Dr Sean Kinnear is an architect, historian, and writer with a research focus on bunkers and Scotland’s Cold War history. After being awarded an AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership in 2018 Sean studied his PhD at The Glasgow School of Art, where he investigated the remnant Cold War nuclear bunkers within Scotland to decipher their origins, evolution and connections with formal architectural discourse. In 2020 his fieldwork was supported by a Paul Mellon Centre Research Support Grant awarded to visit key case study bunkers in England. His unpublished thesis ‘Out of the Shadows: How secret nuclear bunkers between 1950 and 1970 surreptitiously influenced Scotland’s Post-War architecture’ was completed in 2022.

Growing up in the East Neuk of Fife in Scotland, his deep interest for history and the built environment developed from a young age, eventually leading him to a Master’s degree in architecture at Dundee University. Graduating in 2013, his final-year thesis project ‘KAZAM! An architectural account detailing the developments in mass production borne out of ubiquitous ‘black and white space’ in Cold-War design‘, earned him the award of ‘best final year student’ from the Dundee Institute of Architects. After completing his training to become a fully qualified architect, he maintained his research interest in Cold War bunkers through a freelance capacity. His writing has since featured in architecture and design magazines, including the RIBA Journal, ICON and Urban Realm.

Sean’s on-going interest with translating research into Television outputs was furthered after being selected for the Edinburgh TV Festival PhD talent scheme in 2019. His specialist architectural knowledge on Cold War bunkers has also provided historical consultancy and location scouting for various TV documentaries and factual dramas.  

Sean is currently based at Scotland’s Secret Bunker where he is conducting sustained fieldwork exploration of the Cold War site alongside empirical observations into how the bunker operates as a successful museum.