Peter Moro

Video

DR ALISTAIR FAIR on the life and work of Peter Moro

Recorded at The Gallery, London 26th April 2022

Part of our Post War British Architects series

Peter Moro is the forgotten co-designer of the Royal Festival Hall. A German émigré who had worked with Berthold Lubetkin’s famed practice, Tecton, in the 1930s, Moro was drafted in to help realise the Festival Hall in just two short years, in time for the Festival of Britain in 1951. With a team of his former students, he created many of the interiors we see today. For Moro, the Festival Hall was a stepping-stone to a career designing many of Britain’s finest post-war theatres, particularly Nottingham Playhouse, Plymouth Theatre Royal, and the renovated Bristol Old Vic. He and his colleagues also designed some exceptional one-off houses, as well as exhibitions, university buildings, schools, and council housing, collaborating with leading talents such as the designer Robin Day.

Dr Alistair Fair, FRHistS, is Reader in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Peter Moro and Partners, published in 2021 by Liverpool University Press.

Fairlawn Primary School, by Peter Moro