Our Principal

 

Born in Marseille, brought up in Paris and educated in the United Kingdom, Alexander commenced his career in London in the early seventies working for architectural practices on large projects including the first Marks and Spencers stores in Paris and Lyon and commercial and residential projects in Paris.

He then ran his own design and construction companies and workshops in Central London before moving to Kent and a career change to building surveying with a leading international practice of Chartered Surveyors in the City of London.  He combined his intervening three year RICS qualifying university degree sabbatical with private practice working mainly on listed buildings prior to his return to employment and a rapid rise to senior management positions with leading national practices of Chartered Surveyors and Chartered Building Surveyors in South London and the West End.

He developed his reputation for conservation work further through his involvement with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and with building preservation trusts in Kent and East Sussex.  His qualifying RICS thesis in 1984 concerned the removal of asbestos in and the analysis, repair and refurbishment of a large rural property figuring originally in William the Conqueror's 1066 Domesday Survey and comprising six further periods and styles of construction built during subsequent centuries.  Alexander finally became a Chartered Building Surveyor in 1985.

He established his own practice, Cunynghame & Co. Chartered Building Surveyors, in East Sussex late in 1986.  The practice worked on a wide variety of residential, commercial and conservation projects in the United Kingdom and, increasingly, in France.  A branch office was established near Nîmes in the South of France in 1989.  The practice closed in 1994 when Alexander moved to live permanently close to his parents and relatives in and around Marseille.

After a sabbatical for conservation studies at university in Aix-en-Provence, he set up in practice once again and also worked for over five years as the regional representative for a British Tour Operator dealing with a portfolio of over 100 residential properties for holiday rentals in Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon.

He merged his practice, Interface, with a French surveying practice, CEJET Conseils sarl, in the Luberon late in 1998 to create their Building Surveying department.  He moved to Robion in 1999 to create another branch office for that practice.  The individual and professional interests of the directors of CEJET Conseils sarl led them to take the decision to close their practice end 2001.

Alexander established Provence Surveying Interface sarl at that time in response to requests from clients he had brought to CEJET Conseils sarl that he should continue to look after their existing and future projects.