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Will Alsop Source:Anthony Coleman
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Avant-garde architect, artist and academic Will Alsop, who won the 2000 Stirling Prize Revealed: TfL’s sudden change of tune over Garden Bridge construction with Peckham Library, has died aged 70 after a short illness contract
MORE FROM: ‘MISCHIEVOUS’ ARCHITECT AND ARTIST WILL ALSOP DIES AGED 70 RIBA names 61 London regional award winners with two ‘best buildings’ Often controversial, Alsop is known almost as much for his unrealised schemes and ‘mischievous’
opinions as his built work and paintings. RIBA slams Hackitt’s post-Grenfell review as ‘major missed opportunity’ Among his more contentious proposals were a 2002 masterplan for Barnsley, based on a Tuscan hill town, and abandoned plans for a Cloud-like zoomorphic structure on Liverpool’s waterfront, dubbed the Fourth Grace (2004). An ambitious vision to ood central Bradford was only partially implemented. First cohort of Public Practice architects teams up with council planners However during his career, which effectively began when he left school at just 16 to work for an architect, he helped design and deliver many distinctive and bold buildings. These ranged from his early High-Tech AJ100 Employer of the Year shortlist projects such as the Hamburg Ferry Terminal (1993) and Le Grand Bleu in Marseille (1994) to the announced multicoloured Ontario College of Art & Design (2004) with Alsop’s trademark stilts.
Other notable schemes included the 2005 Stirling Prize-nominated Fawood Children’s Centre, his troubled New practice Assorted Skills + Talents*: ‘The profession is at a The Public scheme in West Bromwich, the Chips housing scheme for Urban Splash, and stations around turning point’ the globe such as the Stratford DLR (2007), North Greenwich and a number of recent completions in Toronto. Diller Scofidio + Renfro wins £25m V&A collections centre Born in Northampton in 1947, Alsop was taught by artist Henry Bird at Northampton Art School before studying at the AA. Foster + Partners reveals first images of new Indian state capital He worked for a short time for Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew before spending four years with Cedric Price. In 1981 he set up Alsop & Lyall with AA classmate John Lyall and the pair were later joined by Jan Störmer. Following Lyall’s departure in 1991, the practice was renamed Alsop & Störmer.
Alsop and Störmer split the rm into separate practices in 2000 with Alsop forming Alsop Architects. RELATED JOBS
He was made a Royal Academician the same year, and over the next 18 years his practice went through Exceptional Part II / Newly quali ed various iterations – he sold the Alsop brand to the SMC Group (the architectural conglomerate later Architect for Stirling Prize Shortlisted renamed Archial) in 2006. Studio £27,000 - £34,000 p.a. + Bens
His out t operated under the Alsop Sparch banner, but Alsop left in 2009 saying that he was retiring from Career de ning opportunity –Architect architecture to focus on painting. with First Class Degree for Stirling Prize studio However, he later admitted that this was a smokescreen to divert public attention away from a top-secret £35,000 - £45,000 p.a. + Bens. deal to move to commercial giant RMJM. Stirling Prize Shortlisted Studio seeks In 2011 he broke away from RMJM to set up a new one-stop-shop design studio with Scott Lawrie in Senior Architect for Fixed Term Contract Battersea under the banner aLL Design. Lawrie left in 2013. £24/hr - £28/hr
Fixed term contract – Senior Project Architect for Stirling Prize shortlisted studio £45,000 - £55,000 p.a
Project Supervisor/Architect for Stirling prize shortlisted Studio £45,000 - £60,000 p.a. + Bens.
Project Manager for World Class, Stirling Prize Shortlisted Design Studio, London £55,000 - £65,000 p.a. + Bens.
AdamNathanielFurman @Furmadamadam
So incredibly sad to hear of Will Alsop’s passing, one of our great creative spirits. It has recently been fashionable to ridicule his work, I hope there can be pause from the easy snarking now to reflect on a career that very much enriched our architectural culture. 8:34 PM - May 13, 2018 273 103 people are talking about this
Marcos Rosello, director and co-founder of aLL Design said: ‘It is with great sadness that I must inform you that on Saturday, Will passed away after a short illness. On behalf of the studio, we send our condolences to Sheila, Will’s wife, and to his three children, Ollie, Piers and Nancy. Our thoughts are with them.
He added: ‘Will has inspired generations and impacted many lives through his work. It is a comfort to know that due to the nature of Will’s work and character, he will continue to inspire and bring great joy. He had an exceptional ability to recognise particular strengths in individuals which he would draw out and nurture. His design ethos, essentially to “make life better”, is evident in the architecture of his buildings and their surrounding communities.
‘We will miss him greatly.’
View images and drawings of Will Alsop’s work in the AJ Buildings Library
Tributes
Former AJ editor Isabel Allen
Will was the rst columnist I appointed when I took over as editor of the AJ. It was a controversial choice. The magazine – and the most vocal of its readers – had a taste for understated Modernism: Stanton Williams; Allies and Morrison; Sergison Bates. Will – just like his buildings – was deemed too populist, too mischievous and to be having too much fun. In time-honoured fashion, those who disapproved the most became his most avid readers, trans xed by the combination of big ideas and bonhomie – and by his international lifestyle.
