Robert Matthew

Sir Robert Hogg Matthew, OBE, FRIBA (1906–1975) was a Scottish architect and a leading proponent of modernism.

Robert Matthew was the son of John Fraser Matthew (1875–1955) (also an architect, and the partner of Sir Robert Lorimer) and his wife, Annie Broadfoot Hogg.

From 1920 the family lived at 43 Minto Street ironically the epitome of Georgian classicism rather than modern architecture.

Robert was born and brought up in Edinburgh, was educated at Edinburgh Institution and attended the Edinburgh College of Art where he studied under John Begg.

In 1931 Matthew married Lorna Pilcher. They had three children: Robert Aidan Matthew, born in July 1936, Janet Frances Catriona Matthew, born in March 1939, and Jessie Ann Matthew born in June 1952. From 1939 they lived at 12 Darnaway Street, Edinburgh and from 1956 they lived at Keith Marischal House, Humbie, East Lothian.

Robert was apprenticed with his father's firm. Then in 1936, he joined the Department of Health (Scotland), where by 1945 he had risen to become their Chief Architect and Planning Officer.

In 1946, Matthew moved to London, becoming Chief Architect and Planning Officer to the London County Council, where he served from 1946 to 1953, working on the post-war reconstruction of Greater London and masterminding the Festival of Britain including such buildings as the Royal Festival Hall, 1951. It was during these formative postwar years that the LCC’s housing and town planning policy established an international reputation, and many housing schemes (including the famous Roehampton housing estate) were created, as well as many schools.

In 1956, with Stirrat Johnson Marshall, Robert Matthew established the firm of RMJM (Robert Matthew, Johnson Marshall) in Edinburgh and London. Their first project was New Zealand House in the Haymarket, London (now considered one of Matthew's key buildings). In 1953 he returned to Edinburgh to become the first Professor of Architecture at the University of Edinburgh, where he established the new Department of Architecture in collaboration with RMJM, in a manner that has been compared to that of Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus. He continued as Professor there until 1968. The Matthew Architecture Gallery is now housed in the Department in his honour.

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