AHMM Founder: Why Your First 5 Years as an Architect Will Make or Break You - Simon Allford

Simon Allford is never short of a view, and this conversation covers the parts of architecture people usually avoid. AHMM was founded in 1989 at possibly the worst moment in modern British architecture. Gold cards maxed out to cover office debt, competitions won but never built, consultancy work drying up. Those five years of survival shaped everything that followed. The rule from their student days still holds: the best idea wins, not yours or mine. If everyone's comfortable with a design, it's probably not good enough. His infamous "first we storm the building, then we take back the asylum" quote came from genuine frustration with an RIBA he felt had lost its purpose. Architecture, not architects. The internal politics proved harder than expected: some figures were "sinisterly unpleasant," but the House of Architecture concept survived. The collection is returning from storage, Portland Place is opening up, and he's still chairing fundraising for the Museum of Architecture. AHMM now has seven new executive directors and a global team of 400+. Growth was never the goal, they used to joke about never exceeding thirty people, but scale found them anyway. If you want an honest take on what architecture is really like from the inside, and how to survive those (sometimes) brutal early years - this is a great place to start. 00:00 Intro 01:28 Becoming an architect 05:30 Founding AHMM 11:09 The first five brutal years 18:37 The success of AHMM 26:07 The RIBA presidency and 'that' quote 28:47 The House of Architecture and the role of the RIBA 32:29 The value of architecture and public engagement 42:12 Succession planning at AHMM 46:40 Mentorship and the next generation of architects 50:30 AI, critical thinking and the future of architecture 56:51 Following in his father's footsteps (and his daughters in his) https://www.bespokecareers.com/