Will was deemed too populist, too mischievous and to be having too much fun
His columns would invariably be drafted on a long-distance ight to another extraordinary project in some far- ung corner of the globe. Some were written by hand on a napkin and given to an unsuspecting secretary to decipher and write up. It was up to me to work out which parts of the column had been scrambled in translation and what might have been left out. I didn’t always get it right, but he never seemed to mind. I’d get a cheery message: ‘Thank you for my column. You made a very interesting point.’
Carnegie Pavilion, Headingley Carnegie Stadium, Leeds, by Alsop Sparch
Jeremy Till, head of Central Saint Martins, pro vice-chancellor research, University of the Arts London
What a loss! Personally, he was always very generous to me, supportive and curious. As an architect, the way he brought his originality into the mainstream eye gave many others the licence to play with and question the orthodox Modernist canon. He should be recognised as someone who shifted the sands through his painting, writing, teaching and designs.
Rob Gregory RIBA @_articulate
@walsop You will be greatly missed. A generous & unique architect & advocate of buildings that promote abundant life. I didn’t know you very well, but remain proud of your summation of my work in the @ArchitectsJrnal’s 40Under40 in 2005. Rest in peace! architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/i-wa… 9:33 PM - May 13, 2018
‘I want passengers to feel a little bit of joy’: Will Alsop’s aLL D… Sculptural concrete, vibrant colour and art installations all feature in the new Pioneer Village and Finch West stations in Toronto architectsjournal.co.uk
2 See Rob Gregory RIBA's other Tweets
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3 JANUARY, 2018 ROB WILSON Sculptural concrete, vibrant colour and art installations all feature in the new Pioneer Village and Finch West stations in Toronto
Alsop submits plans for largest UK scheme to date
15 DECEMBER, 2016 RICHARD WAITE Will Alsop’s practice aLL Design has submitted plans for a 69,471m² three-tower development in Brentford, west London, the architect’s largest scheme in the UK so far
Will Alsop’s nerve cell ‘pod’ gets go- ahead
1 DECEMBER, 2016 ELLA BRAIDWOOD Tower Hamlets Council has approved plans for a 10m-high education pod resembling a giant neuron, designed by Will Alsop’s practice aLL Design
Will Alsop withdraws planning application for Newport Street scheme
26 OCTOBER, 2016 KATE YOUDE aLL Design has pulled its application for a tower next to Caruso St John’s Newport Street Gallery
Alsop's neighbour for Stirling Prize winner set for refusal
6 OCTOBER, 2016 MERLIN FULCHER Planners have recommended turning down Will Alsop’s proposed £6.6 million tower next door to Caruso St John’s Stirling Prize- winning Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall
Alsop lashes out at plan to demolish Peckham arch
9 AUGUST, 2016 ELLA BRAIDWOOD Will Alsop has slammed Carl Turner Architects’ proposal to demolish the arch at the entrance to Peckham Square, south-east London
‘Dull as ditchwater’ – Cook, Alsop and Ritchie slam Olympicopolis design
3 AUGUST, 2016 ELLA BRAIDWOOD Allies and Morrison defends its architecture as leading architects Peter Cook, Will Alsop and Ian Ritchie blast the practice’s Olympicopolis masterplan
Will Alsop wins top prize at Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
22 JUNE, 2016 RICHARD WAITE A model of a proposed Cor-ten clad tower by Will Alsop has won the £10,000 rst prize in the architecture room at this year’s Royal Academy summer exhibition
Readers' comments (3)
CHRIS ROCHE 14 MAY, 2018 9:43 AM
Will Alsop epitomised the art of the possible if not the architecture of the improbable. His legacy is not the limited number of projects completed in his name and in his lifetime but the unlimited number of projects he inspired both nationally and internationally - both in the recent past, and into the future. Every generation provides a small number of truly great architects, and Will Alsop will be remembered by many as one of the greatest of their generation.
Chris Roche / Founder 11.04
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JAY MERRICK 14 MAY, 2018 10:59 AM
No mention of Will Alsop's die-stamped bon viveurship in AJ's short report. I recall the unexpected question that Jean Nouvel asked me as I settled down to interview him after he received the Riba Gold Medal: "Do you know ow I can contact Will All-soap?" The inference was obvious: the French genius wanted a drinking buddy. Like Nouvel, Alsop was always the most engaging of lunch or dinner hosts, and in the Premier League of wine consumption. Alsop's personal conviviality and his dry humour always seemed in some way generative of his architecture. I therefore could never think of him as a radical architect because he wasn't assiduously polemical. But he was one of the few among his cohort who could only ever be a designer of visions. And some, it must be said, were highly original, functionally. Jay Merrick
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ARIF MEHMOOD 14 MAY, 2018 11:45 AM
So so very sad , indeed a character that lled a large part of our profession - was also part of RMJM for a short while - a true free spirit - like Zaha he has left a part of his character with us , his peers and no doubt the future generation - RIP
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