About this talk

Running time: 30 minutes

The late Maxwell Fry began practising architecture in the early 1930s, a pioneer of the Modern Movement in Britain. Instrumental in engineering Walter Gropius' escape from Nazi Germany and bringing him to work in London, he designed with him a number of buildings before Gropius (see The Victory Of The Modern Approach Is Sure) departed for America.

Fry conveys in his talk something of the excitement and optimism he and his colleagues experienced in the 1930s, with new materials coming on the market, and new ideas filtering from the continent of Europe. He tells of the birth in 1928 of CIAM (Les Congres International D'Architecture Moderne) and in 1934 of its British offspring the MARS Group (Modern Architectural ReSearch), and of their subsequent influence.

This is the second of Fry's talks for us, his first is Learning From The Tropics.

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