Sir Terry Farrell, the \u201cnonconformist\u201d architect and planner, whose bold designs defined the \u201chi-tech\u201d era and included the MI6 headquarters in London, has died aged 87.<\/p>\n
The architect\u2019s studio in London confirmed the death in an Instagram post<\/a>, writing: \u201cIt is with deep sadness that, on behalf of his family, the partners and practice of Farrells acknowledge the death of our founder, Sir Terry Farrell.\u201d<\/p>\n Farrell was, along with Nicholas Grimshaw<\/a>, one of the key minds behind the \u201chi-tech\u201d movement of the 1980s and 90s, creating futuristic buildings, including one of his best known, the TV-am studios in Camden, London.<\/p>\n Farrell\u2019s Embankment Place, above Charing Cross station in London. Photograph: Heritage Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Grimshaw, who died earlier this month<\/a>, was a longtime collaborator with Farrell, with the pair creating the Herman Miller Factory in Bath and the 125 Park Road residential building in London \u2013 both considered emblematic of their style and approach.<\/p>\n Farrell was born in Sale, Cheshire, in 1938. His family moved to Newcastle and he grew up on what he described as \u201cthe edge of the edge\u201d of the city, \u201con a building site next to the fields\u201d, in a council estate called the Grange.<\/p>\n He stayed in the city, graduating with a degree in architecture from the Newcastle University School in 1961, before crossing the Atlantic to attend the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he obtained a master\u2019s degree in urban planning.<\/p>\n Farrell would come back to the UK, working briefly with the architects department of the Greater London Council, by which he was unimpressed. He told the Observer: \u201cIt was astonishing, leaderless and rudderless; people just invented their own solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Deep aquarium in Hull. Photograph: Vincent Lowe\/Alamy<\/p>\n It was away from the public sector that Farrell would flourish.<\/p>\n In 1965 he moved to London, forming a partnership with Grimshaw. Dubbed the Farrell\/Grimshaw Partnership, they also shared a studio with experimental British architecture collective Archigram.<\/p>\n Grimshaw would go on to design the Eden Project in Cornwall, while Farrell was often described as the \u201cless assertive\u201d of the pair. \u201cFor 15 years I tagged along in Nick\u2019s wake,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n Despite his modesty, Farrell\u2019s buildings were often bold and loud.<\/p>\n The MI6 headquarters in Vauxhall, which opened in 1994, is perhaps Farrell\u2019s best-known building. Once described by the architecture critic Rowan Moore as a \u201cflesh-coloured ziggurat\u201d<\/a> of a building, it was typical of \u201cthe big, imposing buildings for powerful institutions\u201d that Farrell specialised in.<\/p>\n Other Farrell buildings include Embankment Place and the Home Office headquarters in London as well as the Deep in Hull, and Alban Gate<\/a> \u2013 the \u201cshoulder-padded office block\u201d that defined the \u201cbig bang architecture\u201d in the City of London.<\/p>\n Farrell pictured in 2023. Photograph: Sophia Evans\/The Observer<\/p>\n He also worked in east Asia, designing Beijing railway station and Guangzhou South railway station in China. He also created the 442-metre KK100 tower in Shenzhen<\/a> \u2013 the world\u2019s tallest building by a British architect.<\/p>\n \u201cTerry was frequently called a maverick and a nonconformist, which he relished,\u201d his studio continued in its social media post. \u201cHe was an architect who was never quite part of the \u2018club\u2019. He will be remembered as the UK\u2019s leading architect planner whose enduring commitment to urbanism has helped shape government policy on key built-environment issues.\u201d<\/p>\n