Diana Rowntree Explained

Diana Rowntree
Birth Date:14 May 1915
Nationality:British
Alma Mater:Somerville College, Oxford
Architectural Association School of Architecture
Spouse:Kenneth Rowntree
Practice:Jane Drew's firm

Diana Rowntree (14 May 1915 – 22 August 2008) was a British architect and architectural writer.

Career and life

After graduating from Somerville College, Oxford and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1939, she joined Jane Drew's architecture practice, that at the time worked on a War Office scheme for faux factories designed to divert enemy bombers.[1]

In the mid-1950s Rowntree took on jobs within architectural press, establishing a position as first architectural writer for The Guardian and acting as news editor for the Architectural Design magazine.[2]

In 1964 she wrote Diana's Interior Design: A Penguin Handbook, called a pioneering work with an emphasis on minimalist rationality by The Guardian post mortem.https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/aug/27/architecture.pressandpublishing By the mid-1960s she had resumed her own architectural practice in addition to her writing.

Her husband was painter Kenneth Rowntree, whom she married 1939.[1]

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. News: MacCarthy. Fiona. Diana Rowntree. As the Guardian's first architecture writer, she was a fervent believer in the moral potency of design. The Guardian. 15 October 2015.
  2. Book: Rowntree. Diana. Diana's Interior Design: A Penguin Handbook. 1964. Penguin Books. Middlesex.