
02 February 2025
Remembering Dennis Crompton (1935-2025)
I admired Dennis long before I met him. As director of the print studio at the AA, he and Alvin Boyarsky produced some of the world’s best architectural publications. I still have my copy of their monograph on Sigurd Lewerentz, with its carborundum paper jacket. It has to be kept away from all the other books because of its abrasive nature.
Dennis also had a reputation for being abrasive, so on first meeting I was a little wary. I need not have worried. Once he trusted you he was warm and friendly: a delightful companion, full of stories, and with a virtually encyclopaedic memory. I will miss him.
We produced two books together. The first – Archigram: The Book – was a labour of love, literally forty years in the making. I didn’t dare direct Dennis. It was absolutely his project. I simply told him he couldn’t go beyond 300 pages. The result is a timeless classic.
The second book – on Peter Salter’s houses at Walmer Yard – was more of a collaboration. But it harks back to the work Dennis did at the AA, and is elegant and beautifully crafted – as was everything Dennis produced.
DJ
Above: Dennis Crompton (centre), with Peter Cook and David Greene, signing copies of the Archigram book, at the Hayward Gallery, 21 November 2018