Peter Yates (architect)

Peter Yates was born in Leytonstone, East London in 1920. He was attracted to the visual arts at an early age, winning a painting competition in Chicks' Own in 1925.[2] Whilst at Wanstead School from September 1934 to July 1936, he painted a mural, Events at Sea.

Peter worked as a furniture and model maker during 1937 before attending the London Polytechnic School of Architecture, studying under Sir Hubert Bennett, Peter Moro and Robin Day from January 1938 to April 1941.

Peter Yates served as a fireman on the St Paul's Watch in early 1941, during which he painted Wren's churches during the London Blitz. He met the antiquary and architectural historian, Gerald Cobb, while drawing in Ludgate Circus and they became lifelong friends. Peter joined the RAF in July 1941 and was stationed in Wales and Ireland before going to Versailles in 1944 with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces.

Peter Yates lived in Paris following the war where he met many artists and writers, including Georges Braque,[3] Édouard Pignon, Jaime Sabartes, Juliette Gréco, Leon Gischia, Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Andre L'Hote, Sylvia Beach and Le Corbusier.

Peter Yates and Clive Entwistle were invited to work on plans for a new UNO building in New York by Le Corbusier.[4]

Pyramid Project for the New Crystal Palace with Clive Entwhistle at Ove Arup's office, Soho 1947.[5]

Masterplan for Peterlee new town with Berthold Lubetkin in 1948 (where Peter Yates first met Gordon Ryder).[6]

Peter Yates returned to Paris in 1950 as Chief Designer at Unité d’Informations Visuelles,[7] a commercial art studio located in the Old Alhambra night club in the gardens of the Champs Élysées. From here, he contributed to exhibitions across Europe. These included Europa Zug [8] and Atoms for Peace. (Here, Peter collaborated with Pierre Boucher from whom Ryder and Yates later commissioned murals for Norgas House, Killingworth).

In 1953, after a chance meeting in London, Peter Yates moved to Newcastle upon Tyne to form an architectural practice with Gordon Ryder. Initial work included exhibition design and soon progressed onto a series of private domestic architectural commissions. A new multidisciplinary approach which included engineers fuelled their progress. Their buildings were highly regarded. Large scale commissions for industrial complexes for British Gas, Sterling Organics and others followed. Social projects in Newcastle and Sunderland for the Salvation Army, a large social housing project in Kenton as well as various local government and healthcare projects. Ryder and Yates' extensive portfolio of acclaimed buildings won numerous architectural awards[9] over the following three decades from their inception in 1953.

'Ryder and Yates were Lubetkin's sole professional heirs – a legacy mutually recognised – and their work is a compelling reminder of Lubetkin's lesson that the poetic and the rational were inextricable impulses in modern architecture's original vision.' John Allan, Director of Avanti Architects.[10]

A book about Ryder and Yates was published as part of the RIBA 20th Century Architects series.[11]

Notable Ryder and Yates buildings include:

• R H Patterson Ford Dealer, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1964
• North Kenton Housing Scheme (subsequently known as the Kenton Bar Estate), Newcastle upon Tyne, 1964
• Norgas House, Killingworth, 1965[12]
• Engineering Gas Research Station (ERS), 1967[13]
• The Citadel, Killingworth, 1967
• Sterling Organics, Dudley, 1972
• Northern Gas Computer Centre, Killingworth, 1974
• Salvation Army 'Men's Palace', Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974
• MEA House, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1976
• The On-line Inspection Centre (OLI), Cramlington, 1979[14]
• Studio 5, Tyne Tees Television, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1981
• Salvation Army, Sunderland, 1982
• Vickers, Newcastle and Leeds, 1982

Peter Yates married musician Helen Maud Southgate from New Zealand in 1958 and had five children. Helen died in 1972.

Peter married his second wife Gillian Jessica Eden in 1976. Gillian died in 2015.

Peter Yates died in 1982.