Celebrating architecture at Cambridge

Entitled Compendium, it is running at the Royal Institute of British Architecture (RIBA) until 11 February 2006.

The University of Cambridge Department of Architecture celebrates its rich heritage of leading design teaching and research.

Projects and work by 40 practices, all either alumni, current students or academic staff past and present, have been brought together for this exhibition, which demonstrates the extraordinary vitality of the UK’s smallest architectural school.

Compendium explores the school’s contribution to the broad culture of architecture since its foundation in 1912 – from teachers to alumni, and those who are building and thinking architecture.

Presenting over 3,000 names of those who have studied or taught at Cambridge and illustrating the extraordinary diversity encouraged by study at the school, the exhibition features a selection of both familiar and emerging architects.

New Posts
A restructuring of the Department has led to a renewed emphasis on architectural research, as Head of the Department Professor Marcial Echenique explains:

“The Cambridge Department of Architecture will now become one of the world’s leading centres of sustainable design with the creation of a new chair and three lectureships, and the construction of an extension to bring together its teaching and research functions. This exhibition celebrates our past but also looks very much to the future.”

Dr Koen Steemers, currently Director of the Martin Centre for Architectural Research becomes the Department's first Professor of Sustainable Design.

The Department is further enhanced by the announcement of the Chadwick Fellowship, funded by Andrew Chadwick, an alumnus of the Department and principal of Chadwick International, space management design and operational consultants. Andrew, a pioneer in space management techniques, has sponsored the Fellowship in order to encourage serious research into the creative use of space in architecture.

Appeal
The exhibition also marks the start of a major fundraising campaign to support teaching in the Department by architectural practitioners. The Department has decided to appeal to the profession and in particular to its successful alumni, to assist in providing the vocational side of the discipline. They can help in building an endowment fund from which practice-based fellows will be financially supported to teach in the studios.