Wednesday 29 October 2025 1:30pm
Lecture Room 1, Department of Architecture and online
About
Dr Holly Smith, Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge
Lecture abstract:
Rising up from the south of Peterhouse’s Deer Park is a remarkable structure: an eight-storey tower block, with rippling fenestration wrapped around a fan of staggered bays. It is quite a surprise to find this avant-garde edifice in the University of Cambridge’s smallest and oldest college, which has a foundation dating back to 1284. The block was designed by Leslie Martin and Colin St John Wilson, and completed in 1964.
‘This could well be Cambridge’s master-piece of the sixties’, wrote the critic Nicholas Taylor upon its completion. However the subject of his fervour, the William Stone Building at Peterhouse, remains little studied and little known – even to many of the city’s residents, due to sensitive landscaping.
This lecture charts the process and debates behind its execution, illuminating how a commitment to preserving Peterhouse’s treasured Deer Park incentivised a bold thrust upwards. It traces an interlacing history of architectural modernism and conservationism in post-war Cambridge; instead of diametric opposition between these forces, this building indicates an intriguing dovetail. The post-war era is known as a moment of major modernist development in Cambridge, but it was also one of extraordinary dedication to the conservation of the University’s historic architecture and heritage.
Speaker bio:
Holly Smith is a historian of modern Britain, specialising in architecture and politics. Her first book, Up in the Air: A History of High-Rise Britain, was published by Verso this year.
You are very welcome to join us either in person or online, and can sign up here: