Sir Peter Cook Visits PennDesign

Graduate Architecture had the honor of hosting Sir Peter Cook for the EwingCole Lecture and a three-day studio workshop for 500-level students from September 4-6, 2018.

Sir Peter Cook is the founder of Archigram and the Cook-Robotham Architecture Bureau (CRAB) Studio, and former Chair of The Bartlett School of Architecture. A Graduate of the Bournemouth College of Art and the Architectural Association in London, he has been a pivotal figure within the architectural world for 50 years.

His EwingCole lecture, titled "Dreams - Realities – Explorations," examined his creative process over the span of his career. It was one of the best attended lectures in Lower Gallery with students and faculty overflowing into the hallways and balconies. The entire lecture is available online.

Peter also led a studio workshop for all 500-level students, overseen by Associate Professor Andrew Saunders and the first year faculty. Over 80 students presented their drawings and models for vessels, which were inspired by work in the Penn Museum’s collection. These vessels will then become proposals for full-scale pavilion installations. Of the project, Andrew writes, “The generative exercise motivates the construction of aggregations and part-to-whole relationships by developing new objects through a series of transformations.”

Associate Professor Annette Fierro invited Peter to visit her seminar, Archigram and Its Legacy: London, A Techtopia, which focuses on the studio he founded. The seminar is described as “acknowledging the ubiquitous proliferation of ‘Hi-Tech’ architecture in contemporary London, we examine the scope of technology as it emerges and re-emerges in the work of various architects currently dominating the city.”

Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture Winka Dubbeldam also arranged a visit to Louis Kahn’s Esherick House and Robert Venturi’s Mother's House with William Whitaker, the Curator and Collections Manager of our Architectural Archives.

The EwingCole Lecture Fund was established in June 2002 to support the annual EwingCole Lecture, which provides PennDesign with the opportunity to invite distinguished architects to campus.