Syed Aljoofre was born in Malaysia in 1939. He attended the Government English School (now Batu Pahat High School), in Jahore, from 1949-56, before studying Architecture at the Maktab Teknik, Kuala Lumpur (now Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), graduating with a Diploma and taking his RIBA Intermediate examination in 1961. He also gained training with the Public Works Department, at Malacca, from 1959-61, working with them for a year after graduation, as a Technical Cadet (Architecture). The following year he won a Malaysian government scholarship and enrolled on the Diploma course at the Architectural Association (AA), in London – entering the school as part of the Fourth Year, in September 1962. For his AA Fifth Year, in 1963-64, Aljoofre elected to study within the Department of Tropical Studies. Two of his projects, ‘Khartoum Town Hall’ and ‘High Density Middle Income Housing for Central Bombay’ (the latter design being jointly authored with fellow student, Safwan Sabki) were published in the AA Journal of June 1964. His AA history thesis was a study of early Malay dwellings, and his final design project was for a National Gallery and School of Architecture in Kuala Lumpur. His work was extremely well-received, his final jury report stating that the Kuala Lumpur scheme had received the highest praise from the jury, with Jane Drew describing it as “poetry and a marvellous conception”, and with H.T. (Jim) Cadbury-Brown declaring it to be a ‘visionary piece of work’. Aljoofre was subsequently awarded AA Diploma Honours. Following his graduation from the AA, Aljoofre returned to Malaysia and by 1966 was teaching at his alma mater, the Maktab Teknik, Kuala Lumpur, where he was one of only 3 Malaysian lecturers employed. By 1970 he is listed in the Maktab Teknik Kalendar as a Senior Lecturer, and appears to have also found the time to acquire an MSc from the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago. Details of Aljoofre’s subsequent career are not yet known to us but he appears to have remained in academia and published a number of articles in the 1970s.
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