Book review: Herbert Simms was a visionary with tenement solution

Herbert Simms: When he tried to confront the housing crisis Simms faced all the difficulties that, in one version or another, still plague
that objective. Picture: Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive

• Herbert Simms An Architect for the People
• Lindie Naughton 
• New Island, €16.95

Written to celebrate the life of a Dublin architect this short book is so much more than that. 

A physically and emotionally exhausted Herbert Simms committed suicide in 1948, two months before his 50th birthday, but before that tragedy he had achieved enough to be remembered in an effusive Irish Builder obituary:

“By sheer hard work and conscientious devotion to duty, he has made a personal contribution towards the solution of Dublin’s housing problem, probably unequalled by anyone in our times.” 

But he did so much more. He showed a nascent, impoverished, and deeply conservative state that modernism had a positive contribution to make towards ending the appalling conditions endured by those festering in Dublin’s rancid tenements.

Those conditions were so bad that a First World War recruiting slogan promised that “the trenches are safer than the Dublin slums”. 

This scathing view was endorsed by London Treasury officials who opposed Dublin Corporation’s plans to buy what they called “worthless rookeries” to replace them with habitable homes.

Later, a powerful Dublin official regarded a new obsession with motor cars as “a temporary intoxication” and “a malady of youth”.

When he tried to confront the housing crisis Simms faced all the difficulties that, in one version or another, still plague that objective. Internecine wars between joiners and stonemasons over who might repair steel windows delayed one project.

Lindie Naughton is the author of 'Herbert Simms: An Architect for the People'.

Progress on several schemes was stymied when the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland demanded a lucrative role, though their services were made superfluous by city professionals.

Price fixing by builders’ providers added greatly to costs. An insistence that materials provided from an established source be used rather than a cheaper and better alternative added to the bottom line, limiting projects shamefully.

Simms and his colleagues faced a choking shortage of materials and labour during the war years but responded with imagination and determination. 

The dominance of two or three construction companies made life even more difficult by rendering the tendering process meaningless, a charade indulged by politicians.

So too did the eternal problem — elected public representatives at local or national level who were, on civvy street, landlords determined to protect their private interests.

One complained bitterly that Simms had taught slum tenants to negotiate their rents, thereby cutting landlords’ incomes.

Not to be outdone, inevitably Archbishop John Charles McQuaid voiced concerns over the “communal living” new schemes of city centre flats might encourage. 

It is not recorded whether the archbishop voiced similar concerns over the cheek-by-jowl conditions endured in our capital’s tenements.

Adding to a recurring sense of déjà vu, Naughton records that after the 1923 election William Cosgrave’s government quickly dropped its “Million Pound Scheme” to build myriad homes even though it had been a central plank in its election manifesto.

In that stultifying environment it is amazing that Official Ireland managed to offer so many struggling families greatly improved living conditions.

That tide rose consistently until 1977, when the government shamefully emasculated local authorities by abolishing domestic rates, an appalling decision that resonates today. 

We may not, yet, copy California by establishing ‘safe parking lots’ so those forced to live in cars might have a sliver of security, but figures just published that show a record 13,514 (including 4,105 children) people are homeless in this rich country suggest such refuges will be needed soon enough. Simms would be appalled, as we should be.

There is considerable discussion about the architectural evolution and merits of the schemes designed by Simms and his colleagues in this well-indexed book, but its greatest gift is a renewal of that simple but seemingly unsurmountable challenge. 

When this republic was barely solvent our grandparents could deliver enviable social housing: why can’t we do more?

That is a question that will be answered in many ways, some of them coherent, some dishonestly, in this year of elections. In that context, it seems pertinent to wonder how Simms might vote.