on a desert island, that's all. Because I I I would cheerfully settle for uh eight Merzott records anyway for the whole programme.
Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 385, "Haffner": II. Andante
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Kubelík
I just get enormous pleasure listening to it. That's all it does to me.
Swan Lake, Op. 20: Act IV, Finale
National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Richard Bonynge
For sentimental reasons, I would love to be on the island and listen to ballet, because I've had such magical times at ballet. And of course it's visual as well. You'll get the dance and you'll get marvellous sets.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge and the New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Willcocks
Forre's Requiem, which uh I'd have full blast every other day, I think.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30Sir Frederick, you've chosen to live in a fairly isolated spot. Does that mean that you could endure isolation?
Well, I don't think it's isolated, because it is part of Harlonio town. I came here not because I wanted to be isolated, because I wanted to make a garden.
Presenter asks
3:36Was there an appreciation of pictures and buildings and art in general [in your background]?
No, not at all. I come from a middle-class liberal background. My father was a shopkeeper. He had a gentleman's outfitter, which my grandfather had before him, and my brother now has. And they were all three splendid Coventry businessmen. We had very little conversation, except about school and just living. We certainly had pretty nearly no music.
Presenter asks
8:54What was the first design that you look back on which you can still see that made an impression?
It was a block of flats in Streatham called Boolman Court. This was in about 1933, I suppose. Actually, I picked up a girl at a dance hall, and she was the secretary of a tycoon who wanted to put money into property. He was a furrier. And he said to me, Look, if you can find a site on which I can put flats for single people, which would be the alternative to the digs, I'll build it. And so I hunted for sites, and in the end, I made several planning applications, and they all failed because the local authorities were worried about what they called encouraging the part-time girl, somebody doing a bit of light whoring in their spare time. But in the end, I got this scheme in.
The keepsakes
The book
Frederick Gibberd (compiler)
I should want a book on poetry. ... there are lots of modern poems that I like. I cut them out of the listener on paper so I could stick them in a book. So I think I'd probably take my own scrapbook, which is a sort of anthology, because it would have all the poems in I particularly like. ... the awful thing about a poem is I know quite a lot by heart. Others, one forgets a word, you see, and it's irritating, and so then I look it up. So if I had this book, this would solve that problem.
The luxury
Of necessity, pleasure? I what I would really like to take would be a bottle of sleeping tablets. ... It's not because I suffer from insomnia, but I watched one or two people take rather a long time dying. And uh the one thing that would frighten me more than anything would be to have a slow death, you'll see. And if I thought, my God, I've got cancer or I've got this, then I could extinguish myself nice and quickly. See, I wouldn't have the courage to drown myself, and I certainly wouldn't uh hang myself, so this would be a nice, easy way out.
Presenter asks
13:21You were invited to design the nineteen fifty-one Festival of Britain. Why did you turn that down?
Oh, because I have limitations and what I do I like to do really well. And I didn't have the sort of imagination that would really really set that alight with as Hugh Casson had, who did it.
Presenter asks
13:39You took on London Airport, which was then just a field. Could you guess what was going to be needed?
Oh, good Lord, no, nobody could. We hadn't got a clue. The whole job was farcical. There was an expert committee that sat and talked about the future of the airport and what should be done there.
“I think most brilliant engineering is not done on a computer. I think it's done by somebody who really gets a spark at intuition.”
“You start with a blank piece of paper on a drawing board and you haven't got a clue what's going to happen. You say it's a marvellous adventure. And suddenly you get a brainwave and you almost fancy that you feel divinity in you breathing wings, to quote Milton. It really is an extraordinary thing. And that is the distinction between art and technology.”
“I always had a passion for gardens. It really started when I was a very small boy. I used to... Having four brothers, I used to find life was intolerable and I'd run away from home and that meant getting on my bike and going to my grandmother who lived five miles away in Nuneden, who had a passion for gardening and she used to get me to garden and I absolutely adored her.”
“I bought this site. And I bought it simply with the object of making a garden. Because I like the soil. See, I like contact with the soil. I like working with it. I like designing. And this was the one way that I could work and design without using a drawing board. So it was a complete relaxation.”