Gavin Mark Stamp was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.
Occupation
architectural historian, university teacher, television presenter
Citizenship
United Kingdom
Born
March 15, 1948
Died
December 30, 2017
Overview
Gavin Mark Stamp (15 March 194830 December 2017) was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.
Education
Stamp was educated at Dulwich College in South London from 1959 to 1967 as part of the "Dulwich Experiment", then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he obtained a PhD in 1978 with a thesis entitled George Gilbert Scott, junior, architect, 1839–1897.
Life and career
Stamp's career was one of largely independent journalism, writing, lecturing and polemic on architectural topics. Under the pseudonym "Piloti", he wrote the "Nooks & Corners" architecture criticism column in Private Eye from 1978 until his death, including giving the Hugh Casson Award for worst new building of the year. He regularly contributed essays on architecture to the fine arts and collector's magazine Apollo. From 1990 he taught architectural history, latterly as Professor, at the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. He bought and restored a terrace house, that Alexander "Greek" Thomson designed for a local builder, in Moray Place, Glasgow. In 2003, he resigned from the school and reverted to being an independent scholar and was widely invited as a guest lecturer.
He was a long-standing trustee and for a time chairman of the Twentieth Century Society, a registered charity which promotes the appreciation of modern architecture and the conservation of Britain's architectural heritage. He was also active in the Victorian Society in various capacities over five decades. He lent his support as lecturer, journalist and lobbyist to a wide range of architectural conservation causes on behalf of buildings in many styles, especially those he felt were "worthy but unpopular causes".