Architectural History

In this final episode of our series on 'The Public Architect', we explored how architects have moved beyond designing individual buildings into planning, policy and landscape. Historian Otto Saumarez Smith joined city architect Finn Williams to discuss the rise of the postwar "architect planner," the exchange of ideas between the London County Council and Sweden, and how that role has fragmented in the decades since. We were then joined by landscape historian Luca Csepely-Knorr, alongside practitioners Kendra Inman and Maddy Gunn, to trace the shift from garden design to large-scale infrastructure work, and why collaboration, community and care remain central to landscape architecture today.Architectural History is the podcast of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. This miniseries, The Public Architect, was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Institute of British Architects. It was hosted and produced by Claire Jamieson and Jess Kelly, with editing by Front Ear Podcasts and production support from Matthew Lloyd Roberts. If you enjoyed this series, please consider becoming a member of the SAHGB to support our work and get access to exclusive content. https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renewContributors:Professor Luca Csepely-Knorr is a chartered landscape architect and art and architectural historian. She is research chair at the University of Liverpool School of Architecture, where she leads the Landscape || Gender || Environment Research Collective. Luca’s research is focusing on the transnational histories of landscape and environmental history with a special focus on women’s contribution to shaping disciplinary agendas and the evolving social and ecological discourses of the 20th century. She is co-convener of the European Architectural History Network’s Women and Gender in Landscape, Architecture and Urban Design Interest Group with Professor Svava Riesto.Maddy Gunn has worked across the public, private and charity sectors at the intersection of design, green infrastructure and climate adaptation. Her background spans landscape architecture, planning and strategy work focused on delivering great green spaces. She is a Public Practice alumni and has previously worked at the Design Council; most recently she has been leading on the delivery of urban greening projects at Islington Council.Kendra Inman works as a landscape architect and urban designer for Transport for London. She is particularly interested in mitigating the impact of climate change on cities with nature-based solutions and by using green and blue infrastructure to support active travel and liveable neighbourhoods.Otto Saumarez Smith is an architectural and urban historian, specialising in twentieth century Britain. He teaches at the University of Warwick, and is chair of the Twentieth Century Society Casework committee.Finn Williams has been the City Architect of Malmö since 2021. He previously worked to promote public architecture and planning in the UK through roles at Croydon Council and the Greater London Authority, and as the co-founder and chief executive of Public Practice. Finn is a Mayor’s Design Advocate for the Mayor of London, an international jury member for the NLA Awards, an independent expert for the EU Mies van der Rohe Awards and was a jury member for the 2024 Alvar Aalto Medal.

In this fourth episode, we explore the colonial context of the public sector and the place of the British architectural profession within it, spanning the Second World War through to decolonisation. We spoke to Harshada Deshpande about her father Sharad's career, from training as an architect in India to working in the Architects' Department of the Greater London Council in the 1960s. We were then joined by Ibiyemi Ola and Rixt Woudstra to discuss their research into architects working within colonial bureaucracies in British Africa, and how that experience of expertise carried through independence and into organisations like the UN and World Bank.Architectural History is the podcast of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. This miniseries, The Public Architect, was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Institute of British Architects. It was hosted and produced by Claire Jamieson and Jess Kelly, with editing by Front Ear Podcasts and production support from Matthew Lloyd Roberts. If you enjoyed this series, please consider becoming a member of the SAHGB to support our work and get access to exclusive content. https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renewContributors: Harshada Deshpande is an Urbanist with over 20 years’ experience of working in the built environment sector in the UK. A strong advocate of sustainable urbanism, she leads the Design, Conservation and Trees Team, made up of specialist within Sheffield City Council. Her expertise lies in leading and coaching, to achieve a place-led outcome through finding creative solutions, while establishing a positive, constructive dialogue, enabling delivery of high-quality places. Sharad Deshpande, her father worked in the Greater London County Council within the Architecture and Civic Design Department between 1965-1972. Whilst working, he studied Planning at University of London and was a Columbo Plan Fellow (1981) and Professor of Architecture.Ibiyemi Ola researched British colonial architecture in Nigeria between 1900 and 1960 for her PhD at the Liverpool School of Architecture, focusing on the colonial administration's Public Works Department and the architects who worked within it. She is a lecturer at the Global Banking School.Rixt Woudstra is an architectural historian focused on the intersections between modern architecture and planning, British imperialism and anti-colonial protest. She is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the University of Amsterdam, Co-Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Urban History, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Architecture Beyond Europe. She previously held a postdoctoral research position at the University of Liverpool, working on a Leverhulme-funded project on the architecture of the United Africa Company in British West Africa.

