Bold experiments: products and designs

Ties

From a commercial point of view, Vanners and Fennell’s jacquard-woven silk ties were one of the successful products in the Festival Pattern Group. One of the few companies still in operation today, Vanners (as they are now known) continue to specialise in jacquard-woven tie silks. This tie fabric features the aluminium hydroxide pattern.

Crystallographer: Helen Megaw
Designed by George Reynolds for Vanners and Fennell
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Bold experiments: products and designs

Haemoglobin 8.26 diagram

Max Perutz devoted his career to researching haemoglobin, the vital oxygen-carrying protein molecule in the blood, whose structure he determined in 1959. From 1947 he headed a research group at the Cavendish Laboratory, which later evolved into the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Crystallographer: Max Perutz
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Bold experiments: products and designs

Nylon 8.54c furnishing fabric (‘Helmsley’)

This is a classic ball-and-spoke pattern, closely resembling three-dimensional atomic structure models: hollow, white or shaded circles denote different types of atom. The jacquard-woven cotton fabric clearly illustrates the long chains of molecules of which nylon is composed.

Crystallographer: Charles William Bunn
Designed by Marianne Straub for Warner and Sons
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum
Copyright: Warner Textile Archive (Braintree District Museum Trust Ltd). All rights reserved.

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Bold experiments: products and designs

Boric acid 8.34 wallpaper

This screen-printed wallpaper was designed by William Odell for John Line and Sons, participants in the Festival Pattern Group. Boric acid is a mild acid created when borate minerals are combined with sulphuric acid. It is widely used as an antiseptic, flame retardant, wood preservative and insecticide.

Crystallographer: Helen Megaw
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Bold experiments: products and designs

Crystal structure ceramics

These bone china ceramics were created as part of a student project by three young designers at the Royal College of Art, collaborating with various Staffordshire manufacturers. The Aluminium Hydroxide plate shown here relates closely to its crystal structure source, whereas the two Beryl plates are freer interpretations. Hazel Thumpston’s ‘Festival’ plate was inspired by a Bernal chart for interpreting X-ray photographs of crystals, rather than a specific structure.

Clockwise from top left:

Beryl 8.9 plates
Crystallographer: Lawrence Bragg
Designed by Peter Wall for Wedgwood
Aluminium Hydroxide 8.8 plate
Crystallographers: Helen Megaw
Designed by Hazel Thumpston and Peter Cave for E Brain and Co.

‘Festival’ plate
Designed by Hazel Thumpston for R H and S L Plant

Images: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Beryl 8.9 lace

Professor Sir Lawrence Bragg, who pioneered X-ray crystallography, was a keen advocate of crystal structure designs. Bragg was thrilled with the results of the Festival Pattern Group. This machine-embroidered lace features one of his most famous crystal structures: Beryl, a group of minerals composed of hexagonal crystals. A dress made from this lace can be seen in the following photograph.

Crystallographer: Lawrence Bragg
Designed by H Webster for A C Gill
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Beryl 8.9 evening dress

This dress of machine-embroidered cotton lace was made for Lady Alice Bragg to wear at the Congress of the International Union of Crystallography in Stockholm, 27 June-3 July 1951. Her husband, Sir Lawrence Bragg, who was President of the IUC, gave a special address at the conference, which was attended by 340 crystallographers from all over the world.

Crystallographer: Lawrence Bragg
Lace designed by H Webster for A C Gill
Image: Nottingham City Museums and Galleries

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Haemoglobin 8.26 Mural Rexines

ICI’s nitrocellulose-coated wallcoverings demonstrate another interpretation of haemoglobin. By simplifying and enlarging the principal motif, the pattern takes on a quasi-heraldic quality.

Crystallographer: Max Perutz
Designed by Charles Garnier for ICI Leathercloth
Image: V&A/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Insulin 8.25 wallpaper

Dorothy Hodgkin’s diagram, on which this screen-printed wallpaper is based, was originally published in an article in ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society’ in 1938. The designer has simplified the pattern by extracting the hexagonal motifs and omitting the rounded triangular forms. This wallpaper was used in the Cinema Foyer at the Exhibition of Science in 1951 and has been recreated for Wellcome Collection’s current exhibition.

