Snape Maltings Concert Hall Jan Vermeer Painting Portuguese Boat Building Wolverhampton Civic Hall

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.

Please note that a transcript of this talk is available - please contact us for further details.

Sunand Prasad

Greg Penoyre


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