Monica Pidgeon, 1913-2009

Monica Pidgeon, who with Pentagram co-founder and architect Theo Crosby edited and transformed the journal Architectural Design (AD), died on September 17 at age 95. Before, during and after the current partners of Pentagram Architects were in architectural school, AD was the most avant-garde of the British architecture magazines. Among the first to publish the work of James Stirling, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Ove Arup; enthusiast for Archigram; promoter of all things A.A. (the Architectural Association, then London’s equivalent of today’s Sci-Arc), AD defined British architectural radicalism.

Crosby was the technical editor to Monica Pidgeon’s editor from 1953 to 1962, when the pair transformed AD from a free trade publication to a potent advocate of modern thought, design and art. Crosby and Pidgeon also collaborated on the book An Anthology of Houses (1960) featuring the 1950s work of a huge assortment of international modern architects. Crosby curated the influential This Is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery while working with Pidgeon at AD.

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