About this talk

Running time: 31 minutes

John Outram, who spent his youth in India, was an air force pilot before studying architecture in the 1950s at Central London Polytechnic and the Architectural Association, qualifying in 1961. Thereafter, for 12 years, he merged into large organisations (the Greater London Council, Fitzroy Robinson, Louis de Soissons) while developing his own ideas.

He wanted to get away from the neo-modernism of the period, and succeeded in devising a personal architectural language after analysing the work of Buckminster Fuller (see The Story Of A Quest), Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe (see Wright Started It, Corbu Gave It Form, Mies Added Control).

In 1973 he started his own practice. For him, architecture is a culture, not a formula; a culture, moreover, that can't be separated from nature. To make a beautiful idea is more important to him than to make a beautiful thing, and he would even like to be able to convey a beautiful idea with an ugly thing.

An outstanding architect, he is probably the most original working in England today, his designs encompassing myth and reality, classicism and modernity.

In his talk he describes his more outstanding commissions, how they were conceived and executed.

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