Michael Morrison is one of the most respected conservation architects working in Britain today. Following in his father’s footsteps to train as an architect, he joined the practice as an assistant surveyor for Ely Cathedral. Over the past 30 years he has been responsible for a wide range of major projects on behalf of the National Trust, English Heritage and many public and private clients.
Michael is perhaps best known for his work in caring for some of the country’s great museums and galleries. During his 12 ‘enormously enjoyable’ years as Architect to the Trustees at London’s National Gallery, he has masterminded the reordering and redecoration of the majority of the public rooms and the complete re-modeling of the 1970s northern extension.
Comparatively rare for an architect, Michael enjoys producing detailed written reports as much as the process of design. He has lead the way for the practice in the production of strategic plans, conservation management plans and historic impact assessments - areas of work in which the practice has unrivalled expertise. This work has included conservation management plans for a wide variety of buildings from the British Museum on the one hand to Scott’s Hut in Antarctica on the other. Michael oversees the work of all the in-house architectural historians.
He has been a member of the National Trust's Architectural Panel for ten years and a member of Heritage Lottery Fund’s Expert Panel on buildings and land for six years. He is currently one of the Trustees of the Greenwich Foundation.
Michael takes a close interest in the business’s strategic development. In parallel to this, he sees himself very much as a hands-on architect - hard hat, boiler suit and torch at the ready, determined to get to grips with the detail of a building. Michael is above all a good listener, sensitive to the needs of clients and colleagues alike.
‘I enjoy nothing more than helping a client develop a brief that answers the practical needs of an historic building and allows it to take on a new life after we have carefully conserved it.’