Jane Durham’s name may not be a familiar one, but the practice of which she was a founding partner, and the many buildings it has designed, will be: Chapman Taylor Partners. It was in 1959 that she, Robert Chapman and John Taylor began the firm, their office at the top of the Grand Buildings (the former Grand Hotel), Trafalgar Square, with drawing boards crammed into the small space of a turret room reached by a spiral staircase.

Durham later regretted her absence from the practice’s name and, had she her time again, she later recalled, would have put up a stronger argument against her partners’ reasons for excluding her. These included a desire not to have a practice title with an unwieldy list of names, a belief that they wouldn’t last more than a year and the assumption that she would soon leave to marry and have children.