About this Event
Architects Seeking Refuge on the Brink of WWII
The RIBA Refugee Committee (RRC) was set up by the RIBA Council in January 1939, in response to the sharp rise in requests for admission to the country from architects mainly based in Central Europe. It was tasked to strike a difficult balance between giving assistance to foreign colleagues and safeguarding job opportunities for local architects in a period of economic uncertainty. Headed by the indefatigable RIBA Librarian Edward ‘Bobby’ Carter, the RRC considered and acted on urgent cases, made recommendations to the Home Office, undertook statistical analysis, consulted other professional institutes, and eventually produced a detailed report for the RIBA Council, which was praised in the architectural press for its clarity. The activities of the RRC, however, were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. This presentation will consider the committee’s course of action, with the aim of highlighting the cultural attitudes of the British architectural establishment at the outbreak of the Second World War. It will also introduce the wide range of individuals who were brought to its attention during its short lifespan, from those who succeeded in building a new life in Britain or in countries outside Europe, to those who did not and perished in concentration camps. They all deserve to be remembered, as part of a wider narrative that does not just concern the history of the RIBA but also the choices that the profession, and us as individuals, are still confronted with now, and will be in the future.
Valeria Carullo is Curator of the Robert Elwall Photographs Collection, Royal Institute of British Architects. Her principal area of research is the relationship between modern photography and modern architecture in the interwar years. An architect by background, she lectures and writes on both architectural and photographic subjects. In 2019 she published Moholy-Nagy in Britain 1935-1937 (Lund Humphries). Valeria has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, including her latest, Wide-Angle View: architecture as social space in the Manplan series 1969-70 (2023 RIBA London + 2026 RIBA North, Liverpool), and Beyond Bauhaus: Modernism in Britain 1933-66 in 2019 (RIBA London). She is the lead researcher of the RIBA Refugee Committee project, which she has been developing for the last few years.
Technical Library, Prague (1934), Archt: Ladislav Machoň (RIBA56808)
Credit: RIBA Collections
Cover image: Office building, Linkstr. 18, Berlin (1935), Archt: Wilhelm Kellner (RIBA165940)
Credit: RIBA Collections
Event venue & nearby stays
The Gallery, Cowcross Street, 77 Cowcross Street, London, United Kingdom
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