In 2017 I setup the Architecture Masters podcast, which later became the podcast for the London Festival of Architecture. The podcast ran for over three years.
There were relatively few architecture podcasts around at the time. But despite the name, it was never really intended to be a podcast about architecture. I was more interested in the people behind the architecture.
The episodes are posted here as a more permanent archive. Many of the architects will have moved on from the work they were doing at the time, or their studios grown or changed – but hopefully the episodes stand as a bit of an oral history of the profession at a certain time and place.
In 2018, with support from the British Council, I travelled too Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya to record episodes there as part of the 2018 London Festival of Architecture with its theme of identity.
In the beginning, all the episodes were recorded in the studio or office of the architects involved. I felt this was important. Not only was it more enjoyable for me to be shown around their studios – I think people talk more freely and openly in their own space.
I was really grateful for the time people gave up to record the episodes, and the trust many showed in telling quite personal stories – often of failure and struggle. In return I laboured over the editing for hours – trying to do justice to the stories they were telling.
In 2020 when the pandemic struck, I pivoted the format to record remotely. In those early days of zoom, the audio is was little less crisp, and the editing a little looser as I rushed to get episodes out. But hopefully those episodes too tell a different story.
By late 2020 there were many more architecture podcasts around providing opportunities for architects to talk about architecture. There are still precious few where architects are the subject not just the speaker.
You might also be interested in my new podcast The Golden Hour Project.
** December 2023 – Episodes are still being uploaded to the archive **