Gavin Stamp Explained

Birth Date:	1948 3, df=yes
Penname:	Piloti
Nationality:	British
Education:	Dulwich College
Alma Mater:	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Known For:	Books, newspaper articles and television appearances -->

Gavin Mark Stamp (15 March 194830 December 2017) was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.

Education

Stamp was educated at Dulwich College in South London from 1959 to 1967 as part of the "Dulwich Experiment",^[1] then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he obtained a PhD in 1978 with a thesis entitled George Gilbert Scott, junior, architect, 1839–1897.^[2]

Life and career

Stamp's career was one of largely independent journalism, writing, lecturing and polemic on architectural topics. Under the pseudonym "Piloti", he wrote the "Nooks & Corners" architecture criticism column in Private Eye from 1978 until his death,^[3] including giving the Hugh Casson Award for worst new building of the year.^[4] He regularly contributed essays on architecture to the fine arts and collector's magazine Apollo. From 1990 he taught architectural history, latterly as Professor, at the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. He bought and restored a terrace house that Alexander "Greek" Thomson designed for a local builder in Moray Place, Glasgow. In 2003, he resigned from the school and reverted to being an independent scholar and was widely invited as a guest lecturer.

He was a long-standing trustee and for a time chairman of the Twentieth Century Society, a registered charity which promotes the appreciation of modern architecture and the conservation of Britain's architectural heritage.^[5] He was also active in the Victorian Society in various capacities over five decades. He lent his support as lecturer, journalist and lobbyist to a wide range of architectural conservation causes on behalf of buildings in many styles, especially those he felt were "worthy but unpopular causes". As such, he was prominent in campaigns to save buildings such as Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station (now Tate Modern) which were threatened with destruction.^[6]

Television appearances

Stamp presented a number of programmes about architecture for Channel 5. In 2005 he presented Pevsner's Cities: Liverpool and Pevsner's Cities: Newcastle, and in 2006 Pevsner's Cities: Oxford;^[7] each programme profiled the cities with reference to the writings of architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner. In 2007 he presented a five-part architectural travel series Gavin Stamp's Orient Express,^[8] in which he travelled by train along the original Orient Express route, stopping off to look at architecture and to see how the history of Eastern Europe is told in its buildings.

Stamp regularly made television appearances as an expert interviewee: in 1986 he appeared in A Sense of the Past, a 6-part series for schools produced by Yorkshire Television about the relationship between buildings and local history; in 1990 he was interviewed for Design Classics: The Telephone Box, a favourite subject of Stamp's and one he wrote about (he inspired the listing of many telephone kiosks^[9]); in 1995 he appeared as guest expert in an episode of One Foot in the Past about Isambard Kingdom Brunel; and in 2003 he was interviewed by Paul Binski for an episode of Channel 5's Divine Designs which profiled Alexander "Greek" Thomson's St. Vincent Street Free Church in Glasgow.

Oral history interview

National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C467/48) with Stamp in 2000 for its Architects Lives' collection, now held by the British Library.^[10]

Personal life

Stamp was the son of Norah and Barry Stamp (the last Chairman of Cave Austin and Company). He was married to Alexandra Artley from 1982 until 2007. Their daughter Cecilia is a jewellery designer,^{[11] [12]} and their other daughter, Agnes, works for Country Life.^{[13] [14] [15]}

He married his second wife, biographer and cultural historian Rosemary Hill, on 10 April 2014.

Stamp was a life-long member of the Church of England and loved its traditional forms of liturgy and architecture. In his last years he worshipped at St Hilda's church, Crofton Park in South London.^[16]

Stamp was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent a course of chemotherapy in 2017.^[17] He died on 30 December 2017.^[9]

Books

• Temples of Power: Architecture of Electricity in London (1979). London: Gardners.
• Britain in the Thirties (1979). London: Architectural Design.
• (with Colin Amery) Victorian Buildings of London, 1837–1887: An Illustrated Guide (1980). London: Architectural Press.
• Book: Amery . Colin . Richardson . Margaret . Stamp . Gavin . Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens . 1981 . Arts Council of Great Britain . 9780728703032.
• The Great Perspectivists (1982). London: Trefoil.
• The Changing Metropolis: Earliest Photographs of London 1839–1879 (1984). London: Viking.
• (with Andre Goulancourt) The English House, 1860–1914: The Flowering of English Domestic Architecture (1986). London: Faber.
• Telephone Boxes (1989). London: Chatto & Windus.
• (with Sam McKinstry) "Greek" Thomson: Neo-Classical Architectural Theory, Buildings and Interiors (1993). Edinburgh University Press.
• Personal and Professional Recollections of George Gilbert Scott (1995). Stamford: Paul Watkins.
• (with Phil Sayer) Alexander "Greek" Thomson (1999). London: L. King.
• Edwin Lutyens: Country Houses (2001). London: Aurum.
• An Architect of Promise: George Gilbert Scott, Jr. (2002). Donington: Shaun Tyas.
• (co-editor, with Andrew Hopkins) Lutyens Abroad: The Work of Sir Edwin Lutyens outside the British Isles (2002). London: The British School at Rome.
• The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme (2006). London: Profile.
• Britain's Lost Cities (2007). London: Aurum.
• Anti-Ugly: Excursions in English Architecture and Design [collected writings first published in ''[[Apollo (magazine)|Apollo]] magazine] (2013). London: Aurum.
• Gothic in the Steam Age (2015). London: Aurum.
• Interwar: British Architecture 1919–39 (2024). London: Profile Books.

