Cook, Sir Peter Frederic Chester

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Cook, Sir Peter Frederic Chester (1936– ). British architect much influenced by Cedric Price, and a founder of Archigram. With Colin Fournier and Archigram he won the competition for an Arts and Leisure complex in Monte Carlo in 1969, but this was never realized. Cook subsequently produced a series of theoretical projects (some with Christine Hawley), and a few examples of built work, notably a housing scheme in Berlin. More recently, again with Fournier, he designed the new Kunsthaus (Art Gallery) in Graz, Austria (2000–3), an example of Biomorphic or Zoömorphic architecture, known as the ‘friendly alien’ (a form, perhaps of the Blobismus type). For a gallery the skylights (or ‘nozzles’ as the architects term them) do not provide much light, and they suggest the carapace of some prehistoric creature rather than an adequate response to what the building is to be used for.

Bibliography

Architectural Review, ccxv/1285 (Mar. 2004), 44–53;
Building Design, 1595 (26 September 2003), 12–15;
P. Cook (1970);
P. Cook et al. (eds.) (1999);
Jane Turner (1996)