Peter Blundell Jones Library

Memoirs

Timothy Brittain-Catlin

British architect and architectural historian at University of Cambridge.

Extract from True Principles, vol. 5 no. 2 - Summer 2017

Architectural historians and countless former students were devastated to hear of the early death in August 2016 of Peter Blundell Jones, of cancer at the age of 67. Peter was amongst much else a great friend of the Pugin Society and took an interest in the theoretical and historical implications of Pugin's work well before it became fashionable to do so.

Peter was trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in the late 1960s. Early in his career as a teacher he established himself as the major authority in the work of twentieth-century German organic Architects, with authoritative and beautifully illustrated monographs on Hans Scharoun, Hugo Häring and, later, Gunnar Asplund, that have never been surpassed. Peter work closely with Peter Davey during the latter's long and influential editorship of the Architectural Review, on many occasions acting as guest editor and introducing new names such as the Struttgart architect Peter Hübner to a wide international audience.

Peter was first and foremost a teacher, in particular a Professor of Architecture at the Sheffield School of Architecture from 1994 where he became a mentor to many talented doctoral students. He wrote and published prolifically, and has two volumes of Modern Architecture Through Case Studies, of 2002 and 2007 ( the second coat offered with Eamonn Canniffe) are required reading for many students.

Peter was a member of the True Principles editorial board and a reviewer for our 2012 bicentenary conference ‘New Directions in Gothic Revival Studies Worldwide’ and its resulting book Gothic Revival Worldwide. His very last publication, Architecture and Ritual (2016) starts with a study of the palace of Westminster. He was a lovely person, kind and approachable, and unfailingly supportive, and we will all miss him.