The BALT Individual Lectures
Alongside our annual Lecture Series, we also host special one-off talks that stand on their own. These standalone lectures focus on a single topic or guest speaker, offering distinctive insights and fresh perspectives that complement our wider programme of learning, art, and culture.
Join us for a compelling webinar exploring the history of the RIBA Refugee Committee, established in early 1939 in response to the growing displacement of architects and artists fleeing Nazi persecution in Central Europe.
Britain, despite its own economic challenges and mixed public attitudes, became a crucial destination for many, including architects whose careers were threatened due to their ethnicity, politics, or commitment to the Modern Movement. Tune in to learn how RIBA, guided by its young Librarian Edward “Bobby” Carter, created the Refugee Committee to balance support for émigré architects with protecting local employment.
The webinar will also shed light on the personal stories behind these statistics from renowned figures like Jacques Groag, Anna Mahler, Peter Moro, and Eugene Rosenberg, to lesser-known names whose lives reflect both tragedy and resilience. Attendees will gain insight into the legacy of the Committee and the profound impact of refugee architects on British and international modernism.
Meet the Speakers
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 upcoming 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).
Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University, where he has been a member of the faculty for over three decades. A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he served from 2007 to 2014 as Chief Curator of Architecture & Design at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), and curated there, among other exhibitions. He has also organized exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, the Caisse des Monuments Historiques, the Centre Canadien d’Architecture (Montréal), the Banamex Cultural Center (Mexico City), and the Center for Architecture (New York). He is the author of publications accompanying those exhibitions as well as a widely used textbook European Architecture: 1750-1890. He has lectured and taught at institutions around the world and serves on the jury of the Pritzker Prize in Architecture, among other juries in architecture. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, among other honors.