Reyner Banham Lecture

The annual Rayner Banham Lecture is co-sponsored by the DHS in conjunction with the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum course in the History of Design, in honour of the design critic Reyner Banham (1922 – 1988).

Banham's brilliant analyses of subjects such as automobile styling, mobile homes, science fiction films, and our fondness for gadgets anticipated many of our contemporary preoccupations. He continues to be one of the greatest influences on the study of design and architecture.

The first twenty lectures in the series have been collected in the volume The Banham Lectures: Essays on Designing the Future, available from Berg Publishers.

Admission to the Rayner Banham Lecture is free and all are welcome.

Previous Lectures

2010

American Glamour: Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, and Mid-Century Modern Architecture

Alice T. Friedman, Wellesley College

2008

"The Art of the Well-tempered Lecture: Reyner Banham and Le Corbusier"

Tim Benton, The Open University

2007

'Peter would enjoy these'

Professor Peter Cook, founder member of the Archigram group

2006

'Reyner Banham and Photography'

Professor Mark Haworth Booth, formerly Senior Curator of Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum

2005

'Designing the Future: Forty years of Ogle Design'

Tom Karen, Ogle Design

2004

'Saul Bass. A Life in Design and Film'

Professor Pat Kirkham, Bard Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts

2003

'Rotwang and Sons:the History of a Design Idea'

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, Rector of the Royal College of Art

2002

'Enclosed by Images: Architecture in the Post-Sputnik Age'

Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University

2001

'Time: Architecture's Touchstone'

Cedric Price, London

2000

'A Paper Atlantis: Postcards, Mass Art and the American Scene'

Jeffrey Meikle, University of Texas at Austin

1999

'Marcel Duchamp's White Box'

Richard Hamilton

1998

''Non-Plan' Revisited: or the Real Way Cities Grow'

Paul Barker, Writer, Broadcaster and Former Editor of New Society

1997

'Theory and Design: The Banham Factor'

Gillian Naylor, Royal College of Art

1996

'Goddess in the Details: Musing on Gender and Design'

Ruth Schwartz-Cowan, New York University at Stonybrook

1995

'Architecture and the Museum'

Charles Saumarez Smith, National Portrait Gallery, London

1994

'As Long as it's Pink: From Production to Consumption in Design'

Penny Sparke, Royal College of Art

1993

'On the Edge'

Richard Sennett, London School of Economics

1992

'Industrial Design: Some Present and Future Queries'

Tomas Maldonado, Former Editor of Nueva Vision

1991

'American Car Styling'

Frank Dudas

1990

'Sleeping Around: A History of American Beds and Bedrooms'

Elizabeth Collins Cromley, State University of New York

1989

'Of Cars, Clothes and Carpets: Design Metaphors in Architectural Thought'

Adrian Forty, The Bartlett School of Architecture?

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