who's pink? pink floyd drummer awarded honorary architecture degree

Mason, Barrett, Gilmour (seated), Waters and Wright

British rock band Pink Floyd famously opined, “We don’t need no education,” and maybe they were right. The band was founded by a group of architecture students—Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright—at the Regent Street Polytechnic, now the University of Westminster, which served as the band’s first rehearsal space and performance venue in the early 1960s. As the band gained popularity, the architecture students left school to focus on their music.

Fifty years later, Westminster has brought the boys back home, awarding drummer Nick Mason an Honorary Doctor of Letters for his contributions to music, officially completing his architecture degree. Head of Music and Interim Dean of the School of Media, Arts, and Design Alan Fisher noted that Mason “helped found Pink Floyd, a band which is internationally renowned for innovation, both musically and in terms of stage design and production, aspects of which were undoubtedly influenced by the band members’ architectural education at the University.”

Mason said of the honor, “Not only did studying architecture teach us some useful stuff, but it also gave us an opportunity to develop and put us in touch with some fantastic mentors and industry contacts that have helped us along the way.” All in all, we’re just bricks in the wall.