{"id":158738,"date":"2025-09-15T15:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/158738\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T15:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:45:10","slug":"high-tech-pioneer-nicholas-grimshaw-dies-aged-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/158738\/","title":{"rendered":"High-tech pioneer Nicholas Grimshaw dies aged 85"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breaking news: Grimshaw<\/a> founder Nicholas Grimshaw<\/a>, who designed the Eden Project<\/a> and the International Terminal at Waterloo Station<\/a>, has passed away at the age of\u00a085.<\/p>\n

Grimshaw, whose death was announced by the eponymous studio he founded earlier today, was one of the UK’s best-known and highly respected architects.<\/p>\n

The winner of the RIBA Gold Medal in 2019<\/a>, he was one of the early pioneers of the high-tech movement, alongside Norman Foster, Nicholas and Patty Hopkins, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.<\/p>\n

His studio has designed numerous well-known and influential buildings, 10 of which he highlighted in 2019 when he stepped down from the studio as chairman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"NicholasThe Eden Project is one of Nicholas Grimshaw’s most significant projects<\/p>\n

“From the very first day I arrived at the practice in 1986, I felt the warmth and generosity of Nick’s leadership,” said Grimshaw chairman Andrew Whalley, announcing the founder’s death.<\/p>\n

“The lack of hierarchy in the studio, shaped by his amiable and open personality, was its true strength. It created a collegiate spirit, a place where people genuinely enjoyed working together, supporting one another, and finding the tenacity to deliver some of the most complex buildings,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“His architecture was never about surface or fashion, but always about structure, craft, and purpose \u2013 about creating buildings that endure because they are both useful and uplifting and, in Nick’s words, ‘bring some kind of joy’.”<\/p>\n

\"ParkGrimshaw designed the Park Road Apartments block with Terry Farrell. Photo is by Tessa Traeger<\/p>\n

Grimshaw dropped out of college at the age of 17, before studying at the Edinburgh College of Art and then heading to the Architectural Association<\/a> in London, where he graduated in 1965.<\/p>\n

He spent his first 15 years of practice in a partnership with another celebrated British architect, Terry Farrell<\/a>, before establishing his own studio in 1980.<\/p>\n

The architect’s early projects, designed in collaboration with Farrell under the name Farrell Grimshaw Partnership, include the customisable Park Road Apartments<\/a>\u00a0housing and the flexible Herman Miller Factory<\/a>, which was renovated by the studio in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"WaterlooThe International Terminal at Waterloo Station was named Building of the Year by RIBA. Photo by Jo Reid and John Peck<\/p>\n

Following the founding of his own studio, he continued to design buildings in the high-tech style, including the notable Financial Times Printworks and the Sainsbury’s supermarket in Camden<\/a>, both completed in 1988.<\/p>\n

These were followed by the commission for the International Terminal at Waterloo Station.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"High-tech<\/p>\n

Nicholas Grimshaw maintained his high-tech ideals for 50 years\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The extremely high-profile building would go on to be named the\u00a0RIBA Building of the Year award \u2013 the predecessor to the Stirling Prize<\/a> in 1994 \u2013 and win the European Prize for Architecture, better known as the Mies van der Rohe Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This building was then eclipsed by the Eden Project \u2013 an ecological park that was built in a quarry in Cornwall, which is probably Grimshaw’s best-known project.<\/p>\n

\"High-techThe Financial Times Printworks is one of the architect’s key high-tech projects. Photo is by Jo Reid and John Peck<\/p>\n

Grimshaw was knighted for services to architecture in 2002 before winning a “well overdue” RIBA Gold Medal in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“My life, and that of the practice, has always been involved in experiment and in ideas, particularly around sustainability; I have always felt we should use the technology of the age we live in for the improvement of mankind,” the British architect said at the time.<\/p>\n

“I would like to thank everyone who has ever worked in the office for contributing to our bank of ideas, and for helping to make it an enjoyable and humanistic place.”<\/p>\n

\"High-techGrimshaw designed the Herman Miller Factory in the 1970s before renovating the building in 2019. Photo is by Jo Reid and John Peck<\/p>\n

After leaving the studio he founded, Grimshaw established the Grimshaw Foundation in 2022.<\/p>\n

Since it was founded, the foundation has supported over 500 underrepresented young people to develop practical skills with the aim of seeing creative careers as a reality.<\/p>\n

The main image is courtesy of Grimshaw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breaking news: Grimshaw founder Nicholas Grimshaw, who designed the Eden Project and the International Terminal at Waterloo Station,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,96781,96782,10756,64879,64880,64881],"class_list":{"0":"post-158738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-grimshaw-architects","14":"tag-nicholas-grimshaw","15":"tag-obituaries","16":"tag-sectionall","17":"tag-sectionarchitecture","18":"tag-sectionnews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}