Dr Matthew Armitt
Dr. Matthew Armitt works as a senior lecturer at the Grenfell-Bains Institute of Architecture here at UCLan, having previously worked at the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design (BSoAD) and the University of Liverpool School of Architecture (LSA) with expertise in the period of Soviet architectural history, theory, and teaching of 1920s Russia.
Born in the United Kingdom, Matthew graduated with a degree in architecture and a first-class MArch from the Kent School of Architecture (KSA). He won a design competition to study at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for one year. During his time at VT, he was awarded the Crystal Award (student of the year) and the Flotsam and Jetsam Award.
Matthew practiced architecture for several years, working in the UK and the US, most notably for the distinguished firm HKS in Washington. D.C. He then went on to read for his PhD at LSA, where he specialised in the history and theory of Soviet architectural teaching at the Soviet architecture school called VKhUTEMAS (Higher Artistic and Technical Studios, 1921–1926) through a course of architectural teaching called ‘Space,’ analysed through Soviet archival photographs housed in Russia, America, Canada, Germany, and the UK.
For his research, he received several research grants from the Centre for Architecture and the Visual Arts (CAVA) and the University of Liverpool School of the Arts. Matthew has been teaching in higher education for 10 years across all undergraduate and postgraduate years, as a dissertation and doctoral supervisor and university research ethics committee member (BCU), and has lectured in Portugal and China. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Academy (SFHEA) and currently teaches various roles at the Grenfell-Bains Institute of Civic Architecture.
- Doctor of Philosophy University of Liverpool
- VKhUTEMAS
- Architectural Theory (Space)
- Soviet Architecture and Photography
- Archival Research and Methods
- History of Architectural Teaching
- Architectural Teaching Methods
- Contemporary Pedagogy
Matthew's research remains active in the period of the 1920s and 1930s on Soviet architecture, theory, and architectural teaching. Through his past research, Matthew has explored the revolutionary architectural teaching methods of the Russian Architecture School VKhUTEMAS (Higher Artistic and Technical Studios) through a discipline of architectural teaching called Space. He has spent time researching at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), the University of Cambridge, the Moscow School of Architecture (MARKhI), and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow.
His research establishes further cross-theoretical connections between Soviet architecture, theory, and teaching, tracing parallel links with contemporaneous concerns of architects and teachers on Soviet architecture and teaching to enhance the understanding of the period. This approach sheds light on how the workings of the theory and trends of architects—individual theoretical ambitions and architectural language of the Soviet period—developed and established new knowledge of key historical personalities and movements that remain obscure. This opens the prospect of a more thoroughly grounded understanding of a variety of new and unknown topics within Soviet architecture.
- Institute of Citizenship, Society and Change (UCLan)
- Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)
- Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies (SCRSS)
- Moscow School of Architecture (MARKhI)
- Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI)
- Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
- The Architectural and Urban History Group (AH)
- The Centre of Architecture and the Visual Arts (CAVA)
- The Urban Cultures Research Cluster
- 2024/25–National Lottery Heritage Grant. Proposal entitled: Archives and Education (forthcoming)
- 2024–BA/Leverhulme Grant. Proposal entitled: The Histories of Archives in British Universities (application submitted)
- 2022: RAAD Research Award. Proposal entitled: Archives as Instruments: Material Cultures and Collecting, c.
- 1915-1935: Russia (£1762.50, funding obtained)
- 2021: Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. Proposal entitled: Revolutionizing the Teaching: Scientific Pedagogical Methodologies (1921-2025) (£118,000, application submitted)
- 2020: Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). Proposal entitled: Britannia and the Bear: The Impact of Anglo-Russian Relations on British Universities (main award £10,000, application submitted)
- 2019: Munby Fellow in Bibliography Cambridge University. Proposal entitled: Unpublished Research Papers of the Catherine Cooke Collection (application submitted)
- 2018: Munby Fellow in Bibliography Cambridge University. Proposal entitled: Early Russian Architectural Pedagogy (1923-30): VKhUTEMAS and the Catherine Cooke’s Papers (application submitted)
- 2017: Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Research Grant (University of Cambridge, Slavonic Studies Department)
- 2016: Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Research Grant (Canadian Centre for Architecture, CCA)
- 2014: Liverpool School of the Arts Doctoral Research Grant (Moscow School of Architecture (MARKhI), and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), Moscow)
Email: Email:Dr Matthew Armitt