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Architecture – the status of its institutions, the relevance of the teaching curricula and the fragmentation of the role of architects in practice – reflects the prevailing ethos of our society and culture.

Whatever the changing, existential cycles of order and chaos, the core of the fundamental principles of design constantly connects the ancient polymath ‘architects’ with our twenty-first-century practitioners to create spiritually uplifting, healthy, sustainable environments that enhance our wellbeing and welfare.

These abiding principles are based on the world’s natural phenomena and human nature. The full spectrum of our innate tendencies, patterns of behaviour and the essential elements of leadership, management and organisation, are encoded in the perennial myths and authentic folk wisdom stories.

Thomas Saunders qualified in 1956 as a chartered architect – Associate Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). In 1961 he set up practice at home as Thomas Saunders Architect. Two years later he moved to rooms over a shop in East London and engaged a secretary, two day-release students and a graduate working for his Part 3 exam at the local School of Architecture in Walthamstow. The principal invited him to fill the vacant post for teaching the two hours a week, Part 3 Professional Practice, which included Business Management in the new 1963 curriculum. He continued for the next four years. He was elected a Fellow of the RIBA in 1967.

The practice expanded and was renamed The Thomas Saunders Partnership (TTSP) when Saunders promoted four senior managers to full partnership. By 1982 it had developed into an international practice, with offices in London, Paris, Dubai and Kuwait. The 130 staff included the four partners managing the individual design teams, interior specialists, graphics designers, an office manager running the administration department and a separately managed PR/marketing unit. TTSP was one of the first practices to install CAD.

As the Senior Partner, Saunders realised he had promoted himself to a level of incompetence: he was no longer a hands-on practising architect. Robert Townsend’s book Up the Organization advocated all chairmen and CEOs to leave after five years in the job, as the enthusiasm wanes, in order to allow others to rise up the business. Having read Joseph Campbell’s quote, ‘The real killer in life is when you find yourself at the top of the ladder and realise it is leaning against the wrong wall,’ Saunders knew he had to explore new challenges.

In 1984 he resigned, severed all connections with the practice, and left it in the capable hands of the four remaining partners. (TTSP continues to be a thriving international practice in 2019.) He set up a company as an independent consultant acting as client representative and project director. He also served on the board of City Merchant Developers Limited.

He studied for an Advanced Certificate in environmental design and crime prevention and, in 2005, as a newly elected RIBA Client Design Advisor (CDA), a Russian developer appointed him to review a major housing development near Moscow’s city centre. He is a professional remote viewer, field dowser and trainer. Thomas Saunders Consultants Limited was closed in 2017.

For much of his professional life, Saunders has explored the bonds linking architecture, the human experience, health, the authentic Tarot, the natural world and perennial teachings. His writings and seminars deliver presentations based on the design principles of Plato’s seven liberal arts, of Vitruvius and the esoteric mystery school teachings. They aim to recover the perennial, covert, esoteric wisdom of the arts and sciences that have been taught throughout the ages.

Goethe’s dictum, ‘Architecture is frozen music’, prompted him to research the fundamental principles of design, geometry and the structure of a building based on harmonic ratios, musical intervals and proportional volumes. These he found to resonate with the same harmonic ratios in human bodies to create a life-enhancing environment. His journey also led him to the profound symbolic language of the archetypes in the Tarot’s authentic form and its teachings about the human psyche, human nature and life’s journey from naivety to wisdom.

The culmination of various aspects of health hazards and the esoteric studies resulted in the publication of his book The Boiled Frog Syndrome – Your Health and the Built Environment in 2001. (Also published in Portuguese in Brazil). This led to a commission to write a peer-reviewed paper by Elsevier Science Limited entitled Health Hazards and Electromagnetic Fields in hospital design and equipment. In 2007, Watkins published his book The Authentic Tarot: Discovering Your Inner Self.

His autobiography, Getting A Life, published in 2014, includes accounts of his travels into the Amazon, the Arctic and his Atlantic Ocean sailings. He lived in France for eight years and returned to London in 2014 where he lives with his wife. He continues to be engaged in RIBA matters, student works, and the role and status of the architect.

Find out more at authentictarot.com and thomassaunders.net

"With his many years of experiences both as an architect and in his life, Thomas Saunders is pointing at the great social responsibility that architects and managers have in creating a healthy and secure built environment. As Saunders points out, more leadership is required.

Myths, containing perennial human knowledge and wisdom, are not only a source for inspiration but their characters experience practical guiding principles for interaction between people and their environment. As Goethe said: ‘Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.’

Saunders takes the reader by the hand and shows both the why and the how. This book should be a compulsory part of the curriculum at schools of architecture and business administration to make students aware of the cultural and architectural values that the influence of leadership can bring to the environment, motivation, well-being and the spiritual life of people."

– René Stevens MSc Arch/MBA, architect, management consultant and coach. Founder/CEO of ATELIER V real estate – Amersfoort, The Netherlands

"[Thomas Saunders] takes us through a history of building and the role of the architect. It was only in the twentieth century that architects began to really pare back their role. For two thousand years the designer of the building was the major influence on what was to be built, and building it, encompassing all aspects of, as Saunders says, "the art of living”. The designers of Greek and Roman buildings, and of medieval cathedrals (the book includes a fascinating chapter on Chartres Cathedral and its placement and structure in respect of water and ley lines, factors influencing all great medieval churches) dealt with the wholeness of the design, its orientation, its use of light, the uses of the building, even the furnishings. The buildings would only work if they brought good health, a sense of spiritual serenity, satisfying proportionality, and respected the planet.

That is where the modern profession must return says Saunders. In an age of confusion, unhappiness, environmental degradation, architects must regrasp their proper role, understanding the influences of the earth on what lies upon it, the effects of buildings on human health and mental wellbeing, reintroducing the spiritual to the concrete, and leading those who would build in the broadest ways of what they must do. It is a book which hopefully will be widely read by those within and outside the architectural profession, and lead to better places for us all to inhabit."

– Peter Wilson, Retired City of London Banker

"[The] book is very engaging – a real fund of ideas and knowledge expressed in [a] non-conformist way."

– Professor Derek Clements-Croome, University of Reading

Read the Advance Information sheet for Thoughts on Architecture, Myths and Management here.

Watch Thomas' interview with Atelier-V discussing his new book here.

Listen to Thomas' interiew with Atelier-V discussing his new book here.