Iain Borden is an English architectural historian and urban commentator. He is currently Vice-Dean Education at The Bartlett, University College London, and Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture. He is particularly well known for his academic studies of everyday occurrences such as car driving, skateboarding, walking and movies in relation to contemporary architecture and public spaces. His books and predecessor Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body, met with considerable acclaim for their analytical and historical account of skateboarding, in part using the philosophy of Henri Lefebvre to interpret this global practice as a creative, political and urban act. His book , similarly explored automobile driving as experiences of cities and urban spaces, using cinematic representations to explore different speeds, landscape and social conditions. His current research explores bridges, tunnels, observation wheels, tower cranes and other large scale everyday architectures as symbols of urban and political conditions.
Career
Educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, he graduated from University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1985, and went on to complete master's degrees at UCL and University of California, Los Angeles and a PhD at UCL. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His wide-ranging historical and theoretical interests have led to publications on, among other subjects: critical theory and architectural historical methodology, the history of skateboarding as an urban practice, boundaries and surveillance, theorists Henri Lefebvre and Georg Simmel, film and architecture, gender and architecture, body spaces and the experience of city spaces. He has also undertaken a history of automobile driving as a spatial experience of cities, landscapes and architecture, and particularly as represented in movies: Drive: Journeys through Film, Cities and Landscapes,. For many years Iain Borden has been involved in skateboarding history, preservation and facility provision, including providing advice to Milton Keynes council in the early 2000s, which helped lead to the creation of the 'Buszy', often considered to be the world's first skate plaza. In London, 2013, he was involved in events around the controversial Southbank Centre plans to relocate skateboarding on its site. He supported the retention of skateboarding at the original Undercroft location and elsewhere on the Southbank, appearing in the "Save Our Southbank" and Long Live Southbank videos to this end, and playing a significant part in the proposed new skateable space underneath the nearby Hungerford Bridge. In 2014, Borden also helped English Heritage list the iconic Rom skatepark in Hornchurch, the first such skatepark in Europe to gain heritage protection, and is currently technical consultant for the forthcoming Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad documentary directed by Matt Harris, as well as being a director of the Rom skatepark community interest company. He has written several articles in national newspapers extolling the history, virtues and benefits of skateboarding to society, and has given advice on skateboard preservation, facility design and provision to numerous city authorities, architects and skatepark manufacturers in the UK and USA. He acted as an adviser for the multi-million pound 'Urban Sports Park' in Folkestone, UK, designed by Guy Hollaway Architects and Maverick skateparks for the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, to be the world's first multi-level skatepark. In 2018, Borden helped initiate and design a new skatepark in Crystal Palace, south London, and is a trustee of The Far Academy, which uses skateboarding for educational purposes.
