Staff and students from Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and Bath Spa University (BSU) gathered at the Museum of Bath Architecture for a wine reception to celebrate the 2016 GALA CGU/BSU Cultural Heritage and Arts Management Postgraduate Student Exchange. Students from Bath Spa University on the exchange returned recently from Los Angeles, where they visited heritage sites in California with students from Claremont Graduate University – who have arrived in Bath to visit heritage sites in and around the South West of the UK.

At this reception an exhibition titled ‘Planning for Peace: Redesigning Bath during the First World War’ was on display in partnership with the Bath Record Office to explore Robert Atkinson’s  proposal to redevelop the city of Bath. Described as ‘Grand in its vision and ambitious in scale’ the proposed project was first revealed in 1916, while Great Britain was in the middle of the First World War, prompting such reflection ‘would this scheme have ever been built or was it propaganda to boost morale and project the confidence that war would soon be over? Atkinson’s incredible unbuilt designs are explored in this exhibition, presenting a vision for peacetime Bath imagined during the realities of war’. More on the exchange and heritage sites visited to follow.