The housing projects built in Camden in the 1960s and 1970s under Borough Architect Sydney Cook are widely regarded as the most important urban housing to be built in the UK during the past hundred years.
With schemes like Neave Brown's Alexandra Road, Camden offered a new vision of urban housing, based on a return to streets with front doors. This new kind of urbanism - which replaced tower blocks - integrated with, rather than broke from, its cultural and physical context.
Mark Swenarton, Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of Liverpool, former Head of School at Oxford Brookes School of Architecture and author of the recent book 'Cook's Camden: The Making of Modern Housing' will talk about how Sydney Cook, Neave Brown and the Camden team created this new kind of housing, what it comprised, and how we can learn from them today.
All are welcome at Mark’s lecture, given for RIBA Oxfordshire in aid of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. The Trust works with disadvantaged young people, giving them the opportunities that Stephen himself was denied. The RIBA is marking the Trust’s 20th anniversary and 25 years since Stephen Lawrence’s death through fundraising events.
Pre-book your place at Cook’s Camden below, indicating your category of RIBA membership, or whether you are not a member. Please pay the RIBA Branch on the door, on the day - £3 for students, £10 non-students - as your donation.