Crystallographer: Dorothy Hodgkin
Designed by Robert Sevant for John Line and Sons
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Insulin 8.27 PVC sheet

It is interesting to compare Dunlop’s interpretation of Dorothy Hodgkin’s insulin diagram with the preceding wallpaper by John Line. In some respects Dunlop were more successful in capturing the delicacy of the original. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sheeting was a new material, only recently developed; the sample here is a prototype printed using pilot plant production. Technical problems with the colour printing process hindered Dunlop’s plans to mass-produce these designs.

Crystallographer: Dorothy Hodgkin
Designed by Mary Harper for Dunlop
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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China Clay 8.6 PVC sheet

China Clay was interpreted in many different ways but here it is shown on a length of printed PVC sheet. The vinyl is bright and multicoloured, adding complexity to the design but also making it harder to identify the crystal structure. In other interpretations the fabrics are restrained in colour, with the design picked out very precisely in the weave.

Crystallographer: G WBrindley
Designed by Mary Harper for Dunlop
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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ICI Leathercloth

Formed in 1926 from the merger of four companies, Imperial Chemical Industries specialised in dyestuffs, alkalis, metals, explosives, fertilisers, paints and plastics. By the 1930s they had 25 plants, including the Leathercloth Division. After the war ICI were keen to promote their Mural Rexines and Vynides, a new range of heavy-duty nitrocellulose-coated wallcoverings and upholstery fabrics intended for schools, cafés and cinemas.

Insulin 8.25 Mural Rexines
Crystallographer: Dorothy Hodgkin
Designed by Charles Garnier for ICI Leathercloth

Images: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Polythene 8.59c lace

Known by their trade name, ‘Witchcraft Laces’, A C Gill specialised in lace curtains, dress fabrics (mainly for bridal gowns), trimmings and veils. Seven crystal structure lace patterns were created, much to the gratification of Helen Megaw, who rated the company’s efforts very highly. The Apophyllite lace can be seen next.

Crystallographer: Charles William Bunn
Designed by H Webster for A C Gill
Image: V&A/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Apophyllite 8.30 lace

This machine-embroidered cotton lace was also manufactured by A C Gill. J G McMeeking, their Director, was thrilled to be invited to join the Festival Pattern Group: ‘Fortunately on the embroidery machines we can re-produce the designs quite faithfully. Where additional lines have been introduced, we are compelled to do this in order to allow continuous working of the thread.’

Crystallographer: W H Taylor
Designed by H Webster for A C Gill
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Afwillite 8.44 furnishing fabric (‘Surrey’)

Afwillite is a naturally occurring crystalline mineral. It is also produced artificially during the setting of cement. This jacquard-woven wool, cotton and rayon textile was inspired by the crystal structure of afwillite. Curtains made from this fabric were used in the Regatta Restaurant at the Festival of Britain.

Crystallographer: Helen Megaw
Designed by Marianne Straub for Warner and Sons
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum
Copyright: Warner Textile Archive (Braintree District Museum Trust Ltd). All rights reserved.

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Haemoglobin 8.26 lace

Max Perutz’s Haemoglobin 8.26 was the most widely interpreted diagram within the Festival Pattern Group. Variants can be seen throughout the exhibition. Here it is used in machine-embroidered cotton lace.

Crystallographer: Max Perutz
Designed by H Webster for A C Gill
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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Zinc Hydroxide 8.39 tile panel

The designer of this hand-painted earthenware tile panel has taken a tiny section of a crystal structure diagram and blown it up to a huge scale. Carter and Co., the parent company of Poole Pottery, had a long track record of innovative design.

Although X-ray crystallography was too specific to lead to a new school of design, atomic and molecular motifs were widely adopted as part of the aesthetic vocabulary of post-war design. Helen Megaw, the crystallographer behind the design of this tile panel, continued to pursue her interest in crystal structure patterns and later supplied designs to several manufacturers, both inside and outside the original group.

Crystallographer: Helen Megaw
Designed by Reginald Till for Carter and Co.
Image: V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

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