People
Marcus Beale
Managing Director
MA, Dip Arch (Cantab) FRSA RIBA
Email: marcus.beale@marcus-beale.co.uk
Partner: Stow & Beale Conservation Architects LLP
Marcus Beale is an architect and musician.
His architectural career concentrates on doing smart things to old buildings. In this capacity has worked on radical alterations to protected buildings in historic sites for 20 years, as well as delivering a series of striking new buildings in sensitive settings. He studied architecture at Trinity College Cambridge and worked at Green Lloyd Architects from 1987-91 on major projects such as Somerset House North Block before forming MBA in 1991. He now leads the MBA team and heads institutional projects, and is a partner in the specialist conservation arm of the practice, Stow & Beale Conservation Architects LLP.
His musical career concentrated on contemporary ballets performed in the early 1980s and a period touring as violinist with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It continues as choir master, liturgical composer and occasional tenor soloist in Merton and Wimbledon SW London. Marcus is an occasional lecturer and visiting critic at schools of architecture specialising in music and spatial sound. Broadcasts include BBC Radio 4 Today programme (Merton Priory and Thomas Becket), ITV Late Night Live (work life balance), BBC Radio 3 (performance of a liturgical Credo recorded by the BBC singers), BBC TV Whistle Test (with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra). His mission is to get people to hear the shaping of air as architecture.
Key projects include:
- Wimbledon School of Art - Foyer and Theatre
- Oriel College, Oxford, Porters Lodge and Provosts Lodgings
- Cumnor House School, Sussex - Hovels, Master plan and Theatre
- Clifton College, Bristol
- 60 Parker Street, London
- Christ Church Garden, Southwark, London
- St. George's Gate, St. Peter's College, Oxford
- Somerset House North Block, London
- Innholders Hall, London
Professional interests include :
- humane habitation
- spatial sound
- sacred space
- community and urban design.
Community work includes:
- RIBA (architect) pair to the MP for Wimbledon
- chair Wimbledon Civic Forum
- chair Merton Priory Trust
- design advisor to the London Borough of Merton
Qualifications:
- RIBA chartered architect 1991
- MA and Dip Arch (Cantab) 1987
- BA(hons) 1981
Memberships:
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Commerce [FRSA] 2003
- Member Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association [EASA] 2001
- Betjeman Society
- Wimbledon Civic Forum
More:
Before MBA: Marcus worked at Green Lloyd Architects 1987-91, assisting at Somerset House North Block Courtauld Institute of Art 1987-89, then job running projects at Innholders Hall 1989-1991 and Barrington House 1990-91 in the City of London.
Born 1960, he was elected a scholar of Winchester College in 1973 and matriculated to Trinity College Cambridge in 1978, where he studied architecture from 1978-81 and 1985-7 under Dalibor Vesely, Sandy Wilson, Bob Allies, Nicholas Ray, Peter Carl, Peter Blundell-Jones and others. Theoretical interests include spatial sound and architecture, on which he has lectured widely.
Music: Marcus played the violin in the Penguin Café Orchestra from 1981-5, with whom he toured in USA, Japan and Europe, and from 1982-86 composed a series of ballets for Dance Unlimited, performed at The Place and Institute of Contemporary Arts theatres in London. Since 1991 he composes liturgical music, directs a parish choir and continues to practice on the violin. Marcus is an activist for a deeper understanding of acoustics. Visit www.philophony.com for more.
