Origins

Class of 1909, Architectural Association

Speaker: Alan Powers

The foundation of the Institute (later Royal Institute) of British Architects was intended to validate what had previously been an informal occupational title. From 1834 onwards, the RIBA searched for a role beyond being a learned society, and after 1900 aimed to become the governing body of its profession. Not all architects wanted to be governed this way, and when a long-fought battle for registration and protection of title was concluded, a get-out had to be found for these non-joiners (ARCUK), bequeathing a complicated duality. Are architects in fact ungovernable?

Alan Powers wrote his doctoral thesis on architectural education in Britain on the cusp of the twentieth century and has continued to study the past 150 years of architecture in Britain, while also publishing on artists and designers of the same period. He has curated many exhibitions and taught in several schools of architecture. His publications include Britain (2007), a survey of British architecture since 1900, and Bauhaus Goes West (2019) on the interchange between the famous German school and its British and American counterparts. Studies of individuals include Serge Chermayeff (2001), Eric Ravilious (2003 and 2013), Edward Ardizzone (2017) and Enid Marx (2018). He has contributed to several multi-author works on landscape architecture.