Visual Communication in Art and Design. (DVI 2034)

Keith Barry Critchlow.

Biography

• Born 16 MARCH 1933.
• Nationality UK.
• Occupation professor of architecture, author.

Educated at the Summerhill School and the Royal College of Art. Performed national service in the Royal Air Force from 1951 to 1953. Other than that,  originally trained as a classical painter, he authored many books on geometry, including Order in Space, Islamic Pattern as a Cosmological Art, and Time Stands Still.

  Formerly a lecturer in London for twelve years, and had been a professor of Islamic Art at the Royal College of Art in London from 1975 for many years. He is a leading expert in sacred architecture and sacred geometry and founded Kairos, he served there as director of studies.

*  Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment).

The following books have been written or edited by Keith Critchlow:

• Time Stands Still : New Light on Megalithic Science. London : Gordon Fraser Gallery, 1979; revised edition, Edinburgh : Floris, 2007.
• Order in Space. London : Thames & Hudson, 2000 (Originally published: 1969).
• Islamic Patterns : An Analytical and Cosmological Approach . London : Thames and Hudson, 1976; Inner Traditions, 1999.
• Keith Critchlow and Jon Allen, The Whole Question of Health : An Enquiry into Architectural First Principles in the Designing of Health-Care Buildings. London : The Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, c1994.
• Issam El-Said, Islamic Art and Architecture : The System of Geometric Design, edited by Tarek El-Bouri & Keith Critchlow. Reading : Garnet, 1993.
• Research : Principles, Policy and Practice. London : Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, 1993.
• The Soul as Sphere & Androgyne. Ipswich : Golgonooza Press, c1980.
• Earth Mysteries : A Study in Patterns, edited by Keith Critchlow. London : Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation Trust, 1978.
• Into the Hidden Environment. Oceans;  Lifestream of Our Planet. London :  G. Philip, 1972.

Online resources about Keith Critchlow

• The page on Prof. Keith Critchlow on Wikipedia has additional biographical facts and links.
• The Temenos Academy explains its origins, in which Dr. Critchlow played a seminal role, in this way: "In 1980 the poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, together with Keith Critchlow, Brian Keeble and Philip Sherrard, launched Temenos, a journal devoted to the Arts of the Imagination. The journal sought to give space to poets, artists, writers and thinkers who subscribed to the belief that man is firstly a spiritual creature with spiritual needs which have to be nourished if we are to fulfil our potential and be happy.…From these early beginnings the Temenos Academy was launched in 1990 as a teaching organisation dedicated to the same central idea that had inspired the Journal."
• Dr. Critchlow founded Kairos, "an educational charity specifically founded to promote the recovery of traditional (perennial) values in the Arts and Sciences." The Kairos website has additional biographical information on Keith Critchlow, as well as announcements on the foundation's activities.