‘Ian is a founding partner of Gorniak & McKechnie and has been a practicing architect for over 50 years.

 

His first job was with Casson (Sir Hugh Casson), Conder (Neville Conder), and Partners where he worked on projects at Cambridge and Birmingham Universities.

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He was made an associate partner of the firm in 1965, but left in 1968 to fulfil a dream of working in the United States. In Cambridge Massachusetts he worked for Earl R Flansburgh and Associates on major school projects. 

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In 1970 he returned to the UK after a magnificent 12000-mile tour in a VW microbus and joined the London Borough of Ealing as a schools architect. 

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In 1975 he became education group leader in charge of three teams of architects, and in 1980 became Assistant Borough Architect in charge of Housing, controlling an annual programme of £15 – 20,000,000. 

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In 1990 he took advantage of a Council early retirement scheme and joined Chris Gorniak in Suffolk, which enabled him to further his interest in historical architecture.

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He was Chairman for a number of years of the Debenham History Society, and is a committee member of the Suffolk Historic Buildings Group, for whom he edits their newsletter the Eavesdropper. 

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Ian is a member of the Vernacular Architecture Group, and the Society for the Protection of Ancient buildings. In 2005 he obtained an MA in local and regional history from the University of East Anglia.

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He is married to Christine McKechnie the renowned collage artist. >> See her website