Remembrance of Things Past (or off to university, 1974)

As a new academic year begins, I was reminded that it was 50 years ago one Sunday this month (September) that I packed a small suitcase, my drawing board and tee square and set off from my mother’s house in Newbury to catch the train to Paddington in order to start my architectural career. At Paddington I took the Circle Line to Baker Street and checked in to my halls of residence at the Polytechnic of Central London (PCL) - now the University of Westminster.

In those days, as I came from what was then called a “broken home”, we were means tested and I received a full grant. That worked out to around £350 per term, which was enough to pay the rent and have £20 a week in your pocket to live off. We had to work in our holidays or perhaps “sign on” during summer, but at least I completed my education with minimal debt.

The Poly[technic] was a relatively new purpose-built building that had its roots in Regent Street. The original campus still had a swimming pool, an array of snooker tables and a shooting range in its basement, all of which we made use of. The Student Union was on Bolsover Street and the basement bar was a popular haunt in my first year. The west end was our playground.

The Marylebone campus housed architecture, engineering and management studies and was raised over a publicly accessible podium that has since been enclosed, there were two bars and a canteen. The main bar, decked out in lurid petrol blues was known as the Blue Lagoon, the management bar on the main podium became our venue of choice.

Due to its proximity, there were close links with the Architectural Association (AA), tutors often taught at both, and we would regularly go to lectures in Bedford Square. The Head was Allen Cunningham, he introduced the Interest Group System early on, an idea soon picked up by other schools. The PCL had a vast subterranean and well-equipped construction workshop for student use, long since gone. By contrast, the galleried studios were light and spacious, it was a good building to study in. Architectural history was led by the great academic Alan Colquhoun, and part timers such as Sam Stevens, and John Brandon-Jones enriched it with their idiosyncratic views. It was still an education rooted in the modern movement, architecture started with Violet Le Duc, there was little reference to its classical origins. But by our third year, in 1977, that all began to change.

Post modernism was the emergent style, in stark contrast to the relatively structured interest groups of Demitri Porphyrios and Peter Jenkins, an alternative and far richer way of thinking was developing within a group lead by Doug Clelland. There were close ties to Dalibor Vesely at the AA and part time tutors including David Leatherbarrow, Alberto Perez-Gomez and Eric Parry. The Poetics of Space, The Fall of Public Man (reissued in 20023)and Collage City were required reading, and the resultant projects were often playful and usually beautifully drawn.

These were exciting and liberating times that launched Andy Trevillion and me into practice. Looking back I feel privileged that I did not leave university with an MA and a £60,000+ debt as so many do today.

With thanks to the University of Westminster Archive for use of the photos: https://recordsandarchives.wes...