Prof Mark Swenarton BA, MA, PhD, FRHistS, FRSA, HonFRIBA

Personal Statement

I have dual interests as a historian and a critic of architecture. I trained originally as an architectural historian and have practiced as such over many years, focusing on the twentieth-century and housing in particular. Later I became also an architectural critic and editor, co-editing the monthly review 'Architecture Today' from 1989 to 2005 and chairing design review at CABE from 2010. These twin interests, in history and design, informed my work as an educator, from 2005-10 as head of the architecture school at Oxford Brookes and from 2011-15 as inaugural James Stirling Chair of Architecture. Since becoming emeritus professor in 2015, I have maintained these twin interests. In 2017 I published 'Cook's Camden: The Making of Modern Housing' - the result of ten years of research - and also in 2018 a new edition of my 1981 book 'Homes fit for Heroes'; and I have remained active in design review, as a founding member of the Oxford Design Review Panel (2014- ) and member of the Brighton DesignPlace review panel (2019- ), as an architectural critic; and as a judge of the RIBA Neave Brown Housing Award. In 2020 I returned to my interest in editing when I took up the editorship of 'Architectural History', the journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.