Sir Hugh Maxwell CassonCHKCVOPRARDI (23 May 1910 – 15 August 1999) was a British architect,[1][2] also active as an interior designer, an artist, and a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.[2]
Before the Second World War, Casson divided his time between teaching at the Cambridge School of Architecture and working in the London office of his Cambridge tutor, Christopher (Kit) Nicholson. He wrote the book New Sights of London in 1938 for London Transport, championing modern architecture within reach of London, while remaining critical of the UK's record in innovative building.[8] "He does not mince his words", commented the Architect and Building News on the cover.[citation needed] During the war, he worked in the Camouflage Service of the Air Ministry.[9]
Casson was appointed to his role as director of architecture of the Festival of Britain on the South Bank in 1948 at the age of 38,[10] and set out to celebrate peace and modernity through the appointment of other young architects. For example, the Modernist design of the Royal Festival Hall was led by a 39-year-old, Leslie Martin. Casson's Festival achievements led to his being made a (Knight Bachelor) in 1952. The following year he designed street decorations in Westminster for the Coronation of Elizabeth II.[11]
After the war, and alongside his Festival work, Casson went into partnership with young architect Neville Conder. Their projects included corporate headquarters buildings, university campuses, the Elephant House at London Zoo, a building for the Royal College of Art (where Casson was Professor of Interior Design from 1955 to 1975, and later served as Provost), the Microbiology Building (Belfast), and the master planning and design of the Sidgwick Avenue arts faculty buildings for the University of Cambridge, including the Austin Robinson Building which houses the Faculty of Economics as well as the Marshall Library of Economics. This latter project lasted some thirty years.[7]
In the 1980s Casson became a television presenter, with his own series, Personal Pleasures with Sir Hugh Casson, about stately homes and places he enjoyed.[7]
Casson supplied watercolour illustrations for a new edition of Sir John Betjeman's verse autobiography Summoned by Bells (1960); The Illustrated "Summoned by Bells" was published by John Murray in 1989.[15]
He was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1962, and a full member in 1970. He was treasurer in 1975–1976, and president from 1976 to 1984.[17] During the Summer Exhibition the academy awards an annual Hugh Casson Drawing Prize "for an original work on paper in any medium, where the emphasis is clearly on drawing",[18] and a room in the Keeper's House is named after him.[19]
An archive of Casson's papers is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum.[21] Photographs attributed to him are held in the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, whose archive, of primarily architectural images, is being digitised under the wider Courtauld Connects project.[22]
Hugh Casson's Oxford, London : Phaidon, 1998, ISBN 0714838101
Hugh Casson's Cambridge, London : Phaidon, 1992, ISBN 0714824593
Hugh Casson's London, London : Dent, 1983, ISBN0460045911
The Tower of London : an artist's portrait, with additional text ("An historian's viewpoint") by Richard White, London : Herbert Press in association with HM Tower of London, 1993, ISBN1871569451
Sketch book : a personal choice of London buildings, drawn 1971-1974 with introduction by John Betjeman, London : Lion and Unicorn Press, 1975, ISBN0902490206
Diary, Hugh Casson, London : Macmillan, 1981, ISBN0333311124
Nanny Says, as recalled by Sir Hugh Casson and Joyce Grenfell, ed. Diana, Lady Avebury, London : Dobson, 1972, ISBN023477715X
Bridges, London : Chatto, 1963.
Monuments, London : Chatto, 1963.
Red Lacquer Days. An illustrated journal describing a recent journey to Peking, London : Lion & Unicorn Press, 1956
An Introduction to Victorian Architecture, London : Art and Technics, 1948
Homes by the Million. An account of the housing achievement in the U.S.A., 1940-1945, Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1946
New Sights of London: The Handy Guide to Contemporary Architecture, London : Westminster : London Transport Publications, 1938