Peter Cook receives a knighthood

Peter Cook has received a knighthood for services to architecture in the Queen’s Birthday Honours announced on Saturday.

The Archigram member, academic and designer of the 2012 Olympic Stadium said the award “offers a symbol of hope to the young”.

“It
gives hope to all those people not just doing boring buildings or
making money. It will offer symbolic help to people doing interesting
things.”

Cook said he understood he was being recognised for the
range of his life’s work: his experimental design and research, his
foreign buildings including the Kunsthaus Graz and his leadership of
the Bartlett.

The
formerly self-proclaimed “maverick academic” now holds professorship at
three universities, provides design consultancy to American giant HOK
and co-directs a new UK/Spanish practice Crab. Cook’s knighthood
confirms his gradual acceptance by the establishment.

“I don’t
know if this will actually get me a better table in a restaurant or if
they just charge you more,” he said. “Though I do hope it will get me
better seats on a plane.”

Cook joins a select group of
practising architects who hold the title: among them Norman Foster and
Richard Rogers (both subsequently made peers), Nicholas Grimshaw, Terry
Farrell, Jeremy Dixon, Richard MacCormac and Michael Hopkins.

David
Adjaye has also been recognised, picking up an OBE. Adjaye, whose Ideas
Store in London’s Whitechapel was shortlisted for the 2006 Stirling
Prize, will complete four major new buildings this year: The Stephen
Lawrence Centre, the Bernie Grant Centre, InIVA (the Institute of
International Visual Arts) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver.