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The Archive is dedicated to architecture and the allied arts. However, there are many surprises within the collections, covering a great breadth of subject areas beyond architecture and design. Here are just a few examples of the more unlikely records that form part of the Collection.

• letters by Lawrence of Arabia to the architect, Sir Herbert Baker, 1920-1934, describing his life and state of mind
• letters written by William Mylne from a remote part of North America, describing his life as one of the early settlers, 1773-1775
• letter by William Mylne describing his journey through war-torn Europe in 1758 and the need to disguise his identity
• notes by Berthold Lubetkin describing his experience of the Russian Revolution (he states that at that time he was a young art student, living in the centre of Moscow)
• a German Nazi booklet, with propaganda songs [1933]
• memoirs of the First World War by Eugene Kent and of the Second World War by Peter Moro
• estate papers such as those of the Mylne family, who owned estates in Hammersmith and Amwell, Hertfordshire
• light-hearted texts such as an explanation of how to make an egg stand on its end, by Charles Holden, and several pages of jokes in the notebooks of Berthold Lubetkin.