Reginald Harold Uren [also known as Reginald Uren] was born in Belfast near Christchurch [or Petone, a suburb of Lower Hutt - sources differ], New Zealand on 5 March 1906. Soon after qualifying as an architect in New Zealand, he travelled to England to further his architectural education. He studied briefly under Charles Holden (1875-1960) at the Bartlett School, University College, London and in 1931 was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). Two years later Uren came to prominence when, aged 27 he won a fiercely-fought competition to design Hornsey Town Hall in Hornsey, Middlesex.
In 1936 he joined John Alan Slater (1885-1963) and Arthur Hamilton Moberly (1886-1952) in their London architectural practice Slater & Moberly, which was subsequently renamed Slater, Moberly & Uren. By the early 1950s Moberly had left the practice. He was replaced by Charles Pike as a partner, and the firm became Slater, Uren & Pike.
From 1946 Ure represented the New Zealand Institute of Architects on the Council of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
In 1967 he retired from architectural practice and returned to New Zealand where he died on 17 February 1988.
Hornsey Town Hall, Hornsey, Middlesex (1933); Granada Cinema at Woolwich (1937) in collaboration with Cecil Masey and Theodore Komisarjevsky; the Oxford Street store of John Lewis (1955); the Arthur Sanderson & Sons Building, now Sanderson Hotel in Berners Street, London (1958); St George's Swimming Pools in Shadwell (1965); Norfolk County Hall (1966); and an extension to the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square, London (1966). In the 1930s he also assisted Charles Holden in a number of architectural projects for the London Passenger Transport Board.
Harwood, Elain. Art Deco Britain: Buildings of the Interwar Years. London: Batsford, 2019
Harwood, Elain. Mid-Century Britain: Modern Architecture 1938-1963. London: Batsford, 2021
‘Unique award. Dominion architect, Mr Uren in England’. New Zealand Herald 12 May 1936 p. 9