Last month I attended a memorial celebration for design historian Charlotte Benton who died on 22nd January 2024. Charlotte was a pivotal design historian who worked in several ways to advance the field.

Charlotte’s Memorial Celebration at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge

The memorial celebration was hosted on 9th February 2024 by Professor Emeritus Tim Benton at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, with the support of Mary Ann Steane, Director of Studies in Architecture there. The college was founded in 1954 as New Hall, to tackle the fact that Cambridge had one of the lowest rates of women students in the UK. The land was donated by Charles Darwin’s descendants. The main building was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, and built by W. C. French Ltd., who constructed the first motorway bridges on the M1. It opened in 1964. The college was renamed following a donation of £30 million by alumna Dr Ros Edwards and her husband Steve, in their honour and for the college’s first president Dame Rosemary Murray. On the day of my visit, in February, the grounds were scattered with flowering bulbs including some very happy hellebores.

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Two views of the main building, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon (1964). Photographs by Grace Lees-Maffei, 9th February 2024.

At the memorial, Tim showed a beautiful carousel of photographs of Charlotte throughout her life (including the portraits which top and tail this post), and he gave a PowerPoint presentation about her life and work. We listened to a ‘radio vision’ recording of her voice for the Open University course A305, and a recording of her interviewing another Charlotte, Charlotte Perriand, in French. As the current Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Design History, I said a few words about Charlotte’s generosity as an editor, and remembered spending a charming evening at her house in Cambridge with my husband, Nic Maffei. Nic had recently written a chapter about American Art Deco and streamlining for the book Charlotte and Tim edited with Ghislaine Wood, Art Deco 1910-1939, to accompany a blockbuster V&A exhibition. Ghislaine also gave a speech at the memorial, about curating the V&A’s Art Deco exhibition with Charlotte and Tim, and Charlotte’s kindness to her. Finally, Stephen Bayley remembered Charlotte as a friend and colleague during the early days of the Open University course. All of us attested to Charlotte’s expertise and generosity.

Open University Course A305

A305 was a landmark in the development of design history. Open University films aired on the BBC, so anyone could watch them. Some of the A305 films are available as a playlist made available by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, which in 2018 hosted an exhibition about the course called ‘The University Is Now on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture’, and which also published some related oral history interviews. A305 extended beyond film to textbooks, slide collections and audio recordings.

Some of the Open University course books for A305 in my collection, including Design 1920s prepared by Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton and Aaron Scharf (1975). Photograph by Grace Lees-Maffei, 21st March 2024.

My knowledge of the A305 course is based from course books I have collected and read, and from a conference commemorating the course ‘40 Years On: The Domain of Design History Looking Back Looking Forward’ which I attended on 22nd May 2015, at the Open University campus in Milton Keynes. Charlotte was involved in the organisation of the conference, advising Professor (now Emerita) Elizabeth McKellar. I was struck by the enthusiasm and even fondness for A305 displayed by the design historians assembled there, many of whom - like me - had neither attended nor worked at the Open University, but had read the course books, used them in teaching, watched the films and learned a lot in the process.

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My snapshots from the conference ‘40 Years On: The Domain of Design History Looking Back Looking Forward’: tulips welcome visitors to the Open University campus, Church Lane, Milton Keynes; Prof Elizabeth McKellar opens the conference with Profs Penny Sparke and Christopher Breward in the audience; courtyard topiary in two colours in the shape of the Open University logo. 22nd May 2015.

Attendees of the memorial celebration at Murray Edwards College were given a pamphlet, prepared by Tim Benton, about Charlotte’s life and work. I was happy to write a text remembering Charlotte’s immense contribution to the development and first decade of the Journal of Design History, as follows.

Charlotte Benton and the Journal of Design History

From 1984-7, Charlotte was a member of the Design History Society sub-committee tasked with setting up what became the Journal of Design History. From 1987, she was a member of both the DHS Executive Committee and the first Editorial Board of the JDH. As Production Editor for the journal’s first decade, Charlotte supported hundreds of authors in facing what she vividly described as ‘the inexorable guillotine of the publisher's deadline’.[i] They included Christopher Breward, who remembered that Charlotte was assigned editor for his ‘first and only article in the JDH - a truly formative experience! One I'm very grateful for.’[ii] 

My near-complete run of the Journal of Design History, with the first ten volumes produced by Charlotte Benton. Photograph by Grace Lees-Maffei, 8th June 2023.

