Camden New Journal - News: Plaque tribute to expert who surveyed nation’s buildings

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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 8 November 2007

He would have been delighted: Sir Nikolaus’ family together in Hampstead

Plaque tribute to expert who surveyed nation’s buildings

Refugee from Nazis found a home with a view – and never moved again

THE attractions of a house overlooking Hampstead Heath were such that when architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner found a Victorian red-bricked terrace with a Heath view in 1936 he never moved house again.
He arrived at No 2 Wildwood Terrace after fleeing Nazi Germany, and on Monday an English Heritage blue plaque, recording his connection with the house, was unveiled as three generations of his descendants looked on.
Pevsner, author of a famous series of guides to the nation’s architecture, first came to England in 1930 to research architecture, and was later to settle in Hampstead after Nazi race laws meant he had to leave his post as a lecturer at the University of Ottingen.
Unveiling the plaque, English Heritage’s Gavin Stamp paid tribute to the dedication Pevsner needed to survey the architecture of an entire country. “He was a workaholic – and he simply could not have written such a comprehensive guide if he was not,” he said.
“His wife Lola helped – she drove him around and it took them 25 years to do.
“I hear that he lived on a diet of spaghetti for lunch as it slipped down easily and therefore did not take long to eat, so he could get on with his work. It was an amazing achievement.”
Pevsner’s daughter Uta grew up in the house and recalled how her parents came to live there. “They rented it at first – my parents paid seven shillings a week for it,” she said.
“When my father arrived in England, he was welcomed and helped by Quaker friends in Hampstead Garden Suburb and that was how he came to find Wildwood Terrace.
“The peace and the country aspect with its farmhouse and open Heath so delighted him he rented No 2 as his first English home. He never moved again. He would have been delighted to think the house itself would one day be honoured.”
The family still own the home, the house next door and a terraced cottage round the corner.
Mr Stamp praised Pevner’s occasionally idiosyncratic sense of humour. “The original books were full of his own judgments, and sometimes they were funny and wonderful. He used some brilliant colloquialisms. Once when writing about a Victorian designer of town halls Pevsner described him as ‘widely unknown’.”
But the architectural historian had his enemies. Mr Stamp said: “It is not a pleasant reflection on England that the reactions to Pevsner could sometimes be insular, xenophobic and highly unpleasant.
“England has always benefited from immigration, from welcoming refugees.
“He has given us so much and we owe such a large debt to Nikolaus Pevsner.”

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