Articles

• (with André Goulancourt) The English House 1860–1914 Catalogue to an exhibition at The Building Centre, co-published International Architect and Building Centre Trust, 1980
• Robert Weir Schultz – Architect – and his work for the Marquesses of Bute – An Essay, Mount Stuart, 1981
• (Foreword) The Architecture of the Halifax Piece Hall 1775–1779, Phillip Smithies, Halifax, 1988
• (Contributor & Introduction) Owen Williams Projects, Comentari sobre l'exposico: Craig Ellwood, Carlo Mollino, Jean Prouve, Owen Williams, Pares Department de Projectes d'Arquitectura, Catalunya, April 1995
• "Sacred Architecture in a Secular Century" in The Twentieth Century Church, ed. Jeffery, Twentieth Century Society, London 1998
• (Preface) The Cathedrals of England three volumes, The Folio Society, London, 2005
• "Ian Nairn" in The Heroic Period of Conservation, ed. Harwood, Powers, Twentieth Century Society, London 2004
• "An architect of the Entente Cordiale: Eugene Bourdin (1870–1916)" in Architectural Heritage XV, Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2004
• (Preface) The Cathedrals of England three volumes, The Folio Society, London, 2005
• Edwin Lutyens: Profilo di un Architteto, Umberto Allemandi & Co, Torino, 2008
• "Suburban Affinities" in The Seventies – Rediscovering a lost decade of British Architecture ed. Cherry, The Twentieth Century Society, London 2012

Further reading

• News: Ian . Jack . Ian Jack . Gavin Stamp obituary . The Guardian . 7 January 2018 . 20 January 2018 .
• Alan . Powers . Alan Powers . Obituary: Gavin Stamp, 1948–2017 . . 8 January 2018 . 24 January 2018 .
• Richard . Waite . Will . Hurst . Tributes pour in for 'elegant and opinionated' Gavin Stamp . . 2 January 2018 . 2 January 2018 .

External links

• Gavin Stamp archive at the Paul Mellon Centre

Notes and References

1. http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2010/06/25/an-interview-with-gavin-stamp/ "An Interview with Gavin Stamp"
2. Web site: George Gilbert Scott, junior, architect, 1839–1897 . EThOS – British Library . 2 June 2013.
3. Web site: Bible of British Taste: The Englishman's Room, Gavin Stamp and Anti-Ugly. Bibleofbritishtaste.com . 23 April 2015.
4. Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast. Episode 13 . 30 November 2015.
5. Web site: People. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20080221223323/http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/about/people.html. 21 February 2008. The Twentieth Century Society.
6. Web site: Gavin Stamp . 9 December 2023.
7. Web site: Pevsner's Cities: Oxford With Gavin Stamp. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20070112233945/http://www.five.tv/programmes/fiveartscities/home/box4/. 12 January 2007. Channel 5.
8. http://www.newstatesman.com/200705210038 "Orient Express review"
9. Web site: Gavin Stamp, architectural historian – obituary. 31 December 2017. 1 January 2018. Telegraph.co.uk.
10. http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Architects-Lives/021M-C0467X0048XX-0001V0 National Life Stories, 'Stamp, Gavin (1 of 1) National Life Stories Collection: Architects' Lives', The British Library Board, 2000
11. Country Life vol. CCXI, no. 9, 1 March 2017, pg 23
12. Web site: Home. Cecilia Stamp. 1 January 2018.
13. Web site: Agnes Stamp. geni_family_tree. 1 January 2018.
14. Web site: Agnes Stamp, Author at Country Life. Country Life. 1 January 2018.
15. Web site: Portfolio. Agnes Stamp. 1 January 2018.
16. Stamp, Gavin, St Hilda's Church, Crofton Park 1908–2008: An Arts and Crafts Church in historical context, London 2008
17. Web site: Gavin . Stamp . Help the body help itself . The Oldie . September 2017 . 31 December 2017 .