The arts and the academies

by Hugh Casson

25 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson, KCVO, RA, RDI, was a British architect, interior designer, artist, and influential writer and broadcaster on 20th century design. He is particularly noted for his role as director of architecture at the 1951 Festival of Britain on London's South Bank.

Casson's family originated from Wales. He was the nephew of actor, Sir Lewis Casson. Hugh Casson studied at Eastbourne College in East Sussex, then St John's College, Cambridge (1929-1931), after which he spent time at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. Up to the start of the Second World War in 1939, he divided his time between teaching at the Cambridge School of Architecture and working in the London office of his Cambridge tutor, architect Christopher (Kit) Nicholson. During the war, he worked in the Camouflage Service of the Air Ministry.