Monica Pidgeon

Monica Pidgeon (29 September 1913 – 17 September 2009) was a British interior designer and architectural writer best known as the editor of Architectural Design from 1946 to 1975.

Early life Pidgeon was born Monica Lehmann in 1913 in Catemu, Chile. Her father was a French mining engineer; her mother was Scottish. In 1929, her parents moved the family to London so their children could finish their education at English schools; she attended St Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls in Lambeth. After graduating, she enrolled in a two-year interior design course at The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London (UCL).

Pidgeon was an extraordinary photographer whose black and white photographs were prominently featured in the 2018 exhibition entitled Eternal City: Rome in the Photographs Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Organized by the Polo Museo del Lazio, RIBA, and the British School in Rome, the exhibition was held at the Museo Vittoriano in Rome's Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II from June to October 2018. Pidgeon's photograph of four, young stylish Italian men walking away from the colonnade and piazza of St. Peter's Church was the centerpiece of the exhibition's marketing literature. Her eye and capability for architectural photography compared to the skill of fellow photographers featured in the exhibit. Most of Pidgeon's photography that was presented occurred in 1961. Pidgeon's architectural photography bravely integrated the lives of Italian people from young children to seniors, many of them female, as cultural icons living within the greatest architecture of the Western world.

Pidgeon retired in 1979.

Honours Pidgeon joined the Royal Institute of British Architects as an honorary fellow in 1970 and was made an honorary fellow of the Architectural Association in 1979. For her work on the Pidgeon Audio Visual project, she was made an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1987.

Family Pidgeon's sister, Olga Lehmann, was a visual artist, while her brother, Andrew George Lehmann, was a literary critic. She married Raymond Pidgeon, whom she met as a student at University College London, in 1936; they had a daughter named Annabel and son named Carl, and divorced in 1946. Her granddaughter is Rebecca Pidgeon, an actress and singer.