| Level | Fonds |
| Ref No | AALS |
| Extent | c21,000 lantern slides |
| Title | AA Lantern Slide Collection |
| Date | c1890-1954 |
| Description | Comprises of c21,000 three and a quarter inch lantern slides, forming the Architectural Association Lantern Slide Collection. The collection is international in scope, with a focus upon British, European and American architecture of the 1920s and 1930s. It also contains substantial holdings of slides relating to historic monuments, architectural traditions, architectural details and building typologies. |
| Accruals | None expected |
| Arrangement | The original order of the AA Lantern Slide Collection has been retained, mirroring exactly the categories and terminology of the original card catalogue and filing system, dating from the 1920s-30s. The aim of this is to reveal the system by which knowledge was constructed and classified during this period. Within each record entry 21st century terminology and vocabularies are used, with the original wording also being supplied alongside. At item level, the original classification code is retained in the Alt_Ref_No field. |
| Access_Conditions | Unrestricted access for AA students and members. For non-members an AA Membership is required (short-term 'Research Memberships' are available). |
| Use_Restrictions | Scanning of slides is permitted at the descretion of the Archivist. |
| Language | English |
| Access_Status | Open |
| Physical Description | Three and a quarter inch square lantern slides. The collection is in the process of being re-housed, with each lantern slide being placed within an unbuffered, acid free and lignin free four flap paper enclosure, then placed within archival lantern slide storage boxes (alongside the original paper catalogue cards). |
| Admin_History | The AA Lantern Slide Collection is one of the most important surviving collections of inter-war architectural lantern slides in the UK. It's origins lie in the early 1890s, with a donation of slides by the architect Robert Langton Cole (1858-1928 and the formation of the AA Camera Club (1893). Subsequently a lantern slide projector is recorded as having been purchased in 1896 and slides were advertised as borrowable by members from 1899. Following the AA's move to larger premises in Bedford Square in 1919 the collection grew dramatically and by the start of World War Two consisted of in excess of 28,000 slides. The collection functioned as a teaching resource for AA staff but also had an extremely significant role in loaning slides for use in external institutions and numerous UK architecture schools. In addition it was a major supplier of photographs to the UK architectural press during the inter-war period.
The first serious attempt to catalogue the collection began in 1923, with a cataloguing schema being devised in-house by a committee comprising of the AA Principal, Howard Robertson (1883-1963), AA tutors, Verner Owen Rees (1886-1966) and Harold Charlton Bradshaw (1893-1943), AA Art Master, Walter Monckton Keesey (1887-1970) and the architectural theorist, acoustician and AA Librarian, Hope Bagenal (1888-1979). A full set of 9 volumes of the catalogue were completed by 1926, with a set bound and presented to the RIBA library for the consultation of their members. This initial catalogue was expanded in the late 1920s and 1930s by the work of lantern slide collection staff including G.E. Meister, Rachel Morrison and Marjorie Morrison MBE. The inter-war order classification system and order of the lantern slide collection has survived intact and constitutes a remarkable resource for the study of the intellectual framework and categorisation behind the construction of a British inter-war architectural canon. Likewise, the provenance records embedded in the collection provide a wealth of invaluable information on the network of professional photographers, architects, artists, students and travellers engaged in architectural photography or collecting during this period. Significant contributions to the collection were made by numerous institutions and indivduals, including Frank Yerbury (1885-1970), Eric Jarrett (1888-1959), Harry Goodhart-Rendel (1887-1959), Sir Laurence Weaver (1876-1930), Joseph Emberton (1889-1956), Stephen Rowland-Pierce (1896-1966), Ralph Tubbs (1912-1996) and Edward Maufe (1882-1974).
In the post-war years the new format of 35mm film was embraced by the AA slide library and a seperate collection in this format was begun c1951. Around 6000 lantern slides were converted into this format and after a period when the two collections were in operation together, the lantern slide collection was gradually supplanted and work on it was discontinued.
Digitisation and cataloguing of the AA Lantern Slide Collection was begun in 2020 and remains in progresss. |
| Custodial_History | The AA Lantern Slide Collection was initially housed in the AA Reference Library, Bedford Square, before being was moved to 'Exhibition Room' (adjacent to the Library) in 1929. In 1939 the collection was sent for safekeeping to 'Hatchlands', the Surrey residence of Goodhart-Rendel, before being forwarded to the AA's wartime home at Barnet, where it continued to operate under reduced conditions. Following the war the collection was returned to the Exhibition Room and remained under the jursidiction of the Library until 1963, when the AA Photo Library was formed as a seperate department. In that year it was recorded that a selection of lantern slides had been made for disposal in order to make space for the expanding 35mm collection but it appears that the vast bulk of the collection has survived intact, with 25,000 slides being noted in 1980. In 2018 the collections of the Photo Library were absorbed into the AA Archives and the total number of surviving lantern slides was inventoried as comprising c21,000. |
| Acquisition | Transferred to the AA Archives' collections in 2018 on the absorption of the AA Photo Library's holdings. |
| Rules | This description is based upon rules set out by ISAD(G) 2nd edition, 2000; International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition - ICA 2004 ISBN 2-9521932-2-3; National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997. Vocabulary is controlled in reference to the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online. |
| Arch_Note | Works consulted: AA Council Minutes (AA Archives boxes: A101, C501, C505); Summerson, J., 'The Architectural Association 1847 - 1947', (London, 1947); Higgot, A., Morrison, M. 'The Architectural Association Slide Library', (London, 1980). |
| Related Material | Slide hire ledgers for 1933-39, 1939-53 are located at archives box A101. |
| Creator_Name | AA Lantern Slide Collection |
| Image | 
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| Image_Data | The Propylaea, Athens, Greece. Photographer and date unknown |
| General view of Philae, Aswan Governorate, Egypt. Photographer: Hugh Stannus, c1900s |