Dame Jane Drew, DBE, FRIBA (24 March 1911 – 27 July 1996) was an English modernist architect and town planner. She qualified at the AA School in London, and prior to World War II became one of the leading exponents of the Modern Movement in London.

At the time she had her first office, with the idea of employing only female architects, architecture was a male dominated profession. She was active during and after World War II, designing social and public housing in England, West Africa, India and Iran.With her second husband Maxwell Fry she worked in West Africa designing schools and universities, and with Fry and Pierre Jeanneret, on the housing at Chandigarh, the new capital of the Punjab. She designed buildings in Ghana, Nigeria, Iran and Sri Lanka, and she wrote books on what she had learnt about architecture there. In London she did social housing, buildings for the Festival of Britain, and helped to establish the Institute of Contemporary Arts. After retiring from practice she travelled and lectured abroad, receiving several honorary degrees. She was awarded the DBE in the 1996 New Years Honours List, seven months before her death.

Life more less

Early life (1911—1928)

Drew was born as Iris Estelle Radcliffe Drew in Thornton Heath, Croydon, Surrey, but her name was registered a few days later as Joyce Beverly Drew. Her father, Harry Guy Radcliffe Drew, was a designer of surgical instruments and the founder of the British Institute of Surgical Technicians. He was a humanist who "despised the profit motive and abhorred cruelty". Her mother was Emma Spering Jones, a school teacher, who when Jane was only four became lame for the rest of her life as the result of a road accident: but she continued to care well for her two daughters, encouraging them in her two main interests which were observation of nature and appreciation of art, and she had a keen business sense. Her sister, Dorothy Drew, was a physician.

Jane Drew was educated at Woodford House School in Croydon then at Croydon High School where she became Head Girl. Among her friends at Woodford House were actresses Peggy Ashcroft and Diana Wynyard; and at Croydon High she was friends with the mural artist and book illustrator Barbara Jones (1912-1978), and the popular women's rights campaigner Beatrice "Nancy" Seear, later Baroness Seear.

Pre-war (1929—1939)

Jane studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (1929-1934). In 1933 she married architect James Alliston, who had been a fellow-student at the AA. They won a competition for a hospital in Devon, after which she joined Alliston's practice. Their small practice (Alliston & Drew) was at 24 Woburn Square in London, and their principal work was housing in Winchester. Jane and Jim had twin daughters, Jennifer and Georgina (born 1937), but the marriage was dissolved in 1939.

Modern Movement

Jane Drew soon became involved in the Modern Movement, through the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), whose guiding spirit was the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, and became one of the principal founders of the Modern Movement in Britain, which was represented by MARS (Modern Architectural ReSearch), CIAM's British subsidiary. It was an association of architects, painters and industrialists, and its stated principle was the "use of space for human activity rather than the manipulation of stylised convention". It was through this group that she met Henry Moore, Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Lutyens, and most importantly Maxwell Fry (one of the co-founders of the movement) whom she married in 1942.

War time (1939—1945)

Architecture at the time was a male-dominated profession. When Jane practised alone in the war years between 1939 and 1944, her office was at 12 King Street, St. James, London. Initially she employed only female architects, though later this changed. Her work included:

1940 Walton Yacht Works at Walton on Thames, near London
1941 Kitchen Planning Exhibition, Dorland Hall, Lower Regent Street, London
1941-1943 Consultancy to the British Commercial Gas Association 'designed by women for women'
1943 The 'Rebuilding Britain' exhibition at the National Gallery, London
1944 Temporary office at 12 Bedford Square after the King Street office was bombed (with Riehm Marcus, Trevor Dannatt, K. Linden and F.I. Marcus)
1944-1945 Assistant Planning Adviser to the Resident Minister for the West African Colonies

Post-war period (1946—1959)

After the war she into business partnership with Maxwell Fry as Fry, Drew and Partners, then later with others. From January 1946 their practice was at 63 Gloucester Place, London W.1. (above which she and Max had a flat which was their home), and in 1962 a second office was opened at 3 Albany Terrace. She was in practice with Max until 1977.

1946-1950 Practised as Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew
1946-1962 Jane was founder-editor and joint editor (with Trevor Dannatt) of the Architects' Year Book, brainchild of publisher Paul Elek
1946 The 'Britain Can Make It' exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
1948 Ghana: Mampong Teacher's Training College and Prempeh College in Kumasi (with Maxwell Fry)
1949 Hospital building for the Kuwait Oil Company
1949 Harlow New Town: The Chantry and Tanys Dell estates: 3- & 4-bedroom terraced houses and 4-storey flats(with Maxwell Fry)
1950 Ghana: Adisadel College and Wesley Girls' High School in the town of Cape Coast (with Maxwell Fry)
1950 Passfields flats in Lewisham, London (with Maxwell Fry)
1950 Interior design for the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) at 17/18 Dover Street, London (with Maxwell Fry, and the collaboration of Eduardo Paolozzi, Nigel Henderson, Neil Morris and Terence Conran). Jane played an important part in its relocation to Carlton House Terrace in 1964.
1951-1958 Practised as Fry, Drew, Drake and Lasdun (with Lindsay Drake and Denys Lasdun)
1951 New Schools building, the Waterloo entrance tower and the Riverside Restaurant for the Festival of Britain (with Maxwell Fry)
1951-1953 In collaboration with Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, Jane and Max worked as senior architects on much of the housing of Chandigarh, the new capital of western part of the divided Punjab in India. Jane persuaded Le Corbusier to involve himself in the project and he redesigned Albert Meyer's original master plan. Le Corbusier left most of the design to Jane, Max and Jeanneret, and they had the collaboration of a team of Indian architects (including B. V. Doshi) on this vast project.

