Designing a better London with Peter Murray OBE

Buckminster Fuller and Cedric Price were mentors when Peter Murray OBE was studying architecture in the 1960s. Peter Cook and the Archigram Group were idols, “they were the Beatles of architecture at the time”. Not a bad selection of teachers for someone interested in the craft from the age of ten. 

Since then, Murray has had a huge impact on shaping the city of London. Although he qualified as an architect, he didn’t become one. His calling was to carve out a huge career writing about and promoting it. He founded the design and architecture magazine Blueprint and the global communications company Wordsearch. And curated major exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London. He also started the London Festival of Architecture - now a significant annual event in the cultural life of the capital. 

Murray has written and published books about architecture, been a Mayor's Design Advocate, Chairman of the London Society and a Visiting Professor at the IE Business School in Madrid. He is Chairman of the Temple Bar Trust and has gathered a huge list of accolades through his career. Including the OBE he received for leadership in the arts, architecture, city planning, design, publication and charity in 2021. He’s also a keen cyclist, raising money for charity each year through cycling, and advocate for active cities.  

Today, his time is focused on the New London Architecture centre, which he founded in 2005 as a centre for debate and discussion about the changing face of the capital. Some might say London is a better place to live thanks to him. 

Listen in as Vince and Peter discuss working in design media in swinging 60s London, how his wildly successful studio Wordsearch came to be, and why, when you see an opportunity, you have to take it. 

https://nla.london/ 

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