Mike Davies and Alan Stanton in conversation.
In the late 1960s, after studying at the AA, Alan Stanton, Chris Dawson and Mike Davies moved to Los Angeles and formed the group Chrysalis with a number of other artists.
Born out of the West Coast counterculture, Chrysalis was dedicated to building in the real world the kinds of experimental projects that radical groups like Archigram had envisioned. These included air structures and responsive environments, culminating in the mirrored dome for Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan.
In conversation with AA Director Ingrid Schroder and critic and historian Irenée Scalbert, Alan and Mike will tell the story of Chrysalis and how their experiments in California informed not only their work on the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which they were instrumental in designing, but also their roles as founding partners of Stanton Williams and Richard Rogers Partnership respectively.
After studying at the AA and at UCLA in California, during which time he cofounded Chrysalis, Alan Stanton worked on the Centre Pompidou in Paris before forming the partnership Stanton Williams with Paul Williams in 1985. The practice was awarded the Stirling Prize for its Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge and has designed many notable projects, including the University of the Arts campus at King’s Cross; the Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst; and most recently a new campus building for UCL on their Olympic Park site. Alan was elected a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 2005 and a Royal Academician in 2009, before being awarded the OBE for services to architecture in 2014.
After cofounding Chrysalis, Mike Davies worked on the Centre Pompidou in Paris before becoming one of the founding partners of Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP), along with Richard Rogers, John Young and Marco Goldschmied. Mike developed the practice’s urban design and masterplanning expertise with strategic masterplans for the Royal Docks, Leamouth. Wood Wharf, and the Greenwich Peninsula in London and the City of Dunkirk in France. He was also the project director for Grand Paris, a masterplan for Greater Paris 2025. Mike was the partner in RSHP responsible for the Millennium Dome and for Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow. He was awarded a CBE in 2000 for services to architecture and was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2010.
