The story
The practice was founded in 1952 by Geoffry Powell (1920–1999), Peter "Joe" Chamberlin (1919–1978) and Christoph Bon (1921–1999), following Powell's win in the 1951 architectural competition for the Golden Lane Estate. The three founding partners taught at Kingston Polytechnic (now Kingston University School of Architecture) when they each entered the design competition with the agreement that should any of them win they would form a partnership with the other two to deliver the project.
The Golden Lane Estate is sometimes referred to as the apprentice piece of the practice and is important for its planned landscape which 'straddles the boundary between the picturesque and the formal'.
Charles Greenberg became an additional partner of the practice in 1960, although he chose not to add his name to the partnership for personal reasons. He was the only other partner working with CP&B on the Barbican estate. Frank Woods also became an additional partner, and in 1985 the firm's name became Chamberlin Powell Bon & Woods. The firm continued to 1989. Its archives are held at the Royal Institute of British Architects.
From Wikipedia’s article on Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3