ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL
The Architectural Association was founded in 1847 as an alternative to the practice of training young men by apprenticeship to established architects. Apprenticeship offered no guarantee for educational quality or professional standards when two articled pupils, Robert Kerr (1823–1904) and Charles Gray (1827-1881), proposed a systematic course of training provided by the students themselves. Following a merger with the already existing Association of Architectural Draughtsmen, the first formal meeting under the name of the Architectural Association took place in May 1847 at Lyons Inn Hall, London. From 1859 the AA shared premises at 9 Conduit Street with the Royal Institute of British Architects and in 1891 renting rooms in Great Marlborough Street. The Architectural Association School of Architecture was formally established in 1890 and in 1901, it changed its premises to the former Royal Architectural Museum in Tufton Street, Westminster. In 1917, it moved to its current location in Bedford Square, central London. It has since acquired additional London premises in John Street, a property on Morwell Street behind Bedford Square, and a 350-acre (1.4 km2) site at Hooke Park in Dorset. The AA archives consist of over five hundred cubic feet of documents and more than 2,000 architectural drawings, paintings and works on paper.