ABSTRACT
Born in 1927, Paul Oliver is an art historian who graduated from the University of London in 1955. His first major publication on architecture, Shelter and Society, appeared in 1969, when he was working at the Architectural Association. An edited volume, Shelter and Society contained the work of a small group of scholars (some of whom, like Amos Rapoport and John Turner, became influential scholars in their own right) on a wide range of architectural traditions, including Native American pueblos, illegal squatter settlements in Greece and dome shaped ‘funk architecture’ in Colorado. The main aim of the book was to indicate how all those traditions were built to ‘meet the needs of their respective communities and contain values special to them’ (Oliver 1969: 31). The intricate relationship of architectural traditions to the society that they formed part of was further explored by Oliver during the 1970s in his subsequent publications Shelter in Africa (1971), Shelter, Sign & Symbol (1975a) and the little-known Shelter in Greece (1974, co-edited with Orestis Doumanis). All contained articles by other scholars that illustrated the way in which architecture is embedded in society and culture. Oliver commonly restricted his own contributions to substantial introductions and the role of editor, although in the case of Shelter in Africa, the publication was followed by an exhibition at the Horniman museum (Oliver 1975b).
