Peter Cook

Sir Peter Cook is a British architect, artist, educator, and writer celebrated for his visionary architectural drawings and radical approach to imagining the cities of the future. A founding member of the influential avant-garde architectural group Archigram, Cook became internationally recognised during the 1960s for highly imaginative projects that combined architecture, technology, popular culture, and speculative urban design.Among his most influential concepts is Plug-In City (1963–66), a constantly evolving urban structure in which buildings and living units could be inserted, removed, and replaced within a large infrastructural framework. Although many of Cook's early projects were never intended to be constructed, their colourful drawings, collages, and diagrams became important works in their own right and had a lasting influence on generations of architects and designers.Drawing has remained central to Cook's practice throughout his career. His works on paper often combine precise architectural observation with expressive colour, organic forms, imagined landscapes, and futuristic structures. Rather than functioning solely as technical plans, these drawings explore architecture as a creative and experimental medium, allowing Cook to investigate possibilities beyond the practical limitations of conventional construction.Alongside his conceptual work, Cook has realised several significant architectural projects, most notably the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria, completed in 2003 with Colin Fournier. He has also had an extensive academic career, teaching at institutions including University College London, the Architectural Association, Harvard University, Columbia University, and the Städelschule in Frankfurt.Cook received the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal in 2002 and was knighted in 2007 for his contribution to architecture. He is also a Royal Academician. His drawings and architectural works are represented in major international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt; and M+ in Hong Kong.Through more than six decades of experimentation, Peter Cook has continued to blur the boundaries between architecture and visual art, creating imaginative environments in which drawing becomes a means of questioning how cities, buildings, and everyday life might evolve