Crittall Windows

Crittal Windows in a 1930s Block of Flats

The distinct horizontal bars of Crittall's steel windows are the stand-out, iconic feature of 1930s 'Moderne' Houses. You either love them or hate them (we must declare at this stage that Tumbla loves them). Many people have taken to removing them from 1930s houses and replacing them with UPVC ones. We provide this history to give you the insight for why you should resist. With those windows in place, your house is a crucial piece of architectural history. They link your house to landmark projects around the globe built with Crittall windows including the Boots D10 and the Hoover buildings in the UK, Albert Kahn’s giant Ford River Rouge complex and General Motors buildings in Detroit, Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus, L. Cordonnier’s Peace Palace (The Hague), Illinois Institute of Technology by Mies van der Rohe, and the League of Nations building in Geneva. Because of your Crittall windows, your house takes its place in list of the world’s great buildings.

History

While we mainly associate Crittall Windows with the 1930's, the company dates back to 1849, when Francis Berrington Crittall bought the Bank Street ironmongery in Braintree, Essex. In 1884 his son, Francis Henry Crittall began to manufacture metal windows at the factory. They were so successful that, five years later they formed the Crittall Manufacturing Company. By 1907, their windows were so successful that they opened their first US factory in Detroit.

During the First World War, Crittall turned their factories over to armament production, but when the war ended they went back to making windows. The Government's 'Homes For Heroes' programme needed to produce thousands of new homes, and Crittall's standardised, factory produced windows fitted the bill perfectly. Their radical new aesthetic summed up the general desire to create a new world after the horrors of the war.

Houses at Silver End by John Tait

The Crittall family went as far as planning and building a new village for their workers, called Silver End, near their factory at Braintree in Essex. While it was the first garden village to be built in Essex, it was the last in a line of enlightened housing projects built by industrialists for their workers, following Saltaire, Port Sunlight and Bourneville. It encapsulated the utopian aspirations of the Moderne movement, focusing on everyday living needs and health of the occupants before the outside of the house was even thought about Francis and his son Walter Crittall wanted their workers to live in houses with 'elementary rights of every home', amenities such as hot running water, gas and electricity, indoor bathrooms and a proper garden, not a backyard or an allotment half a mile away<ref>Fifty Years of Work and Play (1935) - An autobiography by Francis Crittall</ref>. As Francis Crittall wrote in his autobiography in 1935: ‘In planning the houses we decided to sacrifice traditional design in the cause of light and air and space’. It was these qualities that infuse all 'Moderne Houses' of the 1920s and 1930s, leading them to sometimes be known as 'suntrap houses'.

The Main Crittal Styles

While the phrase 'Crittal windows' has come to be synonymous with 1930s 'Moderne' houses, the company has a much longer and deeper history with metal casement windows.

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  Metal framed Crittal casements inserted into stone mullion windows

See Also

A History of Silver End By Susan King 1996 reference 1 above

Silver End Parish Council

Official History - The Crittall Website

References

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