John Allan

John Allan MA (Edin), BA Hons, Dip Arch, MA, Hon Litt D (Sheffield), CAABC, ARB, Architect

A Director of Avanti Architects from 1983 to 2011, John Allan led all Avanti’s Modern Movement conservation work, including projects and studies on listed buildings by: Lubetkin; Lasdun; Goldfinger; Patrick Gwynne; Topham Forrest; Oliver Hill; Connell, Ward & Lucas; Burnet Tait & Lorne; Owen Williams; David Roberts; Peter Moro; Maguire & Murray; Chamberlin, Powell & Bon; Charles Holden; Wells Coates; Gollins, Melvin, Ward; Maxwell Fry and Gillespie, Kidd & Coia.

Conservation advisory work included authoring Listed Building Management Guidelines for the Barbican and Golden Lane Estates for The City of London and English Heritage, also Listed Building Management Guidelines for the University of Leeds, and the Arts Tower and Library, University of Sheffield, also Conservation Management Plans and Assessments for Ernö Goldfinger’s Brownfield Estate, East London, Wembley Arena and St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross, Scotland for The Archdiocese of Glasgow and Historic Scotland. Schemes for adaptation or re-use have included Plymouth Civic Centre, Hastings Seafront and the twelve listed Tecton buildings at Dudley Zoo.

New build work has included Bethnal Green Health Centre, the Ilford Town Centre Health Clinic, Millwall Park Club for the LDDC, the ACAD Centre, Central Middlesex Hospital, schools in Southwark, Hammersmith, Hackney, Lewisham and Peterborough; housing in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and bespoke private houses in Oxfordshire and Sussex. Conversion and rehabilitation projects have included work at Liverpool Street Station, the GWR Goodshed, Bristol and regeneration projects at Priory Green, King’s Cross and Norton Folgate, Shoreditch. Previous employment included the Greater London Council Department of Architecture & Civic Design (1971-73) and Shepheard Epstein & Hunter (1973-82).

John Allan has served on several English Heritage committees including the London Advisory Committee, Designation Review Panel and Post-War Listing Advisory Committee. He was an elected councillor in ARCUK 1976-86, and a Project Enabler at CABE, 1999-2007. He was founding Chairman of DOCOMOMO-UK 1989-91 and for 12 years served on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Architecture. He is author of the award-winning biography Berthold Lubetkin – Architecture and the tradition of progress, first published in 1992 and now in its 2nd edition. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by The University of Sheffield and has served as a Visiting Professor there in the Architecture Graduate School Conservation Course. He is a member of the Finsbury Health Centre Preservation Trust and more recently led the team creating the new Isokon Gallery at Lawn Road Flats, Camden which opened in 2014, and where he is Chairman of the Isokon Gallery Trust.