Brian Richards
(1928-2004)
Brian Richards, architect and transport expert, was born on 6 October 1928
in Somerset, UK and he was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond, before training
as an architect at Liverpool University. He worked for architectural firms in
Sweden (Sven Markelius), the United States (Wallace Harrison), France and Morocco
before returning to London in the early 1960s. In Morocco he worked for ATBAT,
the office run by Georges Candilis and Shadrach Woods. For them he designed
a junior school in Casablanca. Through Candilis and Woods Richards became acquainted
with the Team 10 circle, especially the Smithsons.
His best known building in Britain is the town hall at Gravesend equipped with
a theatre. But Richards’ main interest concerned transport systems and
urban development. From the mid-1960s onward he acted as a consultant to numerous
cities and companies world wide. His view that ever-increasing private car use
threatened to destroy cities is now common currency. He published three influential
books on the subject: New Movement in Cities (1966), Moving in Cities (1976)
and Transport in Cities (1990), which made a case for a new approach to urban
mobility making cities safer and cleaner by restraining car use, calling attention
for a pedestrian perspective and public transport systems. These ideas were
exemplified in such designs as the Soho Route Buildings (1959 with Christopher
Dean, presented by the Smithsons at Otterlo as part of their London Roads studies),
the Eustion Station study project (1962, with Dean) and the Southampton bus
and coach station project (1970-73).
Richards’ life partner, Sandra Lousada is a professional photographer;
she documented the exchanges at the meetings. Both Richards and Lousada were
frequently present at Team 10 meetings, still they did not consider themselves
part of the group. They preferred to ironically call themselves ‘groupies’.
Brian Richards died on 19 December 2004. Sandra Lousada lives and works in London.