Terry Farrell made his mark on London. All his buildings had a certain postmodernist swagger, but one of his most conspicuous (ironically, in view of its function) was the headquarters of the UK\u2019s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, on the site of the former Vauxhall pleasure gardens.<\/p>\n
Completed in 1994, MI6 showed Farrell, who has died aged 87, in his postmodern pomp, energetically juggling historicist motifs to conjure a flamboyant, flesh-coloured fortress, replete with ziggurats and crenellations, dominating its Thames-side locale. Deyan Sudjic described MI6 as \u201can epitaph for the architecture of the 80s\u201d, and its styling that which \u201ccould be interpreted equally plausibly as a Mayan temple or a piece of clanking art-deco machinery\u201d. Others were less complimentary: \u201cCeau\u0219escu Towers\u201d, pronounced one critic.<\/p>\n
Visitors to his penthouse would be greeted by giant model biplanes and ornamental pools containing koi carp<\/p>\n
Famously, in a case of art imitating life, the MI6 building featured in several James Bond films as home of the fictional 00 section, assailed by assorted villains and eventually reduced to rubble in the 2015 epic Spectre<\/a>. Farrell would have doubtless relished this cinematic conjunction of architecture and popular culture. His buildings were nothing if not scenographic, always ready for their closeup.<\/p>\n \u2018An epitaph for the architecture of the 80s\u2019 \u2026 Farrell\u2019s MI6 building. Photograph: Moussa81\/Getty Images\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n Further down the Thames there was more art deco clanking with the equally exuberant Embankment Place (1990), an office block suspended over Charing Cross train station, reminiscent of a colossal Wurlitzer organ emerging from the pit of a 1930s cinema. Augmenting the trio of London grands projets was Alban Gate (1987), which replaced an outmoded 1960s office block on London Wall with a heroically scaled tower connecting the City and the Barbican. Wrapped in horizontal bands of glass and sugar pink granite, it formed a candy-striped counterpoint to the Barbican\u2019s more effacing modernist milieu.<\/p>\n Farrell also designed the nerve centre for TV-am (1983), remodelling a former car showroom on the edge of a canal in Camden Town to house the brave new dawn of British breakfast television, topping it off with perky finials in the form of giant yellow and blue egg cups. Long after the demise of TV-am, one even turned up on the Antiques Roadshow.<\/p>\n Originally in partnership with Nicholas Grimshaw before setting up his own practice in 1980, Farrell\u2019s rise coincided with the emergence of postmodernism, catalysed by the polemics of architectural theorist Charles Jencks<\/a>. His three-year collaboration with Jencks on what was to become the Cosmic House<\/a> was pivotal. Farrell was first approached by Jencks in 1978 to remodel a Victorian townhouse in London\u2019s Holland Park and over time the project became a built manifesto and poster child for postmodernism, festooned in layers of metaphor and symbolism, both arcane and whimsical. Now Grade I listed, it was the first house from the postwar era to achieve this distinction.<\/p>\n Perky finials \u2026 Farrell\u2019s TV-am studios in London. Photograph: Richard Bryant<\/p>\n Some detractors saw Farrell\u2019s conspicuously decorative buildings as mere fripperies but, beneath his genial exterior, he was always intensely serious, striving to make architecture more communicative and uplifting, at a time when modernism seemed to have finally run its course. It proved a successful formula and by the early 90s, his practice had rapidly expanded from modest atelier to international operation, with offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai to capitalise on the architectural and economic liberalisation precipitated by China\u2019s building boom.<\/p>\n Farrell first visited Hong Kong in 1964 on a travelling scholarship and China was always close to his heart. The practice\u2019s initial foray into east Asia came as a result of winning an international competition for Hong Kong\u2019s Peak Tower in 1997. Variously likened to a wok, boat and cupped hands, the tower\u2019s crescent-shaped profile quickly became a local landmark, even featuring for a time on Hong Kong\u2019s $20 banknote. Subsequent projects in the region included the 442m-high KK100 skyscraper in Shenzhen (2012), at the time the tallest building to be designed by a British architect.<\/p>\n He was also perhaps the only architect to have a train named after him \u2013 the \u201cSir Terry Farrell\u201d, a Class 222 locomotive unit, operating on the east coast mainline between King\u2019s Cross and Hull, in recognition of Farrell designing The Deep, Hull\u2019s giant aquarium, which opened in 2002.<\/p>\n Farrell in his flat above his former aircraft factory office. Photograph: Antonio Olmos\/The Observer<\/p>\n Farrell\u2019s London office occupied a former aircraft factory just off Edgware Road, which had turned out Spitfires during the war. Its art deco styling was a curiously apt synthesis of ornament and industry, and for more than 20 years, Farrell lived above the shop in an airy and richly decorated penthouse, where visitors would be greeted by ornamental pools containing koi carp and giant model biplanes suspended from steel roof trusses.<\/p>\n Towards the end of his career, Farrell was drawn back to Newcastle, where he grew up and studied architecture. Familiar with the city\u2019s layers of history and topographic drama, he added to it with the Centre for Life and masterplans for the University and Quayside (he was also a talented urban designer). Latterly, he helped to fund the Farrell Centre<\/a>, set in Newcastle\u2019s Victorian Claremont Buildings, which were remodelled by two local practices.<\/p>\n His idea was that every city should have an \u201curban room\u201d, where people could learn more about the forces shaping architecture and urban design. The project typified Farrell\u2019s belief in the importance of connecting directly with the public. For him, architecture was not simply about the creation of monuments \u2013 though over time, he had his fair share of those \u2013 but how it was part of wider popular and social culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terry Farrell made his mark on London. 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