First in a series of open lunchtime seminars by Peter Cook that delve into the world of 20th- and 21st-century architecture: its values, its gossip, the culture of the design process, tricks of the trade, the relation between pedagogic architecture and cause-and-effect design and research. An underlying premise of the seminars is that architecture is such a rich territory that efforts to divert young architects interest away from things to abstracts are pernicious and need to be redressed. Peter Cook graduated from the AA in 1960 and taught there from 1964 to 1990. He became Professor of Architecture at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt in 1984 and was Chairman of the Bartlett from 1990 to 2004. He was awarded both the Royal Gold Medal of the RIBA (as member of Archigram) and the RIBA Annie Spink Medal for teaching in 2002.