Segal, Walter

Bio Sketch

Walter Segal (1907–1985) was a Swiss-born British architect known for the "Segal method" — a rational timber-frame building system designed for self-build, enabling ordinary public-housing-listed people to construct their own homes. Raised near the Monte Verità community at Ascona, he turned down the Bauhaus and sought an architecture of "understandable excitement" and common-sense.

Key Works

• The Segal timber-frame system (1966 prototype in Highgate, £600).
• Self-build housing (Lewisham, Bromley) — clients building their own homes; Home and Environment (1947).

Key Concepts

Concepts associated with this author that have pages in this wiki:

• Everyday Architecture
• Dwelling
• Authorship

Relevance to Geoffrey's Research

Segal matters to Geoffrey's everyday & vernacular architecture and dwelling/self-build concerns: his method revalues the everyday dwelling and the architect's "enabling" role, against both the monumental canon and the hero-genius myth.

Source Support

Source notes in this wiki drawn from this author's work:

• A Discourse on Method: The Segal System (McKean)
• The Essential Method: The Segal Method (Broome)