Casson, Hugh ___ 1910-1999 ___ British ___ architect

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Casson studied at Eastbourne College, East Sussex, St John's College, Cambridge, and the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. Thereafter he taught at the Cambridge School of Architecture and practised in the firm run by his Cambridge tutor Christopher Nicholson. During the war, he served with the Air Ministry working on camouflage. After the war, he worked as director of architecture for the Festival of Britain, and he went into partnership with Neville Conder. Together their firm designed many projects, including university campuses, the Elephant House at London Zoo, and Cambridge University's Sidgwick Avenue arts faculty. Casson was knighted in 1952. Apart from his talents as an architect, Casson was considered to be outstanding writer, broadcaster and speaker. He also designed sets for the theatre and opera. During his later life, he held various high level appointments, such as provost of the Royal College of Art and president of the Royal Academy. As a friend of the British royal family, he designed the interior of the royal yacht Britannia. Casson is not known as a diarist, but two of his short-lived diary writing episodes, a quarter of a century apart, have been published, the latter describing his fourth year as president of the Royal Academy.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Red Lacquer Days

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1954 1980 ___ travel architecture art society people family Russia China

WEB TEXT LINKS
 

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
V&A possibly

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Red Laquer Days: An Illustrated Journal Describing a Recent Visit to Peking 
Diary
 

May 2005. September 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.