David Rock (born in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

, 1929) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

, twice

RIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

vice-president (1986-87 & 1995-97) and RIBA president (1997–99). Rock studied under Lord Holford and Peter Smithson who described him as "the most naturally gifted and talented architect he'd ever met". He then worked for

Basil Spence Sir Basil Urwin Spence, (13 August 1907 – 19 November 1976) was a Scottish architect, most notably associated with Coventry Cathedral in England and the Beehive in New Zealand, but also responsible for numerous other buildings in the Moderni ...

for five years. He joined '' Grenfell Baines & Hargreaves'' in 1959 as Associate Partner to open its first London office; this office initially operated out of Rock's flat in

Earls Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

. Rock was responsible for BDP

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

during the 1960s, becoming an Equity Partner in 1964; he resigned in 1971. Rock went into partnership with John Townsend, an expert on bürolandschaft. In 1972, ''Rock Townsend'' opened, what would become, ''Workspace'', which further developed the idea of

multidisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

working by providing office space for small design businesses. Rock was a supporter of the radical architecture group

Archigram Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s ⁠that was neofuturistic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical ...

in the 1960s and 1970s. He nominated them for the RIBA

Royal Gold Medal The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is g ...

which they received in 2002.''ARCHIGRAM - RIBA Royal Gold Medalists 2002''
Citation by David Rock''.' Retrieved 11 April 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rock, David Modernist architects from England 1929 births Living people People educated at Bede Grammar School for Boys Presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects English graphic designers