Architectural Association School of Architecture

The Architectural Association School of Architecture, more usually known as the AA, is one of the world’s most renowned and influential schools of architecture. It is the most high-status and selective architecture school in the United Kingdom. Its wide-ranging programme of exhibitions, lectures, symposia and publications have given it a central position in worldwide dialogue and developments within contemporary architectural culture. Many of the world's most celebrated and respected figures in architecture and its associated fields were either alumnus or have lectured there. These include Leonard Manasseh, Hugh Casson, Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown, Aston Webb, John Ruskin, George Gilbert Scott, to more recently Daniel Libeskind and Richard Rogers. It is the oldest independent school of architecture in the United Kingdom and was founded in 1847 by two young architectural students Robert Kerr, and Charles Grey. It has occupied its current premises in a listed Georgian building in architecturally important Bedford Square, central London since 1917. The AA archives consist of over 500 cubic feet of documents and in excess of 2,000 architectural drawings, paintings and works on paper.