Harold (Harry) William Weedon

• Birth date            9 August 188
• Death date          17 June 1970

Harry Weedon was born in Handsworth, Birmingham, the son of James Weedon, a commercial traveller, and Sarah and was educated at King Edward's School in the city. He studied architecture at the Birmingham School of Art from 1904, before being articled to the architectural practice of Robert Atkinson. In 1912 at the age of 24 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and went into partnership with Harold S. Scott. Their early commissions included several upmarket houses in Warwickshire and the purpose-built Birchfield Cinema in Birmingham, at a time when most cinematograph performances were being given in converted halls. He had already built up a flourishing practice when work dried up and he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps in 1914.

On his demobilisation in 1917 he set about re-establishing his architectural practice in Birmingham, however, an extra-marital affair and divorce severely tarnished his reputation and he spent the following years in Leamington Spa working for a friend in the catering industry. He returned to Birmingham and to architecture in 1925 and was soon receiving commissions for a number of high quality houses and for commercial and industrial buildings in the Midlands. His practice continued to grow rapidly until temporarily halted by the 1930-31 recession, after which he became increasingly involved in the layout and development of housing estates in the Birmingham area.

In 1932 he designed an extension of a factory in Hockley, Birmingham for the firm of Deutsch and Brenner. This brought him to the attention of Oscar Deutsch – the factory's owner's son – who was in the process of building up his Odeon chain of luxury cinemas. Dissatisfied with the interior proposed for his cinema then under construction in Warley near Birmingham. Deutsch approached Weedon to complete the design. Weedon’s office at the time numbered only six staff with only Weedon having any cinema experience, so Cecil Clavering was recruited to help complete the work. Robert Andrew Bullivant (1910-2001) joined the Harry Weedon practice in 1935 and was responsible for the design of the Odeon cinemas at Chester, York, Burnley, Exeter and Rhyl. Both assistants had connections with R A Cordingley (qv). Professor of Architecture at Manchester University School of Architecture.

The 1930s witnessed important developments in architecture. Stylistically it is possible to trace not only the advent of the Modern Movement, but also the continuing legacy of the Exposition des Arts Ditcoratifs. Paris, 1925, which helped to establish Art Deco as a major international style. Also apparent was the emergence of new building types to fulfil new functions in an age of rapid technological changes. Cinemas, airports and underground stations all developed a distinctive architecture of their own during this period and presented the architect with new challenges, none more so than the Odeon cinema chain, with its distinctive house style, which became almost a byword for movie going during the 1930s. Between 1934 and 1939 Harry Weedon designed over 150 cinemas and was connected with many more for Oscar Deutsch throughout the British Isles including the flagship Odeon in Leicester Square.

In March 1939 the practice was thriving and Harry Weedon took three of his senior staff into partnership; but on the outbreak of War in September of that year the large programme of commercial, private and industrial work upon which the partnership was engaged stalled, while the take-over of the Odeon group by J. Arthur Rank on the death of Deutsch in 1942, saw their cinema design work evaporate. When the bombing of Birmingham began in the autumn of 1940 Weedon became increasingly active in the dispersal of vital factory installations from the city to less vulnerable areas.

In 1950 the partnership was appointed architects to the then Austin Motor Company and later to the British Motor Corporation involving a vast expansion of the Longbridge plant, the Morris plant at Cowley. Pressed Steel at Cowley, Swindon. Linwood and Swansea, and B.M.C factories at Llaneliy. Bathgate and Kirby.

Address
1935    84 Colmore Row Birmingham

Obituary        Times Saturday 20 June 1970 page 12
Reference    Bruce Peter: Form Follows Fun: Modernism and Modernity in British Pleasure Architecture