‘A building, a body’: an architectural tour of the Royal College of Physicians

In 1958 architect Denys Lasdun won the commission to design the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) a new home. A modern home that would demonstrate the RCP’s new commitment to improving public health. A building that would reflect the institution’s 500-year history and create purposefully designed spaces in which to care for its archives, rare books and historic collections. Lasdun was faced with an enormous challenge: his modernist building must reflect both the RCP’s forward-thinking attitude and its centuries of history. Lasdun cared about the life his buildings would contain and strove to provide his client not with what they wanted but with what they ‘never dreamed [they] wanted’.

Join us for a virtual exploration of the modernist masterpiece Lasdun designed, discover how Lasdun fulfilled the RCP’s contradictory brief, and how the spaces he created continue to care for its occupants and its history.