High-tech pioneer Nicholas Grimshaw dies aged 85
Grimshaw founder Nicholas Grimshaw, who designed the Eden Project and the International Terminal at Waterloo Station, has passed away at the age of 85.
Grimshaw, whose death was announced by the eponymous studio he founded earlier today, was one of the UK's best-known and highly respected architects.
The winner of the RIBA Gold Medal in 2019, he was one of the early pioneers of the high-tech movement, alongside Norman Foster, Nicholas and Patty Hopkins, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.
His studio has designed numerous well-known and influential buildings, 10 of which he highlighted in 2019 when he stepped down from the studio as chairman.
"From the very first day I arrived at the practice in 1986, I felt the warmth and generosity of Nick's leadership," said Grimshaw chairman Andrew Whalley, announcing the founder's death.
"The lack of hierarchy in the studio, shaped by his amiable and open personality, was its true strength. It created a collegiate spirit, a place where people genuinely enjoyed working together, supporting one another, and finding the tenacity to deliver some of the most complex buildings," he continued.
"His architecture was never about surface or fashion, but always about structure, craft, and purpose – about creating buildings that endure because they are both useful and uplifting and, in Nick's words, 'bring some kind of joy'."
Grimshaw dropped out of college at the age of 17, before studying at the Edinburgh College of Art and then heading to the Architectural Association in London, where he graduated in 1965.
He spent his first 15 years of practice in a partnership with another celebrated British architect, Terry Farrell, before establishing his own studio in 1980.
The architect's early projects, designed in collaboration with Farrell under the name Farrell Grimshaw Partnership, include the customisable Park Road Apartments housing and the flexible Herman Miller Factory, which was renovated by the studio in 2019.
Following the founding of his own studio, he continued to design buildings in the high-tech style, including the notable Financial Times Printworks and the Sainsbury's supermarket in Camden, both completed in 1988.
These were followed by the commission for the International Terminal at Waterloo Station.
The extremely high-profile building would go on to be named the RIBA Building of the Year award – the predecessor to the Stirling Prize in 1994 – and win the European Prize for Architecture, better known as the Mies van der Rohe Award.
This building was then eclipsed by the Eden Project – an ecological park that was built in a quarry in Cornwall, which is probably Grimshaw's best-known project.
Grimshaw was knighted for services to architecture in 2002 before winning a "well overdue" RIBA Gold Medal in 2019.
"My life, and that of the practice, has always been involved in experiment and in ideas, particularly around sustainability; I have always felt we should use the technology of the age we live in for the improvement of mankind," the British architect said at the time.
"I would like to thank everyone who has ever worked in the office for contributing to our bank of ideas, and for helping to make it an enjoyable and humanistic place."
After leaving the studio he founded, Grimshaw established the Grimshaw Foundation in 2022.
Since it was founded, the foundation has supported over 500 underrepresented young people to develop practical skills with the aim of seeing creative careers as a reality.
The main image is courtesy of Grimshaw.
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