Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson (23 May 1910 – 15 August 1999) was a British architect, also active as an interior designer, an artist, and a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.
Life
Casson was born in London on 23 May 1910, spending his early years in Burma—where his father was posted with the Indian Civil Service—before being sent back to England for education. He was the nephew of the actor Lewis Casson and his wife the actress Sybil Thorndike. Casson was educated at Eastbourne College in East Sussex, then at St John's College, Cambridge (1929–31), where his subject was architecture, after which he spent time at the Bartlett School of Architecture in Bloomsbury, London, and the British School at Athens. He met his future wife, Margaret Macdonald Troup (1913–1995), an architect and designer who taught design at the Royal College of Art, while they were both students.
Work
Before the Second World War, Casson divided his time between teaching at the Cambridge School of Architecture and working in the London office of his Cambridge tutor, Christopher (Kit) Nicholson. He wrote the book New Sights of London in 1938 for London Transport, championing modern architecture within reach of London, while remaining critical of the UK's record in innovative building. "He does not mince his words", commented the Architect and Building News on the cover. During the war, he worked in the Camouflage Service of the Air Ministry.
Casson was appointed to his role as director of architecture of the Festival of Britain on the South Bank in 1948 at the age of 38,
After the war, and alongside his Festival work, Casson went into partnership with young architect Neville Conder. Their projects included corporate headquarters buildings, university campuses, the Elephant House at London Zoo, a building for the Royal College of Art (where Casson was Professor of Interior Design from 1955 to 1975, and later served as Provost), the Microbiology Building (Belfast), and the master planning and design of the Sidgwick Site arts faculty buildings for the University of Cambridge, including the Austin Robinson Building which houses the Faculty of Economics as well as the Marshall Library of Economics. This latter project lasted some thirty years.
An archive of Casson's papers is held by the Victoria & Albert Museum. Photographs attributed to him are held in the Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, whose archive, of primarily architectural images, is being digitised under the wider Courtauld Connects project.
Selected publications
- Hugh Casson's Oxford, London : Phaidon, 1998, ISBN 0714838101
- Hugh Casson's Cambridge, London : Phaidon, 1992, ISBN 0714824593
- Hugh Casson's London, London : Dent, 1983,
- The Tower of London : an artist's portrait, with additional text ("An historian's viewpoint") by Richard White, London : Herbert Press in association with HM Tower of London, 1993,
- Sketch book : a personal choice of London buildings, drawn 1971-1974 with introduction by John Betjeman, London : Lion and Unicorn Press, 1975,
- Diary, Hugh Casson, London : Macmillan, 1981,
- Nanny Says, as recalled by Sir Hugh Casson and Joyce Grenfell, ed. Diana, Lady Avebury, London : Dobson, 1972,
- Bridges, London : Chatto, 1963.
- Monuments, London : Chatto, 1963.
- Red Lacquer Days. An illustrated journal describing a recent journey to Peking, London : Lion & Unicorn Press, 1956
- An Introduction to Victorian Architecture, London : Art and Technics, 1948
- Homes by the Million. An account of the housing achievement in the U.S.A., 1940-1945, Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1946
- New Sights of London: The Handy Guide to Contemporary Architecture, London : Westminster : London Transport Publications, 1938
Casson also illustrated many books; perhaps the most famous being The Old Man of Lochnagar, HRH The Prince of Wales with illustrations by Sir Hugh Casson, London : Hamilton, 1980,
Casson's biography was published in 2000.