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Academi Chief Executive Honoured

Academi Chief Executive Peter Finch with Jonathan Adams

At a ceremony at Portmeirion, Clough Williams-Ellis’ Italianate north Wales village Academi Chief Executive Peter Finch was made an honorary member of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales. In his citation RSAW President Jonathan Adams drew attention to Peter Finch’s early radical work he said was “always precise and astute when dealing with issues of identity and nationhood.”  Peter Finch was the only living Welshman in the definitive American Dictionary of the Avante Gardes. 

“His Real Cardiff books deal with the totality of the experience of the city, its buildings and its spaces; relics and traces still eloquent in the present and faint echoes of the cities that were there before….Peter identified the first predicament of Welsh architecture: that for generations Welsh architects have lacked any worthwhile critical writing that originated in Wales, looked through Welsh eyes and focused on the distinct built environment of even our capital city, let alone the rest of the country…….It is for his achievement in writing this book and its follow up Real Cardiff Two that Peter has been elected to Honorary Membership of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales”.

Peter was born in Cardiff, where he still lives. He was editor of the journal Second Aeon from 1966 to 1974 and managed the Oriel Bookshop from 1974 until 1998, after which he became Chief Executive of the re-launched Academi (Yr Academi Gymreig/The Welsh Academy).