James Stirling (architect)
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If Frank Lloyd Wright was the most important architect of the first half of the twentieth century, Sir James Frazer Stirling (22 April 1926 in Glasgow – 25 June 1992 in London) was surely the most important and influential architect of the second half, admired by all the other architects of the time and now, in the XXI century, by a new generation. He is perhaps best known for his questioning and subverting of the compositional precepts of the first Modern Movement, and his development of an agitated, mannered reinterpretation of those precepts, into which - much influenced by his friend and teacher, the important architectural theorist and urbanist Colin Rowe - he introduced an eclectic spirit that allowed him to make allusions to the whole sweep of architectural history, from ancient Rome and the Baroque, to the many manifestations of the modern period, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Alvar Aalto. His secret lay in his ability to incorporate these encyclopedaic references subtly, within a strong and muscular, very decisive architecture of strong, confident gestures that aimed to remake urban form.
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[edit] Life
After wartime service, Stirling studied architecture from 1945 until 1950 at the University of Liverpool. In 1956 he and James Gowan left the firm of Lyons, Israel, and Ellis to set up in practice as Stirling and Gowan. The best-known result of this collaboration is the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Leicester (1959-63), noted for its technological and geometric character, marked by the isometry from a bird's eye perspective, which was frequently used by Stirling. From 1963 he managed the firm alone.
In 1971, Michael Wilford, who had worked in the firm since 1960, became a partner and remained so until Stirling's death, though he had little influence on the design activity of the practice, which remained very much under the control of Stirling, assisted by hand-picked helpers. During the 1970s, the architectural signature of Stirling began to change as the scale of his projects (perhaps under the efficient managerial influence of Wilford) moved from small and not very profitable to very large, as Stirling's architecture became more overtly neoclassical, though it remained deeply imbued with his powerful revised modernism. This produced a wave of dramatically spare, large-scale urban projects, most notably three important museum projects in Germany (for Duesseldorf, Cologne, and Stuttgart). These projects of the 1970s show him at the zenith of his mature style. Winning the competition for the Stuttgart project - the Neue Staatsgalerie- he loaded its powerful basic concept with a large number of architectural amusements and decorative allusions, which led many to mistakenly see it as an example of postmodernism - a label which then stuck, but which he himself rejected. In 1981, he was awarded the renowned Pritzker Prize.
The last building completed while he was still alive was the bookshop in the gardens of the Venice Biennale (completed 1991). This was designed by Stirling and Thomas Muirhead, who pushed him towards a sparer, less overblown and more selfconsciously modernist approach. The Venice Bookshop was greeted by critic Kenneth Frampton and others as the beginning of a new, and potentially very important departure in Stirling's work - had he not sudddenly died, due to an unfortunate botched minor hospital operation. Just before this incident he was granted a knighthood (1992) which as a rebellious spirit, he accepted with some reluctance on the grounds that "it might be good for the office".
After the death of Stirling in 1992, Wilford took over and gradually wound the firm down whilst completing the work that remained in the pipeline and had been left by Stirling at various stages of development. Various buildings completed thereafter and often carelessly attributed to Stirling, such the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, 1993-1994, or No 1 Poultry in London, were in fact completed and built by Wilford and his assistants. The practice no longer exists, and the complete office archive was sold to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal. The Stirling Prize, a British annual prize for architecture since 1996, was named after him.
The cultural depth and richness of Stirling's work attracted the attention of all the major world critics and theoreticians, from Peter Eisenman to Charles Jencks, and the literature examining his architecture, published in every country of the world, is vast. For those seriously interested, the best starting point for further study is the two published books of his complete works, which he oversaw himself, aided by trusted friends and collaborators. These two books chronologically cover every project and emphasise the visual, with thousands of very carefully reproduced photographs, drawings, and models.
[edit] Bibliography
- James Stirling: Buildings and Projects 1950-1974 (1975) Verlag Gerd Hatje (edited and designed by Léon Krier)
- James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates: Buildings and Projects 1975-1992 (1994) Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart/Thames and Hudson, London (edited and designed by Thomas Muirhead)
[edit] Selected projects
- 1988 London: Canary Wharf residential development
- 1989 Paris: Bibliothèque de France
- 1989 Tokyo International Forum
- 1991 Kyoto Centre, Japan
[edit] External links
- Pritzker Prize website - James Stirling: http://www.pritzkerprize.com/stirling.htm
| Pritzker Prize Laureates | |
|---|---|
| Johnson (1979) • Barragán (1980) • Stirling (1981) • Roche (1982) • Pei (1983) • Meier (1984) • Hollein (1985) • Böhm (1986) • Tange (1987) • Bunshaft/Niemeyer (1988) • Gehry (1989) • Rossi (1990) • Venturi (1991) • Siza (1992) • Maki (1993) • Portzamparc (1994) • Ando (1995) • Moneo (1996) • Fehn (1997) • Piano (1998) • Foster (1999) • Koolhaas (2000) • Herzog & de Meuron (2001) • Murcutt (2002) • Utzon (2003) • Hadid (2004) • Mayne (2005) • Mendes da Rocha (2006) • Rogers (2007) |
