Ron Herron

Ron Herron was a notable British architect and teacher. He was best known for his work with the experimental collective Archigram, formed in London in the 1960s.

Born in London in 1930, to a leather-working family, Herron went on to study draughtsmanship at the Brixton School of Building, and architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Shortly after completing his architectural studies, Herron was employed by the London County Council. It was during this time he and five others formed Archigram; an avant-garde architecture journal that was neo futuristic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist. In 1963 the group opened its The Living City exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Herron’s Walking City, published in the fifth issue of the Archigram journal in 1965, featured a series of insect like mobile cities, able to move freely until their residents found a place in which they wanted to settle. This idea, articulated by Herron’s evocative renderings of the project, became one of the identifying images of Archigram.

Herron also taught at the Architectural Association in London from 1965 until 1993, during which he was appointed a professor and Head of the School of Architecture at the University of East London.

Ron Herron died at Woodford Green, Essex in 1994.