Among Charlotte’s publications is the aforementioned monumental co-edited book, Art Deco, 1910-1939, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2003 to accompany its exhibition on Art Deco,[iii] and a range of contributions to the JDH. These include reports on events such as a forum on reproduction fees, regular reviews, resources,[iv] and an obituary for fellow JDH Editorial Board member and Open University colleague in the creation of landmark course A305, Anthony Coulson.[v] Charlotte’s research articles for the JDH are:

‘Le Corbusier: Furniture and the Interior’,[vi]

A two-part article about Daniel Libeskind’s unbuilt extension for the V&A,[vii]

‘From Tubular Steel to Bamboo: Charlotte Perriand, the Migrating Chaise-longue and Japan’.[viii]   

I saw a bamboo chaise-longue, of the kind analysed by Charlotte Benton, on display in an enormous retrospective exhibition, ‘Charlotte Perriand: Inventing a New World’ at Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, which ran from 2nd October 2019 to 24th February 2020. Photograph by Grace Lees-Maffei, 1st November 2019.

One function of academic journals is, as the word ‘journal’ implies, to serve as a record of current knowledge and awareness in a field, but it is also important that the journal editors catalyse the research agenda. Charlotte’s 1988 Editorial for the Journal’s first special issue, on German design, called for:

‘systematic examination and analysis of the careers of individual designers, the history of institutions (schools of art and design, museums, professional groups), and of particular sectors in which design plays a significant part (such as the automobile, furniture, and printing industries) during the period 1933-45.’[ix]

Charlotte Benton’s contribution to the field is built not only on her excellent scholarship and writing but also her many decades of work behind the scenes in which she applied her editor’s eye to drive projects and outputs to fruition. I know from my own experience as Editor and Book Reviews Editor (2002-8), Managing Editor (2011-17), and Chair (2021-6) of the Journal of Design History that editorial work is time-consuming, painstaking, selfless and largely invisible. Yet, I am sure that it is for this, as well as her many other attributes, that Charlotte Benton will be remembered.

Thank you to Charlotte’s family for providing the portraits of Charlotte. Photographs above, and top, by Tim Benton.

References

[i] C. Benton. 1988. ‘Editorial’, Journal of Design History 1 (3-4): iii. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/1.3-4.iii

[ii] C. Breward. 2024. Email to the author. 1 February. Breward’s article is Christopher Breward. 1994. ‘Femininity and Consumption: The Problem of the Late Nineteenth-Century Fashion Journal’, Journal of Design History 7 (2): 71–89. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/7.2.71

[iii] C. Benton, T. Benton and G. Wood (eds.). 2003. Art Deco 1910–1939. London: V&A Publications.

[iv] C. Benton, C. Cunningham, A. Powers. 1994. ‘Forum on Reproduction Fees, Parsifal College, London, 29 June 1994’, Journal of Design History 7 (4): 312–313 https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/7.4.312; C. Benton, 1990. ‘Selection of Texts on Aspects of Furniture Design’. Journal of Design History 3 (2-3): 157–174. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/3.2-3.157

[v] C. Benton. 2000. ‘Obituary: Anthony Coulson, 1944-2000’, Journal of Design History 13 (3): 245-7. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/13.3.245

[vi] C. Benton. 1990. ‘Le Corbusier: Furniture and the Interior’. Journal of Design History 3 (2-3): 103–124. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/3.2-3.103

[vii] C. Benton. 1997. ‘”An insult to everything the Museum stands for” or “Ariadne’s thread” to “Knowledge” and “Inspiration”? Daniel Libeskind’s Extension for the V & A and its Context, Part I’. Journal of Design History 10 (1): 71–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/10.1.71; Charlotte Benton. 1997. ‘”An insult to everything the Museum stands for” or “Ariadne’s thread” to “Knowledge” and “Inspiration”? Daniel Libeskind’s Extension for the V & A and its Context, Part II’. Journal of Design History 10 (3): 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/10.3.309

[viii] C. Benton. 1998. ‘From Tubular Steel to Bamboo: Charlotte Perriand, the Migrating Chaise-longue and Japan’. Journal of Design History 11 (1): 31–58. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/11.1.31

[ix] C. Benton. 1988. ‘Editorial’, Journal of Design History 1 (3-4): iii. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/1.3-4.iii