In the early 1970s, Michael Manser had firmly established himself as one of Britain’s leading architects. His work was much admired for the clarity of its conception and the high standard of its execution. His buildings were widely published and it was a newspaper article that led the current owners of Mancett House to call Michael Manser and ask him to create a house for a side they had just purchased overlooking the Wiltshire countryside. Seeing the attractive setting of the plot, Manser agreed and by 1976 the house was completed, with a garden designed by the celebrated landscape gardener John Brooks.

The house was designed to be a low-maintenance structure. The house was engineered by Jack Dawson and built using a simple steel frame, double-glazed tinted glass and fibreglass panelling. The layout of the internal space was designed to strict geometric principles. As the architectural historian Neil Jackson has noted, “Manser was drawn towards the mathematics of proportion due to an interest in Palladio, geometric plans and the Golden Section rectangle”.

Michael Manser was born in 1929 and educated Regent’s Street Polytechnic. He started his own practice in 1961 and soon began to gain himself a strong reputation due to his uncompromising attitude to Modern architecture. Very much an advocate of Mies van der Rohe’s ‘Less is More’ approach to design, Manser set a benchmark for all Modern architecture in Britain. In 1967, Manser wrote that his steel-framed houses were “a result of a growing conviction that housing should be in lightweight, Meccano-like construction. Laying 20,000 bricks one on top of the other by hand is not the right way to build a house”. Manser, a minimalist in the best possible sense, became widely admired in Britain and abroad. Philip Johnson, the American architect of the iconic Glass House, declared himself a particular fan.

In 1983 Manser was elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, for which position he argued eloquently and persuasively for an adherence to Modernist architectural principles. This was a time when the Prince of Wales was attempting to drum up support for a return to more traditional style of architecture. In recognition of his leadership and his dedication to practising what he preached, Manser was awarded a CBE in 1993 and the RIBA also decided to name their most prestigious award after him. The annual award for the best one-off house or major extension designed by an architect in the UK is called the Manser Medal.