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design – and Christopher Woodward, appointed after completing his Miesian scheme for Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. Between them, and in the face of opposition from some senior colleagues, they established an annual end of year show in 1981. Initially it fell short of the standard set by the AA but, by 1984, it attracted Peter Palumbo – then trying to build a Mies-designed tower at Mansion House Square – to open it: he was so impressed with one student’s work that he bought a sample of it on the spot. However, design remained the curriculum’s poor relation and, when John Musgrove retired in 1985, Newton Watson moved into the chair of environmental design, to create space for a new professor of architecture with a high profile in design. Richard Rogers turned down the post but in 1986 Peter Ahrends, best known as co-founder of Ahrends Burton and Koralek, accepted. A graduate of the AA, he had also taught there early in his career, but otherwise had little teaching experience. But he had big ambitions for The Bartlett, which, he believed, ‘had the feel of a provincial school’ – a sentiment echoed by his successor Peter Cook. Ahrends brought The Bartlett back into experimental territory. He planned to restructure courses into two
RIBAPIX
SAM LAMBERT / RIBA COLLECTIONS
BARTLETT ARCHIVE
‘ Diploma crits became significant events, attracting professionals and commentators from across London’
semesters a year, enabling a more intense engagement with project work. Building on a programme instituted by David Dunster, who took over the final year in 1985, he promoted collaboration and group work in his words, to ‘share subjectivities to get somewhere towards being objective’. As part of his restructure, he planned to place Christopher Woodward in charge of the undergraduate school with Dunster taking responsibility for the postgraduate design programme. A Bartlett student in the 1960s, Dunster returned in 1983 to teach history and theory, replacing Bob Maxwell who had moved to Princeton. On taking over the final-year design studio he found students Simon Allford, Jonathan Hall, Paul Monaghan and Peter Morris, who would later set up AHMM. With his encouragement they embraced collaborative working whereby students’ projects were required to take account of, and relate to, other student projects on nearby sites. Diploma crits became significant events inside and outside of the school, attracting professionals and commentators from across London. Farshid Moussavi was a student in a subsequent year. With support from UCL’s provost James Lighthill and an informal advisory committee that included Arup
(Left) Lord LlewelynDavies in 1960 (Top) Peter Ahrends at The Bartlett (Right) Robert Maxwell at an exhibition of Cedric Price’s work at the RIBA, 1975 (Far right) students Kevin Mansfield and Jane Gosney, 1981