AA graduate and former Council member Geoffrey Salmon has sadly passed away. One of the stellar students of his generation at the AA in the post-war years, Geoffrey went on to lead a long and successful career focused especially on office design and sheltered housing.
Soon after graduating with AADipl(Hons) in 1952, Geoffrey joined the practice of fellow AA alumni Michael and Inette Austin Smith (AADipl 1947). He was made a partner in 1956, and the practice changed its name in 1963 to Austin-Smith Salmon Lord Partnership.
In an interview with David Attwood (C20 magazine Issue 3 2012) Geoffrey remembers that the 1961 Offices Act brought a lot of work to the practice. He went to Germany to study ideas that had been evolving there since the 1950s, which informed much of his later work. Unlike the open-plan American office, partitions and large plants were used to create differentiation and privacy. Within just a few years, the practice grew to 50 staff or more.
In 1969 Geoffrey left Austin-Smith Salmon Lord, and established Salmon Speed Associates with John Speed, based in North London. They continued to specialise in office design, but also developed long-term relationships with charities providing care for elderly people, for both new-build and refurbishment projects. Their experiences were drawn together in Geoffrey’s Caring Environments for Frail Elderly People, published in 1979, and a book published the same year for the Design Council, The Working Office, which gave practical advice on designing and equipping small offices. The practice’s Slough Estates Headquarters building (1975), with a mixture of open-plan and cellular offices, attracted much favourable coverage when built and was put forward by the Twentieth Century Society for listing in 2009. Geoffrey retired in 1989, the year that his eldest son Julian died.
In retirement, as throughout his life, nature provided Geoffrey with his greatest spiritual solace. He spent many weeks every year at his Dartmoor home, painting or making etchings of the landscape and immersing himself in the history of Dartmoor.
Geoffrey remained a loyal Member of the AA throughout his life, and he devoted considerable time and energy to this institution, serving on AA Council from 1966 to 1971 including two years as Hon Vice-President. In 2010 Geoffrey generously donated a portfolio of 120 drawings and photographs to the AA Archives, comprising work from his 2nd to 5thyear of studies at the AA. This was complemented in 2015 with a wonderful oral history recording, in interview with two AA students. The drawings have been researched by many and will continue to help future generations better understand the work and the thinking of the period.
Geoffrey is survived by his wife the sculptor Charlotte Mayer, his daughters Antonia & Louise, and a grandson, Joshua Richardson, who is currently studying architecture at Liverpool University.
Further reading:
A recent interview with Geoffrey Salmon
