About this talk

Running time: 41 minutes

Penoyre and Prasad have a love for gritty everydayness. They distinguish a couple of keen passions in their work. One is about the ordinary, an architecture rooted in, but rising out of function; while the other is about the magic of structure and fabric and its effect on the making of space.

They illustrate this with their design for a large school in South London. Their backgrounds are very dissimilar. Prasad, excited by the space programmes, eventually turned to architecture as a way of combing science, engineering and art, and studied at Cambridge and then the AA where he was involved in a political unit devoted to process and people. There followed eight years work with Edward Cullinan (see Red House To Ronchamp: Part 1 (1850 - 1895), Red House To Ronchamp: Part 2 (1900 - 1910) and Red House To Ronchamp: Part 3 (1920 - 1960)), and a PhD about the structure of the North Indian city.

Penoyre, son of architects, studied at Sheffield University, worked with Chamberlin Powell & Bon, and then also with Cullinan. His interest was to release the potential of social and site values. In1988 he and Prasad set up in practice together in London.

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