Keith Critchlow
Background
- Keith Barry Critchlow (born 16
March 1933) is an artist, lecturer, author, and professor of
architecture in England, and a co-founder of the Temenos
Academy.
- Critchlow was educated at the Summerhill
School and the Royal College of Art.
- He performed national
service in the Royal Air Force from 1951 to 1953.
Work life
- Having been originally trained as a
classical painter, he has authored many books on geometry, including Order
in Space, Islamic Pattern as a Cosmological Art, and Time
Stands Still. He has also contributed the forewords to English editions
of works by Titus Burckhardt, Frithjof Schuon, and
others.
- Critchlow was formerly a lecturer
at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in
London for twelve years.
- He had been a professor of Islamic
Art at the Royal College of Art in London from 1975 for many
years.
- He founded Visual Islamic and
Traditional Arts (VITA) school in 1984, which moved
from the Royal College of Art to The Prince's Institute of Architecture in
1992–3, where he was director of research. The institute later evolved
into The Prince's Foundation, within which Prince's
School of Traditional Arts was housed.
- He is a professor emeritus at VITA
and serves as director for research.
- He also taught at The
Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment in London.
- He is a leading expert in sacred
architecture and sacred geometry and founded Kairos,
a society which investigates, studies, and promotes traditional values of art
and science. He served there as director of studies.
- Critchlow's architectural work
includes the Krishnamurti Study Centre in England,[7] the
Lindisfarne Chapel in Crestone, Colorado, in the United States with
a special design for the vaulting of the dome, and The Sri
Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi,
India.
- Isaac Tigrett, who had founded the Hard
Rock Cafe enterprise, secured Critchlow's aid to design a hospital in the Prasanthi
Nilayamashram in Puttuparthi. Critchlow's use of sacred
geometry played a major role in these architectural designs and projects.
- He is president of the Temenos Academy.
- Created the pattern for the roof of Cambridge Central Mosque designed by Marks Barfield architects.
Books
- Order in Space (A design source
book), 1969
- Into the Hidden Environment: The
Oceans, illustrations by David Nockels, 1973 (Viking Studio)
- Islamic Patterns, 1976
- Earth Mysteries: A Study in
Patterns, 1978
- Time Stands Still: New Light on
Megalithic Science, 1979
- Soul as Sphere and Androgyne, 1980
- Research: Principles, Policy and
Practice, London: Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, 1993
- The Whole Question of Health:
Enquiry into Architectural First Principles in the Designing of Health Care
Buildings, 1995
- Islamic Art and Architecture:
System of Geometric Design, 1999
- The Hidden geometry of Flowers:
Living Rhythms Form and Number, 2011
- "The Knap of Howar and The
Origins of Geometry", Kairos Publications, 2016 - A collaboration between
Nicholas Cope (www.ncope.co.uk) and Keith Critchlow.
Film
- Reflection. A film by Keith
Critchlow and Lawrence Moore. Music by Mike Oldfield & Alan
Hacker. A Vortex Production. Arts Council of Great Britain 1977.
(References taken from the credits appearing at the end of the film).
Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Critchlow