Oscar Joseph Pereira was born in Goa, India, the son of a Hypolito Pereira a businessman and owner of ‘The Equatorial African Agency’, based in Soroto, Uganda. By the late 1940s, Oscar was living in Kenya, studying initially at the Star of the Sea School, Mombasa, and then the Goan High School in the same city, graduating in 1950. He enrolled in the Glasgow School of Architecture in late 1950, studying architecture, on a part-time basis. In 1958 he transferred to the Architectural Association (AA), London, where he entered the Year Three of their five-year Diploma Course. By the time of his entry to the AA he was well travelled, recording on his application form that he had spent time in Uganda, Tanganyika, the Belgian Congo, Sudan, India, Germany, Austria, Italy and France. Progress was difficult at the AA and he was advised to take a year out, to gain experience, between his Fourth and Fifth Year. During this period, Oscar worked for Maurice Lee, at Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall and Partners, apparently upon the design of schools in Singapore. Lee was to personally recommend Pereira for re-admission to the AA school, stating that he was the strongest man on his team, capable of producing good working drawings and as the best contributor of design ideas. As part of his Fifth Year at the AA, Pereira took the option of taking the Department of Tropical Architecture course, his final thesis being a design for a school in Nigeria – the jury report for which survives in the AA Archives. After graduation Pereira appears to taught at the Delhi School of Planning and practiced in Canada.

Sources

• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 13th February, 1963. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Diploma Roll Book, 1924-1963, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Student Records, Registrar’s Office. AA Archives
• ‘Notice of Change of Proprietor’, The Uganda Gazette, Vol. LIII, No. 57, 18th August, 1960, p.568
• The Canadian Architect, 1987, Vol. 32, p28
• With thanks to Patrick Wakely for information regarding Pereira’s post-AA career.