The RIBA Refugee Committee (RRC) was set up by the RIBA Council in January 1939, in response to the sharp rise in requests for admission to the country from architects mainly based in Central Europe. It was tasked to strike a difficult balance between giving assistance to foreign colleagues and safeguarding job opportunities for local architects in a period of economic uncertainty. Headed by the indefatigable RIBA Librarian Edward ‘Bobby’ Carter, the RRC considered and acted on urgent cases, made recommendations to the Home Office, undertook statistical analysis, consulted other professional institutes, and eventually produced a detailed report for the RIBA Council, which was praised in the architectural press for its clarity. The activities of the RRC, however, were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. This presentation will consider the committee’s course of action, with the aim of highlighting the cultural attitudes of the British architectural establishment at the outbreak of the Second World War. It will also introduce the wide range of individuals who were brought to its attention during its short lifespan, from those who succeeded in building a new life in Britain or in countries outside Europe, to those who did not and perished in concentration camps. They all deserve to be remembered and their work celebrated, as part of a wider narrative that does not just concern the history of the Institute but also the choices that the profession, and us as individuals, are still confronted with now, and will be in the future.
Valeria Carullo is Curator of the Robert Elwall Photographs Collection at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Her principal area of research is the relationship between modern photography and modern architecture in the inter-war years. An architect by background, she lectures and writes on both architectural and photographic subjects. Her publications include Moholy-Nagy in Britain 1935-1937 (2019, Lund Humphries) and the recent monograph Richard Bryant (2025, Lund Humphries). Valeria has curated and co-curated several exhibitions, and is the lead researcher of the ongoing RIBA Refugee Committee project, whose first major output was the international conference Displaced Lives: Architects Seeking Refuge on the Brink of WWII (RIBA, June 2024). This was followed in February 2026 by the launch of the RIBA Refugee Committee Papers online database.
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Information on what to expect when visiting a Jewish cemetery: https://www.willesdenjewishcemetery.org.uk/visitor-guidance
Image: Villa Loew-Beer, Brno (1935)
Architects: Rudolf Baumfeld & Norbert Schlesinger
Credit line: RIBA Collections
