Keith Williams delivering guest lecture at Anglia Ruskin University School of Architecture 21 January 2025

21 January 2025 : Keith Williams gives invited lecture at Anglia Ruskin University School of Architecture

Keith kicked off 2025 with a lecture on the work of his studio at the School of Architecture and Planning, Anglia Ruskin University.

Having been an external examiner in recent years to the School in Chelmsford, Essex, Keith was delighted to have been asked to return to speak on his work and share his thoughts and theories with the students and academic staff.

The school’s architectural staff in attendance included Head of School Dr Maria Vogiatzaki, who introduced Keith along with Alastair Barr, Dr Ana Cocho-Bermejo,Dr Giacomo Damiani and Howard Gilby.

Entitled Architecture of the Specific, Keith explored the  fundamental principles that have guided his work over his career,

He spoke on some of the firm’s key projects including Athlone Civic Centre,  the Unicorn Theatre, the National Opera House, Wexford, Ireland, the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Lloydminster Cultural and Science Centre, Canada,  the upgrades that he is planning to the Spence Quarter at the University of Sussex, and the recently completed DeValera Library and Súil Art Gallery in Ennis, Ireland.

He expounded upon key motivations saying that “our architecture centres on the interplay of space, light, form and material coupled with careful consideration for scale, history and context. I am very concerned with the way in which people experience architecture and process through my buildings. I try to make buildings that achieve an aesthetic balance between the contemporary, the visionary and that which exists and I am very concerned with the way in which people experience architecture and process through my buildings”

Keith closed the lecture with reference to one of his overarching observations….‘In architecture there is a part that is logical, pragmatic, reasoned, and there is a part that emerges from the sensual and the aesthetic. Without a fusion of these opposing principles it seems unlikely that great architecture can ever be made.’

Delighted at the turnout with virtually the whole undergraduate school wedged into the design studio for the lecture, with students sat on the floor, perched on layout tables and sharing chairs, Keith was left to muse that perhaps the school might need access to a larger lecture theatre on such occasions.