BRYAN AVERY: BORN 1944
Architect of the London IMAX, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Bryan Avery was one of the most innovative architects of his time. Born in Berkshire, he was the son of a leather worker. After his family moved to the New Forest he attended Brockenhurst grammar school. He won a scholarship to train as a pilot, but decided instead to pursue an architectural training at Leicester College of Art, then at Essex University.
After a spell with the Greater London Council, he set up his own practice in 1982. He relished bringing futuristic architecture to difficult site. This was exemplified in the British Film Institute’s Museum of the Moving Image, built into the arches under the Waterloo railway bridge. This caught the eye of Sir Richard Attenborough, then chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, for which Avery undertook a radical transformation of its Bloomsbury premises.
Among many other projects, mainly in the arts field, Avery’s most conspicuous building is the London IMAX Cinema, built on a roundabout just south of Waterloo Bridge. With its cylindrical shape and its transparent skin it is a remarkable and now much loved landmark.
Avery’s fertile and innovative thinking is well captured in his book Wilderness City. This promoted ideas radical in their time, but now becoming accepted. These included proposals for super high density low rise housing, and the downgrading of rural B roads. You can buy the book online at Amazon, by clicking on the image of the first cover below.
Brian Avery was a prolific sketcher from his teenage years. The images below, from one of his sketchbooks, show the complex stairway of an Indian well, and Le Corbusier’s work in Chandigarh, India.
PLACES
Museum of the Moving Image. Under Waterloo bridge, SE1 8XT.
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. 62-64 Gower St, wC1E 6ED.
London IMAX Cinema, Waterloo. Charlie Chaplin Walk, SE1 8XR.
CLICK FOR BOOKS FROM AMAZON
