BIOGRAPHIES

CB: born Hampshire; grew up in the north of Ireland. Worked in architects' offices in London for several years before entering the Architectural Association School. Graduated in 1966 with the gold medal of la Sociêté des Architectes Diplomés par le Gouvernement, Paris, for thesis project: a layered restructuring proposal for Soho. Taught at Canterbury College of Art, the University of British Columbia, and the AA School.

JL: born Toronto; early years in Canada and the USA. Graduated with BA(Hons)Arch from Manchester University in 1961. Thesis project: a Museum of First Nations Art and Culture, Ottawa, exhibited at the UIA Congress London in 1961. Exhibited artworks and photographic projects, notably at the Canadian Culture Centre, Paris, 1974-75.

CB and JL: Collaboration on schools competitions in Ticino, Switzerland, with Livio Vacchini and Luigi Snozzi. Finalists in the UK competition for a secondary school in Newport; project featured in AD May '68 edited by Cedric Price. Subsequently based in Vancouver Canada for 12 years; designed innovative university laboratories, landscape-oriented public buildings and an environmentally sensitive mountain-slope community. Also built a wood-frame house and developed production process for the Wayfarer sailboat.

Living and working since 1985 in a studio we designed and constructed in Camden Town; projects have included individual house commissions and work as consultant design architects on city-scale projects in the UK, Lisbon and Barcelona. From our travels in Europe, North America, Mexico and Japan, and close engagement with memorable places, has evolved a profound interest in architectural theory and its interconnectedness to art, philosophy, mythology and music. Key to this has been research into the architectural 'mode' which first emerged in the 6th century BCE on the island of Naxos; tracing its influence into the modern world.

Our first early-morning sight of the Santorini vaults and caldera, after arriving one night in 1998 during a power-cut, provided the stimulus for research into the August 1933 visit to the Aegean islands by members of CIAM and the European avant-garde. This little-known event was distilled by László Moholy-Nagy as a sequence in his legendary film 'Architects' Congress'. Our book 'moholy's edit', focuses on the event and its far-reaching ramifications.

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