People

Marcus Beale
MA, Dip Arch (Cantab) FRSA EASA RIBA

Director: MBA
Partner: Stow & Beale Conservation Architects LLP
Email: marcus.beale@marcus-beale.co.uk

Marcus Beale has worked on radical alterations to protected buildings in historic sites since 1987, as well as delivering a series of striking new buildings in sensitive settings. He studied architecture at Trinity College Cambridge, and was a professional musician before becoming an architect. He founded MBA in 1991 and co-founded its specialist conservation arm Stow & Beale Conservation Architects in 2007.

Key projects include:

New College Oxford: Masterplan: music, lecture room, Porters Lodge, JCR projects
Wimbledon School of Art - Foyer and Theatre
Oriel College, Oxford, Porters Lodge, Provosts Lodgings, Master Plan, Bartlemas Housing, and Rhodes Building
Private office in Wimbledon
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
Member of the Betjeman Society (1999)
Member and Chairman Wimbledon Civic Forum (1999)
Member and representative to LB Merton of Victorian Society (1995)

Marcus 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.

Marcus was formerly a professional musician composing for contemporary ballets performed in the 1980s and touring as violinist with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Marcus is an occasional lecturer and visiting critic at schools of architecture specialising in music and spatial sound. His mission is to get people to hear the shaping of air as architecture.

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.

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.

Music: Marcus played the violin in the Penguin Café Orchestra from 1981-5, with whom he toured in USA, Japan and Europe. For an overview of the band and to see clips of Marcus performing with the orchestra click here, here and here . From 1982-86 he composed a series of ballets for Dance Unlimited, performed at The Place and Institute of Contemporary Arts theatres in London. He is one of few architects to have played on the Whistle Test and had a liturgical composition broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He continues to compose liturgical music, directs a parish choir and plays the violin. Marcus is an activist for a deeper understanding of acoustics. Visit www.philophony.com for more. 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.

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