Peter Murray reflects on the life and influence of this key figure of the Hi Tech movement and founder of the global practice that bears his name.

 

The elegant curvilinear roof of Istanbul airport stretches into the distance, the umbrella roof structures draw on the architectural character of the city but the high tech heritage of Grimshaw, the lead architects on the project, still peaks through. As I await a flight connection in what is now one of the world’s largest airports, I have time to ponder on the life and influence of the firm’s founder.

I arrived at the Architectural Association three years after Nick had left, but his final year thesis was still talked about in hushed tones and jobs in the small office of Farrell and Grimshaw, just round the corner in Windmill Street were much sought after by students. The firm had won a job, via Nick’s uncle, to refurbish a student hostel in a Regency terrace in Sussex Gardens. On the face of it not the most exciting of projects, that is, until you went round the back. There, set against the brick facade, was a glass-panelled circular tower into which was plugged a spiral of plastic, prefabricated bathroom pods. To us students it was radical. It was first proper English High Tech building. Team Four’s Reliance Factory, to be canonised by later commentators as the start of that movement, seemed very staid by comparison. This had a bit of Maison de Verre, a bit of Buckminster Fuller, the furniture owed much to Eames and the pods were pure Archigram - except Peter Cook and co were only drawing their pods, not building them. The only person doing this sort of stuff was Kikutake in Japan. 

I was then editing Clip Kit magazine with fellow AA student Geoffrey Smyth and Nick and Terry gave us the exclusive to be first to publish the bathroom tower.

The next iconic project was the Park Road flats at Regents Park, a crinkly tin tower with clear floors like an office allowing partition walls to be moved around, changing the layout and size of each flat. It was a functional and flexible way of designing living space which I thought would herald a change in domestic design, but alas has been rarely copied. At that time it was possible as an architect to set up a housing association and be your own client. That  was how Park Road was delivered. The partners had a penthouse each and the completion party at the top of the building was a great celebration of this burgeoning practice.

But in 1980 it split up.  Terry’s attraction to post modernism sat uncomfortably with the high tech architecture on which the practice had built its name. There was an acrimonious bust up.

Nick forged ahead with a series of innovative office and factory buildings for Rotork and Herman Miller with panelised, flexible facades. They heralded a new way of delivering sheds where design quality mattered. Then came the Waterloo Terminal, its iconic, multi-faceted glass,  designed with engineer Tony Hunt, led to a growing volume of infrastructure projects around the world. 

 

As the practice grew it delivered a successful transition from partnership to corporate structure at a time when architects’ experience in succession planning was very limited. Nick was good at that sort of thing. As President of the Royal Academy in 2004, he helped sort out it’s financial troubles, governance, staff disputes, and resistance to modernization. He liked a hands-on approach. When conventional contractors couldn’t deliver the Sussex Gardens bathroom tower he became the project manager, an experience which shaped the way the practice worked in the early days. 

 

He was a key figure of English - and global - architecture in the late 20th and early 21st century and leaves an enduring legacy. Much has changed in the practice since the preeminence of high tech, but that combination of engineering, materials and structural clarity remain constant. The bathroom tower, much to Nick’s disappointment, has been demolished, but London will thank him and his practice for its work on the Elizabeth Line for many years to come.