Walter Kurt Segal
b. Berlin, 1907;
d. London, 1985.

Walter Kurt Segal - Epitome of the small-scale, independent Modern famous architect whose career links early c20 ideals with late c20 reality. His father was an important painter, and family friends included Tzara, Arp and Oud; Mies Van Der Rohe, Klee and Kandinsky; also Gropius, Mendelsohn and Taut, each of whom later asked Walter Segal to work with them. Each was refused. Segal studied in Holland, Berlin (Dip. Arch. 1932) and Zurich, settling in London in 1936. He always tried to work alone, finding assistants as chafing as masters were repulsive to his independent spirit. From his first small house (Ascona, Switzerland, 1932) to his last (Lewisham, London, 1985), his aim was to make convivial dwellings by cost-efficient, simple building which does not alienate the builder and is a pleasure to inhabit. Segal’s focus on economy controlled by reason guided his radical reappraisal of house building, developing (a) a completely novel construction system in timber frame and panel, (b) a way of letting clients participate in the house-planning decisions, and (c) opening the building process itself to the future inhabitants. Segal displayed a powerful combination of utter practicality (he calculated all his structural members; his building did not fail) and a wide and firm grounding as an intellectual, which with prodigious energy he brought to bear on the essential c20, post- Freudian goal: working towards an equality without sameness, a less hierarchical world in which each individual’s development is encouraged. In his quiet, unalienated practice, Segal offered an attractive model of the authentic professional architect.

List of major buildings / works:
Timber-frame small houses: competition winner, 1929, Ascona, Switzerland, 1932, Fideris, Switzerland, 1957, Richmond, London, 1959.
Developed timber-system houses: Highgate, London, 1963, ten houses, 1969-75 two terrace protects, 1976; self-build houses, Lewisham, London: 11 houses 1977, 13 houses 1985.

Bibliography:
Walter Segal, Planning and Transport, London, 1945; Homes for the People (in collaboration), London, 1946;
Walter Segal, Home and Environment, London, 1948; “Beyond utility: architecture and the id”, The Architect, March 1971;
Walter Segal, “Timber Framed Housing”, RIBA Journal, July 1977.
J. Broome, “The Segal Method”, Architects’ Journal, Nov. 1986.
J. McKean, Learning from Segal/Von Segal Lernen, Basel, 1988.