International scholars explore the architect-planner across global contexts and urban change.

About

On Friday 4 September 2026, the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL will host a major international symposium exploring the role of architect-planners in shaping cities, regions and societies.

Bringing together scholars from Great Britain, continental Europe and the United States, Architect-Planners: Transnational and Global Perspectives examines how architectural ideas and practices have informed planning at a variety of scales and in diverse political and cultural contexts.

Through a series of original papers and discussions, speakers will reflect on the essential, if sometimes contested, place of architects in major planning projects, both realised and unrealised. Topics include decolonisation, gender, pedagogy, heritage and conservation, radical urban visions, and challenges to established planning orthodoxies.

The symposium features a keynote lecture by Professor Lizabeth Cohen (Harvard University), whose address examines architect-planners and the struggle to reinvent urban America over the past half-century.

Organised by John Gold, Elizabeth Darling and Barbara Penner, the symposium is sponsored by Planning Perspectives, the leading international journal for the study of planning history, and is supported by the International Planning History Society and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. It accompanies a special issue of Planning Perspectives (Vol. 41, No. 5), to be published in October 2026.

Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

The symposium is open to UCL students, staff and alumni, as well as researchers, practitioners and all others with interests in architecture, planning and urban history.

Attendance is free, but booking is essential.

Programme

09:30 - Registration and coffee (on sixth floor landing). Please arrive by 10:30, when doors will close.

10:00 - Introduction

John Gold (University College London), Elizabeth Darling (Independent Architectural Historian) and Barbara Penner (University College London)

Session 1: Defining the ‘Architect-Planner’

Chair: Neal Shasore (Founder, School of Building)

10:15 - Beyond monuments: Edmond Pauty's vision for Historic Cairo in early twentieth century Egypt

Lama Said (University of Edinburgh)

10:45 - First Decade Revisited: architect-planners, public housing, and the decolonisation of Singapore

Miles Glendinning (University of Edinburgh)

11:15- The many cities of Luisa Anversa: Insights into the Post-War Italian Debate on Architecture and Planning

Filippo De Dominicis (University of L’Aquila) and Aurora Riviezzo (Independent Scholar)

11:45 - Break (coffee available)

Keynote lecture

Chair: Elizabeth Darling (Independent Architectural Historian)

12:00 - How to Lose an Industrial Economy and Save a City: Architect-Planners and the Struggle to Reinvent Urban America over the Past Half Century

Lizabeth Cohen (Harvard University)

13:00–14:00 - Lunch (provided)

Session 2: The Architect-Planner and Postwar London

Chair: Juliet Davis (Cardiff University)

14:00 - Navigating public practice: Women architect-planners and local government in postwar Britain

Claire Jamieson and Jessica Kelly (London Metropolitan University)

14:30 - Between Aspiration and Implementation: Autonomy and Interconnectedness in the London County Council Architect’s Department

Ruth Lang (London School of Architecture)

15:00 - The Architect Planners and the Sociologists: Ruth Glass and the Kenilworth Group

Otto Saumarez-Smith (University of Warwick)

15:30–16:00 - Break (coffee available)

Session 3: Redefining the Architect-Planner

Chair: Iain Borden (University College London)

16:00 - "An orgy of black boarding, fruity brickwork and steep roof pitches": Architects, planners and the new Essex urbanity, c. 1973

Alistair Fair (University of Edinburgh)

16:30 - Green Visions: evolving landscape pedagogies for architect planners

Luca Csepely-Knorr (University of Liverpool)

17:00 - “From Rhetoric to Reality”: the architect-planner as a new professional figure in the United States during the 1960s

Gaia Caramellino (Politecnico di Milano) and Nicole De Togni (Politecnico di Torino)

17:30 - Drinks reception

Symposium organisers

Professor John Gold is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Professor Emeritus at Oxford Brookes University. His research focuses on planning history, urban development and the cultural histories of architecture and design, with particular interests in twentieth-century planning, modernism and international exhibitions.

Professor Barbara Penner is Professor of Architectural Humanities at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Her research explores the social and cultural histories of architecture, design and the built environment, with particular interests in everyday spaces, modernity, gender and urban life.

Dr Elizabeth Darling is an architectural historian, lecturer, curator and writer. She specialises in

Description supplied by the event organiser.