In the third episode of our series on 'The Public Architect', we explored how the professional identity of architects has reflected changing gender, class and race. We spoke to architect Kate Macintosh about her career and the fight for equal pay for women architects. We were then joined by architectural historians Karen Burns and Elizabeth Darling to trace the longer history of women entering the profession through public institutions, from interwar progressives at the AA to postwar civil servants navigating quiet discrimination. Finally, we spoke to Yẹmí Aládérun (Ealing Council) and Sarah Allan (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) about how moving between private practice and public service reshaped their sense of authorship, leadership and care.Architectural History is the podcast of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. This miniseries, The Public Architect, was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Institute of British Architects. It was hosted and produced by Claire Jamieson and Jess Kelly, with editing by Front Ear Podcasts and production support from Matthew Lloyd Roberts. If you enjoyed this series, please consider becoming a member of the SAHGB to support our work and get access to exclusive content. https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renewContributors:Yẹmí Aládérun is an architect and Head of Development at Ealing Council. She is a NED for Women's Pioneer Housing association, co-founder of Paradigm Network and core member of Part W. She was named in the Architects' Journal's 40 under 40 in 2020.Sarah Allan is an architect and Head of Architecture at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Before this she worked in local government as housing lead for an Ecotown in Hampshire. For over seven years at CABE, she was head of urban design and homes, helping to embed design quality tools and processes in large-scale government programmes such as the Thames Gateway.Karen Burns is an architectural historian and theorist, and Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne. She is co-editor, with Lori A. Brown, of The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, 1960–2020, a two-volume survey with over 1,000 entries covering architects, designers, landscape architects, planners, historians and activists.Elizabeth Darling is an architectural historian, curator and writer specialising in histories of modernist cultures in Britain, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, and is an expert on women and architecture from the 1890s to the present day. She has published extensively in both fields and has also written a number of entries for the ODNB on key women architects who worked in the public sector, including Ann McEwen and Rosemary Stjernstedt. Her book, Palace of the Ether, Broadcasting House and the Architecture of the BBC, 1922-1932, will be published by Lund Humphries in June 2026.Kate Macintosh MBE is a Scottish architect known for her work for local authorities. She studied at the Edinburgh School of Art, now part of Heriot-Watt University. After graduating in 1961, she spent a year studying in Warsaw on a scholarship from the British Council, then worked in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki before returning to the United Kingdom in 1964, when she was recruited to Denys Lasdun's National Theatre Team. She designed Dawson's Heights in Southwark and Leigham Court in Lambeth.

This is the second episode of our new miniseries 'The Public Architect', an RIBA funded project exploring the past and present of the relationship between the architectural profession and the public. In this episode we spoke to researchers Ruth Lang, Natcha Ruamsanitwong and Patrick Zamarian about the role of research and innovation in post-war public sector architecture, focusing on bodies like the London County Council Architects' Department and the Building Research Station. We were then joined by Rafe Bertram and Professor Flora Samuel to explore the contemporary relationship between architectural research, local government, and the built environment today.Architectural History is the podcast of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. This miniseries, The Public Architect, was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Institute of British Architects. It was hosted and produced by Claire Jamieson and Jess Kelly, with editing by Front Ear Podcasts and production support from Matthew Lloyd Roberts. If you enjoyed this series, please consider becoming a member of the SAHGB to support our work and get access to exclusive content. https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renewContributors:Rafe Bertram works on several scales of sustainability in the built environment. Locally, he is an Asset and Sustainability Manager at the London Borough of Enfield, managing Council Housing Energy Efficiency and Retrofit programme across 10,000 homes. Regionally, he sits on the steering group for Warmer Homes London and a panel member of Design South East. Nationally, he chairs the Finance thinktank for the Good Homes Alliance. At a local level, he is a founding director of the community cooperative, Retrofit Kentish Town. He is an Architect, Retrofit Coordinator, Public Practice Alumni and previously a partner at Foster+Partners. He has recently been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to undertake research on Retrofit Economics across Europe. Dr Ruth Lang is an architect, curator, and Associate Professor leading the Masters programme at the London School of Architecture. Through her teaching, research and writing, her work explores how contemporary architectural practice can be restructured to more equitably address issues of diversity and the Climate Emergency, using collaborative and transdisciplinary strategies. Her book ‘Building for Change: The Architecture of Creative Reuse was published by gestalten in 2022.Natcha Ruamsanitwong is a historian of architecture in twentieth-century Britain. She is currently convenor of the SAHGB Women Architectural Historians’ Network and a Trustee of the Construction History Society. She is the author of Leslie Martin and Sadie Speight: Architects of Modern Britain (Lund Humphries, 2026).Flora Samuel is the Professor of Architecture (1970) and Head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. She was formerly Head at the Sheffield School of Architecture.  Her research currently focuses on rural placemaking, inclusive design and housing but she began her career writing about Le Corbusier and the nature of architectural practice. She currently leads Public Map, a major AHRC funded project based in Wales.Patrick Zamarian is a senior lecturer in architectural design and humanities at the University of Liverpool. His research centres on the role of educational and professional institutions in the history of architecture, specifically in the British Empire. He is the author of The Architectural Association in the Postwar Years (Lund Humphries, 2020) and has published on student networks in interwar Britain, on the role of the Building Research Station in the postwar period, and on architectural education in British India, among other things.

