page_title: David Roberts (architect)
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: David Roberts (architect) / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Mallory Court, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
context_page_description: David Wyn Roberts was a British architect and educator, who designed more university buildings for Cambridge University than any other architect. With a modernist practice based in Cambridge, he also designed many city housing projects, schools, and private residences.
context_section_description: Roberts began teaching at the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge in 1946, and became a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1958. He influenced many students and employees who became scholars and architects, including Anthony Vidler, Lionel March, Nicholas Ray, Cedric Price, and John G. Ellis. Roberts was a modernist architect in postwar Cambridge with his University Health Centre built in 1951.  Roberts's earliest college work was at Magdalene where, in Benson and Mallory Courts, he created a small townscape; he refurbished existing houses, and built new infill, to create a street effect, rather than imposing the conventional form of a college courtyard.
  With his headquarters overlooking the Cam, Roberts kept his office small, six to eight people. Many young architects passed through the practice.  Rory Spence wrote in the catalogue, David Roberts Architect, "He seemed to approach each job with fresh enthusiasm and great integrity. It is no wonder that he had such admiration for Philip Webb and the meticulous individual care which he lavished on each design. Like Webb, David never worked to a formula, as so many of even the best architects do, and possibly for this reason his buildings are less well-known than they should be. There is always a strong idea at the heart of each building, related to its context, which is unique to that building". A former student, Geoffrey Clarke, became a partner in 1964.
  Roberts is described as the first architect to specialise in modern educational buildings. He gave a stepped profile to his designs for student accommodation (for example at Clare College in 1956 and Jesus College in 1963) to give the rooms a dual aspect. His student accommodation buildings at Jesus College, Cambridge and St Hugh's College, Oxford, have already been given a heritage listing of Grade II.
  Roberts and his wife are buried together in the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.
caption: Mallory Court at Magdalene College, Cambridge
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