Building Beautiful Places: 
Classical and Vernacular Architecture Today

Lecture with Ben Pentreath

Friday, September 4, 11:30 AM
University of Virginia

Campbell Hall (Room to be announced. Seating is limited. If in-person capacity is reached, additional registrants will receive a Zoom link to attend virtually.

What makes a place beautiful, sustainable, and beloved? Join internationally acclaimed architectural and interior designer Ben Pentreath as he explores how classical and vernacular architecture and urbanism continue to shape meaningful places for contemporary life, showing that these traditions remain vibrant, relevant, and alive today. Presented by the Classical Architecture Society at the University of Virginia, a community of students interested in classical and vernacular architecture and urbanism.

Ben Pentreath is an English architect and interior designer who founded Ben Pentreath Ltd in 2004, now a firm of more than 40 architects and designers based in Bloomsbury, London. He studied art history at the University of Edinburgh and trained at the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture before working in New York and with the Prince’s Foundation. He is best known for his work on Poundbury and other traditional town developments, as well as interior design work for the British royal family, including Anmer Hall. He is the author of English Decoration and English Houses and a regular contributor to the Financial Times. In 2023, he received the Richard H. Driehaus Prize, awarded by the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture to a living designer whose work exemplifies traditional and classical architecture and urbanism.

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Thursday, September 24, 2026
Georgetown Club
1530 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20007

Architect Greg Palmer of Harrison Design will be at the Georgetown Club on September 24 to discuss the firm’s new book, Transcending Tradition: Homes for Modern Living. For more than three decades, Harrison Design has created homes that feel both classic and livable, blending traditional design principles like balance, proportion, and harmony with the needs of modern life.

Across ten remarkable retreats in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and along the California coast, the book exemplifies Harrison’s refined command of scale, material, and flow through a distinctly Southern lens.

Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing at the event.

For more information contact Gina Martin at gmartin@aimmedia.com.

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