This is the first episode of our new miniseries, The Public Architect, an RIBA-funded project exploring the past and present relationship between the architectural profession and the public sector.In this episode, we speak to the historian John Gold about post-war architecture in Britain, its relationship to the state and local government, and some of the common misconceptions surrounding this period. We are then joined by Mike Althorpe, Andrea Jung, David Knight and Holly Lewis, a group of practitioners and researchers working across architecture and local government, to explore the contemporary relationship between architecture and the public sector.ContributorsJohn Gold is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Professor Emeritus at Oxford Brookes University, and former Special Appointed Professor at Meiji University in Tokyo. A historical geographer with a focus on cities, he has published more than 200 works on architectural modernism, Olympic cities and urban history, and is currently completing The Legacy of Modernism, the final volume in his trilogy on the Modern Movement.Mike Althorpe is an urban historian, researcher and storyteller. He co-authored Revolutionary Low Rise (2019) and Dual Cities – Social Housing in London + New York (2025). Formerly Public Programmes Lead at the RIBA, he curated exhibitions including A Place to Call Home and Social Housing, and now works independently as The London Ambler.Andrea Jung is an architect with experience across both private practice and local government. After leading commercial projects at KPF and co-founding TURN Architects, she joined the public sector through the Public Practice Associate Programme. She is now Technical Design Manager in Islington Council's New Homes team.David Knight is a designer, strategist, author and director of DK-CM. He has led urban strategies for projects across the UK, holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, teaches at the London School of Architecture, and edited Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub, an Financial Times Book of the Year.Holly Lewis co-founded We Made That in 2006 and has led a wide range of urban regeneration and placemaking projects. She champions community involvement in design, equitable city-making and women in the built environment. Holly is a Mayor's Design Advocate for the Greater London Authority, a Design Council Expert, and Town Architect for Hackney Central.Architectural History is the podcast of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. The Public Architect was made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Institute of British Architects. It was hosted and produced by Claire Jamieson and Jess Kelly, with editing by Front Ear Podcasts and production support from Matthew Lloyd Roberts.If you enjoyed this series, please consider becoming a member of the SAHGB to support our work and access exclusive content: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/join-renew⁠

In the final episode of our miniseries on Architecture & Media we discussed architectural criticism in the age of the internet, the shifting landscape of architectural discourse, and the new ways of thinking about the built environment that it has brought. Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠. Kate Wagner is the architecture critic at The Nation and the creator of McMansion Hell. She is currently writing a book about how an ugly world makes ugly buildings.  Teshome Douglas-Campbell is a London-based visual artist, architectural designer, journalist and alumni of the New Architectural Writers programme. Often working collaboratively with communities his practice explores diasporic experiences and deep time as crucial drivers for making and holding space in the urban environment.

In this episode we talk about architecture on television in Britain in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us. Contributors: Gillian Darley is an architectural historian, author and broadcaster, whose books include Excellent Essex and biographies of Sir John Soane, John Evelyn and Octavia Hill. Gillian has written extensively about Ian Nairn, including the 2013 book Ian Nairn: Words in Place with David McKie. Tom Dyckhoff is a historian, writer, teacher and broadcaster about architecture, geographies, design and cities. Tom has written and presented lots of series and documentaries for television. He teaches the history and theory of cities & architecture at University College London and Central St Martins, University of the Arts, London. Tom’s phd research explores how television constructs a “public sphere” in which ideas about architecture, space and the city are constructed, contested and “made public”. Clips: Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Bolton and Preston, BBC, 1975 (1.38 on Preston Bus Garage) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67CS9fQra4 Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Bolton and Preston, BBC, 1975 (8.44 on St Saviours, Bolton) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hLb4bjd6_4 Ian Nairn No Two the Same (Pacemakers), (featuring Churchill Gardens and Lillington Gardens), BBC, 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZxhOSDvj4E Ian Nairn, Nairn Across Britain: from London to Lancashire, BBC, 1972 (featuring Northampton market hall) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ8eyMqJkwY Ian Nairn, The More We Are Together: Eric Lyons the architect of suburbia, BBC, 1969 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01rwl9f/omnibus-the-more-we-are-together Ian Nairn, Football Towns: Huddersfield and Halifax, BBC, 1975 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQfgA_6HLT0 Stuart Hall on The Late Show, BBC, 1989 https://youtu.be/J2EFuf3yhaE?si=RTmKKXEfdld8n9h6 John Berger, Ways of Seeing: episode one, BBC, 1972 https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk?si=clZObw7skqoFTq8- Patrick Keiller, London, BBC, 1994 https://youtu.be/nkfhFRiRmIw?si=Dfa7rBg8mhTec6k4

