Francis Terry: New classical architecture.

In Episode 186 of the A is for Architecture Podcast, neoclassical architect Francis Terry, founder of Francis Terry and Associates, discusses his upbringing, education, drawing, work, practice and the imposed politics of it all.

In our binary times, it seems strange to think of traditional classical design -still so popular among the public - as somehow controversial, and yet here we are. The institutional profession certainly preferences contemporary modernism – look at all the prize winner – but perhaps this is hardly surprising given widespread disinterest in- and lack of practical knowledge of – the techniques and patterns of traditional design in architectural education. Classicism is of course tainted by its association to a certain politics; modernism by contrast remains rhetorically linked to emancipatory social movements. 

Even so, whilst classicism retains its hold on the public imagination as rooted, reassuring and legible, architects like Francis - versed in the Doric and the Tuscan, in fluted shafts, acanthus leaves and egg and dart, in astragal, dentils and domes - remain very busy. 

Francis Terry and Associates is here, and one of his books, Francis Terry: A Life in Sketchbooks, is linked here. Francis is on Insta and LinkedIn.

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