Mapping the collections: oral histories of architecture in the British Library (PhD Placement)
Mapping the collections: oral histories of architecture in the British Library (PhD Placement)
Mapping the collections: oral histories of architecture in the British Library (PhD Placement)
This placement offers the opportunity to document a collection of national importance as it reaches its 30th anniversary. Architects’ Lives is an oral history project which charts the architectural history of Britain from the 1930s to the present day in the words of those who shaped it. The collection’s 168 life story recordings illustrate how new building forms, materials, individuals, and institutions interplayed with the altering political and social landscape. This is a unique opportunity for in-depth work with a renowned collection to help analyse its holdings and help shape its future development. Architects’ Lives is currently the largest collection of life story recordings with architects and those in associated professions and sits alongside several smaller architecture collections at the British Library. The collection comprises those who are well known such as Denys Lasdun, Peter Smithson, Jane Drew, Terry Farrell, and more recently, Allies and Morrison and Niall McLaughlin, but also those whose work is important but less known. National Life Stories (NLS) at the British Library is the centre for oral history in the UK with a mission ‘to record and preserve a wide range of voices through in-depth biographical accounts, to make them available and inspire their use.’ Alongside the British Library’s other oral history holdings, which stretch back to the early 20th century, NLS recordings form a unique and invaluable record of people’s lives in Britain today. NLS has an active fieldwork programme and works in partnership with a range of external partners.
Collection Details