In this episode we talk about architectural and aurality, asking what impact radio had on architecture, architects and public audiences. Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠. Our Contributors: Olga Touloumi is Associate Professor of Architectural History at Bard College. Her research concerns questions of globalization and media in twentieth architecture. Her first book Assembly by Design situates mid-20th century architectural constructions of global governance within debates on media democracies and liberal internationalism. Touloumi has co-edited Sound Modernities, a volume on how acoustics and sound technologies transformed modern architectural culture during the twentieth century; and with Theodora Vardouli Computer Architectures: Constructing the Common Ground, a volume about the exchanges between designers and computational technologists in Europe and North America. Shundana Yusaf is Associate Professor of History and Theory at the School of Architecture, University of Utah. Her scholarship juxtaposes colonial/ postcolonial history with sound studies in architecture. Her first book is Broadcasting Buildings: Architecture on the Wireless, 1927-1945 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014). Her current book is called Resonant Tombs: A Feminist History of Sufi Shrines in Pakistan. As its starting point, it takes sound as an architectural material of construction and women as secondary architects, collectively nestling ephemeral auditory monuments with their bodily resources within material monuments built by heroic men with material resources.  Details of audio clips: Movietone News newsreel of First United Nations General Assembly at Westminster Hall 1946 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3em8Yvf13y4 British Pathe newsreel U.N. Hears President - Kennedy Asks Joint US - Soviet Moon Trip, 1963 https://youtu.be/iBcfSqwvVlg?si=iS7nJ0aIRIjbMFzp Charlie Chaplin - Adenoid Hynkel Speech - The Great Dictator (1940) https://youtu.be/isLNLpxpndA?si=iWZNmbzMehKQwT9y The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain brings together all those with an interest in the history of the built environment – academics, architects, heritage experts and the wider public. As the leading body in the field, we believe that appreciation of architectural history plays a vital role in understanding our culture, past and present. With the help of our members, we publish new research, organise a broad range of events, provide educational opportunities and advance the understanding of the built histories of all periods and places, in Britain and beyond. Membership https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

In this episode we discuss the press, periodicals and magazines in architectural history from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Support the SAHGB by becoming a member: ⁠https://www.sahgb.org.uk/support-us⁠. Our contributors are:  Dr Anne Hultzsch is an architectural historian and leads the ERC-funded group ‘Women Writing Architecture 1700-1900’ (WoWA) at ETH Zurich. With a PhD from the Bartlett, University College London, and a postdoc at AHO Oslo, she works on intersectionality in architectural history between ca. 1650 and 1930, exploring the histories of gender, print, perception, and travel. She is author of Architecture, Travellers and Writers: Constructing Histories of Perception 1640-1950 (2014) and has edited The Printed and the Built: Architecture, Print Culture, and Public Debate in the Nineteenth Century (with Mari Hvattum, 2018) and The Origins of the Architectural Magazine in Nineteenth-Century Europe (The Journal of Architecture, 2020).  Dr Lieske Huits, is a decorative arts historian and university lecturer at University of Leiden. Lieske’s PhD, titled A New Visual Narrative of Nineteenth-Century Historicism, explored historicism and revival styles in the decorative arts and architecture of the nineteenth century, and the display of historicist objects in international expositions and museums of decorative arts.  For more information about the SAHGB, their programme of events, publications and grants and to join the society, see their website at https://www.sahgb.org.uk/

In this episode we introduce the theme of our miniseries, architecture and media. We talk about our own research interests and what the study of media, in all its various forms, has to offer architectural history.  Jessica Kelly’s book about modern architecture and the media is called No More Giants: J.M. Richards, The Architectural Review and modernism and is published by Manchester University Press (2022), find out more about Jessica’s research here: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/profiles/staff/jessica-kelly/ Matthew Lloyd Roberts is a PhD student working on the cultural reception of architecture in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain, details here: ⁠https://csca.aha.cam.ac.uk/roberts-phd/⁠ Matthew writes about architecture for a variety of publications and produces the podcast About Buildings and Cities. For more information about the SAHGB, their programme of events, publications and grants and to join the society, see their website at https://www.sahgb.org.uk/