OBITUARIES

Philip Jebb

16 GAZETTE

Philip Jebb did his best work as an architect when working for people with strong views on building and design; who might have preferred in another life to have been architects themselves. He never liked to start on a pro? ject unless he knew he was right for the client as well as the build? ing. Indeed, a sequence of longlasting creative partnerships with clients, builders and deco? rators tells his story. The archi? tectural historian John Martin Robinson considers Jebb to have been the best traditional architect practising in post-war Britain. In 1961, the young Mark Birley and John Aspinall had pos? session of 44 Berkeley Square, in central London, designed by William Kent. Aspinall took the upper part of the building to make the Clermont Club, a pri? vate gambling club, and Birley the lower to make a night-club, Annabel's. Jebb executed both: the Clermont with the distin? guished decorator John Fowler. the genius behind the firm of Colefax & Fowler. The Cler? mont was an enonnous work of restoration and reconstruction - since much altered. It set something of a post-war stan? dard for the bold restoration of Georgian buildings, their mouldings, panelling and paint? work, and was the beginning of a working partnership with Fowler, with an emphasis on restoring and redecorating pri? vate houses, which lasted until Fowler's death in 1978. Downstairs, Jebb and Birley excavated the entire garden and built a concrete box through to the mews behind to create enough space for Annabel's. Birley was tickled when, twothirds of the way through the project, Jebb said that he had never been to a night-club be? fore. At the time, neither man expected that Annabel's would last so long, taking its own ven? erable place in London night? life. Jebb and Birley created two more clubs together, also in Mayfair - Mark's and Harry's Bar. both dining clubs. Jebb was energised by Birley's acute visual sense; while Birley appreciated ihe exactitude of Jebb's work, the felicity of an arch's rela? tionship to its springing point. the precise elegance of his draw? ings. Jebb went on to design in 1983 the first of a series of sand? wich shops in the City of Lon? don for Mark Birley's son Robin. Their glass cabinets and

blue and white tiled walls have been much imitated since. Through working on Anna? bel's, Jebb met the Spanish dec? orator Jaime Parlade, who opened doors to a career for Jebb in Spain which started with private houses in the coun? try around Gibraltar in the late 1960s and culminated in 1983 with Las IrJandesas, a full-blown stucco town palace in the heart of Madrid. But perhaps his most remarkable work in Spain is Cuarton, a whitewashed vil? lage set in a cork forest near Algeciras. where the houses join to form a protective wall around its inhabitants. Cuarton was built in 1970 for the...