Other Works more less

1953-1959 Buildings in Ibadan, Nigeria: the University College (with Maxwell Fry), the Cooperative Bank, and an Assembly Hall and Maisonettes
1953 Flats at Whitefoot Lane, Downham Estate, Lewisham, London (with Maxwell Fry)
1955 Housing at Masjid-i-Suleiman (the first oil site in the middle east) for Oil Company employees and planning of a new oilfield town at Gachsaran, South Iran
1955-1958 Worked with Denys Lasdun on the design of the Usk Street Housing Estate in Bethnal Green, London
1958-1973 Practised as Fry, Drew and Partners (with Frank Knight and Norman Creamer)
1959 Cooperative Bank, Offices and Shop, Lagos, Nigeria
1959 Cooperative Bank, Assembly Hall and Maisonettes, Ibadan, Nigeria
1959 Gulf House, Gulf Oil Company, London

Later years (1960—1979)

1960 Lionel Wendt Art Memorial Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1962 Fry, Drew & Partners opened a second office, at 3 Albany Terrace, London NW1
1964 Training Centre, Apowa, Ghana
1964 Housing in the towns of Hatfield and Welwyn
1964 Shell Headquarters in Singapore
1964-1966 Conversion of 12 Carlton House Terrace for the ICA, London
1965 Ahmadu Bello Stadium and Swimming Pool, Kaduna, Nigeria
1965 Women's' Teacher Training College, Kano, Nigeria
1965 Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka
1967 Margaret Pyke Memorial (Family Planning) Centre, London (opened by the Duke of Edinburgh)
1968 Torbay Hospital and Nurses' Residence, Torquay, Devon
1968 School for Deaf Children, Herne Hill, London
1969-1977 Buildings for the Open University, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
1970 Carlton House Terrace Art Gallery, London
1973 Gestetner Building, Stirling, Scotland
1977 Mauritius Institute of Education (with Maxwell Fry)
1979 St. Paul's Girls' School, London Science Block

Retirement (1979—1996)

Max had retired in 1973, but Jane continued working until 1979. They already had a country 'retreat' called "The Lake House", at Rowfant near Crawley in Sussex, where they often spent leisure time with friends and family. It was a large house, to which they added a studio-flat which literally overlooked the fishing lake, and Jane presided over many memorable house and garden parties. Eventually they decided to sell it and find somewhere easier to manage in their retirement. They were staying with a friend in Cotherstone, Teesdale, County Durham when they heard that the next door house was for sale and almost immediately bought it. In 1983 they moved to "West Lodge". They remained active, in making a new home, with gardening and village social life. There was a studio for Max - their living room was dominated by Max's mural of the River Balder Railway viaduct.

In 1984, Jane gave a great party for Max's 85th birthday, at nearby Lartington Hall: there were over 200 guests - friends and family. Two years later she was presented with a 150-page book of gratulari inscribed "Jane B. Drew, architect. A tribute from colleagues and friends for her 75th birthday, 24 March 1986".The list of contributors includes:

Maxwell Fry (Introductory Poem), Jean Sabbagh , Síle Flower,Lesley Donaldson , Maurice Down , Leonie Cohn , Hugh Crallan , Michael Thornley , Ruth Plant , Phyllis Dobbs , Ed Lewis , Dorothy Morland , Maud Hatmil, Diana Rowntree , Rodney Thomas , John Terry , Trevor Dannatt, Riehm Marcus , Anthony Bell , Norman Creamer , Peter Dunican, Luke Gertler , Frank Knight, John Lomax and Heather Hughes , Joan Cheverton , Stephen Macfarlane , Lleky Papastavrou and Penelope "Penny" Hughes, Otto Koenigsberger , Theo Crosby , Norman and Kay Starrett, Geoffrey Knight, Minnette de Silva , Ian Robertson , Dennis Lennon, Sean Graham , John Godwin and Gillian Hopwood , Achyut Kanvinde, Gopal Khosla , Peggy Angus, Eulie Chowdhury , Shireen Mahdavi , Neil Wates, Lady Mary Pickard,Sián Flower , Marion Gair , Peter and Christine Rawsthorne , Michael Raymond , Sir Hugh Casson, Cedric Price, Baroness Lee, Delia Tyrwhitt, Lord Reilly, Lord Elwyn-Jones, William MacQuitty, Arnold Whittick, Elizabeth and Mervyn Dalley, Romi Khosla, Roz Jacobs, Noma Copley , Kenane Barlow , Sergei Kadleigh, Maria Luisa Plant Zaccheo, Lord Goodman, Lady Jean Medawar, Arunendu Das, J.R. Bhalla , The Lord Perry , Victor Pasmore, Mike Lacey , Nigel Wood , Peter Greenham , Sunita Kanvinde , Tony Forrest, Heather Brigstocke, Peter Murray, Berthold Lubetkin, Frances Webb Leishman , Robert Bliss, Viren Sahai, Sir John Summerson, Patrick Harrison, Ebenezer Akita , Charles Correa, and Olufemi Majekodunmi.