Architectural Association School of Architecture
The AA was founded in 1847 by Robert Kerr, nineteen, and a committee of articled pupils who wanted a school run by the students rather than the profession — and the arrangement persists: the Association is independent of the university system and governed substantially by its members, from Bedford Square townhouses.
Its teaching is organised in Units — vertical studios, each with its own brief and obsessions, from which the school's radicalism flows. The alumni are the argument: Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas taught as well as studied here, Richard Rogers took his first drawings in its rooms, and the school's 'projective' culture has kept it architectural education's provocateur for a century and a half.
Field notes
- Robert Kerr was in his twenties when he founded it — barely older than its current first-years.
- The Unit system, now copied worldwide, is the AA's own invention.
- Zaha Hadid's diploma drawings are held in its archive — before they were buildable, they were hung in Bedford Square.
Notable connections
In brief — from the field guide
Founded in 1847 by a nineteen-year-old and run by its students ever since — the independent architecture school in Bedford Square that taught Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Richard Rogers their trade.
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