Keith Critchlow

Keith Barry Critchlow (born March 16, 1933 [1]) is an artist, lecturer, author, and professor of architecture in England, and a co-founder of the Temenos Academy.

He was educated at the Summerhill School and the Royal College of Art.[2] He performed national service in the Royal Air Force from 1951 to 1953.[1]

Having been originally trained as a classical painter,[3] he has authored many books on geometry, including Order in Space, Islamic Pattern as a Cosmological Art, and Time Stands Still. He has also contributed the forewords to English editions of works by Titus Burckhardt, Frithjof Schuon, and others.[4]

Critchlow was formerly a lecturer at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London for twelve years, and had been a professor of Islamic Art at the Royal College of Art in London from 1975 for many years.[5] He founded Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts (VITA) school in 1984 [5], which moved from the Royal College of Art to The Prince's Institute of Architecture in 1992-3, where he was director of research. The institute later evolved into The Prince's Foundation, within which Prince's School of Traditional Arts was housed. He is a professor emeritus at VITA and serves as director for research.[6] He also taught at the The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment in London.

He is a leading expert in sacred architecture and sacred geometry and founded Kairos, a society which investigates, studies, and promotes traditional values of art and science. He served there as director of studies.

Critchlow's architectural work includes the Krishnamurti Study Centre in England,[7] the Lindisfarne Chapel in Crestone, Colorado in the United States with a special design for the vaulting of the dome,[8] and The Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi, India. Isaac Tigrett, who had founded the Hard Rock Cafe enterprise, secured Critchlow’s aid to design a hospital in the Prasanthi Nilayam ashram in Puttuparthi.[9] Critchlow's use of sacred geometry played a major role in these architectural designs and projects.

He is president of the Temenos Academy.[10]

Contents

Selected works

Books

Articles

References

  1. ^ a b Cf. Debrett's People of Today entry for Prof. Critchlow
  2. ^ "Biography: Keith Critchlow", Board of Advisers, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, New York.
  3. ^ Bamford, Christopher, Homage to Pythagoras: Rediscovering Sacred Science, Lindisfarne Press, 1994, ISBN 0-940262-63-0. Cf. author profiles.
  4. ^ foreword in The Foundations of Christian Art: Illustrated by Titus Burckhardt, edited by Michael Fitzgerald; foreword in Art from the Sacred to the Profane: East and West by Frithjof Schuon, edited by Catherine Schuon; foreword in Chartres: and the birth of the cathedral by Titus Burckhardt; translated from the German by William Stoddart. Ipswich: Golgonooza, 1995.
  5. ^ a b Male, Lydia Sharman, "In the Mind of the Beholder", Saudi Aramco World, May/June 1990
  6. ^ Prince's School of Traditional Arts - Trustees and Staff "Dr Keith Critchlow, Professor Emeritus, Founder, and Director of Research"
  7. ^ The Krishnamurti Centre in England
  8. ^ Creston Mountain Zen Center - location and history of the dome Lindisfarne Chapel
  9. ^ Lerwill, John, "Who is Sai"
  10. ^ Temenos Academy - key individuals: Patron: His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, President: Professor Keith Critchlow, Chairman: Sir Nicholas Pearson, Bt.

External links