Percy Johnson-Marshall - Early Life and Work

Early Life and Work

Johnson-Marshall was born in Ajmer, India, to English parents, and was raised in England from the 1920s. He attended the School of Architecture at the University of Liverpool, where his older brother, Stirrat Johnson-Marshall, was already studying. Tutors at Liverpool included Sir Patrick Abercrombie and Sir Charles Herbert Reilly. After graduating in 1936 he worked for Middlesex County Council, then for Willesden Borough Council, before moving to Coventry City Council in 1938, where he worked as Senior Assistant Architect under Chief Architect Donald Gibson, until called up for war service in 1941. He was elected to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1938.

During the Second World War he served with the Royal Engineers in India and Burma, attaining the rank of Major. Post-war, he remained in Burma for a year, advising the Burmese Government on planning and reconstruction, and preparing a reconstruction plan for the country, in collaboration with William Tatton-Brown. After his return to the UK, he was employed as an Assistant Regional Planning Officer at the new Ministry of Town and Country Planning, during which time the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, the first planning law in the UK, was drawn up. In 1947 he was elected member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), also serving as a member of council and of the Education Committee. In 1948 he gained a Diploma in Town Planning from the School of Planning and Research for Regional Development (SPRRD), London, where he later worked as a part-time teacher. Johnson-Marshall worked as a Senior Planner with London County Council from 1949 to 1959, overseeing several Comprehensive Development Areas, including Lansbury Estate.

Read more about this topic:  Percy Johnson-Marshall

Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or work:

    Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and organize.
    Albert Gore, Jr. (b. 1948)

    We have to give ourselves—men in particular—permission to really be with and get to know our children. The premise is that taking care of kids can be a pain in the ass, and it is frustrating and agonizing, but also gratifying and enjoyable. When a little kid says, “I love you, Daddy,” or cries and you comfort her or him, life becomes a richer experience.
    —Anonymous Father. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 3 (1978)

    I can’t work without a model. I won’t say I turn my back on nature ruthlessly in order to turn a study into a picture, arranging the colors, enlarging and simplifying; but in the matter of form I am too afraid of departing from the possible and the true.
    Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)