Alexander Potter worked as an architect in Britain from the 1940s onward. He was Professor of Architecture at Queen’s University, Belfast for a number of years and in 1975 was made Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University. During the 1940s and 1950s he collaborated with his wife, Margaret Potter, in writing and illustrating a number of educational books on architecture, some of which were published in the Penguin Puffin Picture Books series.