Chris Cross, Architect

Chris was born in Bristol and first became interested in architecture at grammar school. After visits to several university/college options, he applied to the Architectural Association (AA), and received an offer from them at the end of a summer travelling in Europe. He comments that AA was very ‘open-spirited’; several AA graduates came to MKDC. He describes some of the projects he worked on at AA, both housing and larger buildings, with tutors such as Cedric Price, Alan Colqhoun and John Winter. Completing studies at the AA in 1964, he then worked (with Ed Jones) in private practice for seven years. At a practice headed by Frederick McManus they worked on large projects, with Mike Gold. By 1971 their work had come to the attention of Derek Walker; both Chris and Mike Gold were appointed to MKDC, Ed Jones and Jeremy Dixon joined them a little later. Chris left Milton Keynes at the end of 1972 and went back into private practice, and taught at places like the AA and Royal Academy; he became head of the School of Architecture at Oxford Poly (later Oxford Brookes) from 1985 to 1999.