Richard Llewelyn-Davies, Baron Llewelyn-Davies

Richard Llewelyn-Davies, Baron Llewelyn-Davies FRIBA (* December 24, 1912 in London ; † October 27, 1981 there ) was a British architect and urban planner who became a member of the House of Lords in 1964 as a life peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and who was considered "the intellectual leader of the 'scientific wing' of English architects".

Life

Milton Keynes New Town skyline

Llewelyn-Davies, who was a supporter of communism as a youth , completed a degree in architecture at the University of Cambridge after attending school , from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). After completing his studies, he founded an architectural office with Peter Moro in 1938 and was admitted to the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1939 . During the Second World War , in 1941, he worked with other younger architects such as Leslie Martin and Elizabeth Denby on radio broadcasts for the BBC Home Service with the planning of houses and apartments for the post-war period. In 1942, he began working as an architect in the engineering and planning department of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) railway company , before planning hospitals for the Nuffield Provisional Hospital Trust during the 1950s . In December 1959 he became an advisor on the renovation work carried out under the direction of the architect Robert Matthews to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh , the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland, founded in 1729.

In addition to his practical work as an architect and urban planner, Llewelyn-Davies was also involved in academic training and in 1960 was appointed professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, the Faculty of Architecture at University College London . Between 1961 and 1969 he was also the head of this faculty and was named by the architecture editor of the Sunday Times Nicholas Taylor as "the intellectual leader of the" scientific wing "of English architects" ) designated.

In 1960, Llewelyn-Davies, who was also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects , founded the architectural office Llewelyn Davies Weeks together with John Weeks , which in the following years became one of the leading architectural offices for basic planning for hospital construction measures as well as for urban planning master plans .

For his services he was raised to the nobility by a letters patent dated January 16, 1964 as a Life Peer with the title Baron Llewelyn-Davies, of Hastoe in the County of Hertfordshire and was thus a member of the House of Lords , in until his death which he joined the faction of the Labor Party .

In the 1960s, for example, the Llewelyn Davies Weeks office designed the master plan for the construction of the so-called " New Town " Milton Keynes , but also for the construction of the Northwick Park Hospital, which opened in 1970 . The office was also involved in the design of the London Stock Exchange's Stock Exchange Tower, which opened in 1972 .

In 1970 he succeeded William Holford, Baron Holford as professor of urban planning at University College London and at the same time head of the local school for environmental studies ( School of Environmental Studies ) and held these functions until 1975. He was also one of the few architects who worked as resident scholars worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton .

Baron Llewelyn-Davies was married to Labor politician Annie Llewelyn-Davies , who was also raised to the nobility in 1967 as Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, of Hastoe in the County of Hertfordshire . Together with his wife, he was one of the few couples who were simultaneously members of the House of Lords because of their own nobility.

Publications

• Building elements , co-author David John Petty, Architectural Press, 1956.
• The Education of an Architect: An Inaugural Lecture , University College of London, 1961.
• Hospital planning and administration , co-author Hugh Montagu Cameron Macaulay, World Health Organization , 1966.
• Development Guide: Motorway Service Area Research , co-authors David Goddard, Bev Nutt, David Pearson, University College London 1966.
• The future of environmental studies , University of Edinburgh (School of the Built Environment), 1968.
• New Cities - a British Example: Milton Keynes , United States Government Printing Office , 1969.
• The Urban Retailing System of Coventry , Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1971.

Web links

• Richard Llewelyn-Davies at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• Richard Llewellyn-Davies, Baron Llewelyn-Davies, on thepeerage.com , accessed September 12, 2016.
• Entry in the Dictionary of Scottish Architects
• Proof of publication ( Google Books )
• Llewelyn-Davies, city planner, 68 . In: The New York Times, October 28, 1981

Individual evidence

1. ^ Terence Bendixson, John Platt: Milton Keynes: Image and Reality , 1992, ISBN 0906782724 , p. 40.
2. ↑ Homepage of the architectural office Llewellyn Davies Yeang ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Jeanne Mager Stellman: Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety , 1998, ISBN 9221098168
4. ↑ Terence Bendixon, John Platt, Milton Keynes: Image and Reality , 1992, ISBN 0906782724 , p. 38
5. ^ Richard J. Williams: The Anxious City: British Urbanism in the Late 20th Century , 2004, ISBN 0415279267 , pp. 57, 59 f.
6. ↑ Jonathan Hughes, Simon Sadler: Non-Plan: Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture , 2000, ISBN 0750640839 , pp. 90, 96, 101.
7. ↑ Post-War Buildings ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.