Architects who Passed in 2025 and their Quest to Make Architecture Fun Again
Grimshaw | Farrell | Stern | Gehry
For much of the 20th century, modernist architecture ruled the roost. You can easily recognise the style - boxy buildings with blank facades, heavy with concrete and glass but light on decorative features. You’ll recognise the maxims too: “form follows function” (Louis Sullivan), “machine for living” (Le Corbusier), “less is more” (Mies van der Rohe). More than a style, modernism is a philosophy that seeks to improve people’s lives through conscious design powered by advances in technology. It is an optimistic vision that resonated especially after the second world war, when modernist buildings were built everywhere from utilitarian housing estates in Britain to the soaring skyscrapers of mid-town New York. However, the world eventually moved on from modernism, especially for residential buildings, as people decided that boxy concrete buildings aren’t actually that nice to live in. Modernist houses are also, whisper it, rather dull. So what happened to architecture after modernism? The works of five post-modernist architects who died in 2025 can perhaps tell the story.
Contrary to popular belief (and to concrete haters), modernism never died, but has simply evolved. Adoption of new technology is part of the core principles of modernism, a message taken to heart by a new generation of architects such as Nicholas Grimshaw (who died age 85 this year), Richard Rogers and Norman Foster. They pioneered the hi-tech movement, which elevated the function-driven approach of modernism to new, elegant heights with buildings such as Grimshaw’s Eden Project in Cornwall (2001) and the Eurostar Terminal at the Waterloo station in London (1994). Both buildings have their metal support structures on proud display, encased by cladding in plastic (for the former) and glass (for the latter). Both buildings are striking in their appearance, imposing even, but also manage to achieve a strong human connection with their airy, almost organic designs, a sentiment sorely lacking in modernist buildings.
The same hi-tech approach is epitomised by the famously inside-out buildings such as the Lloyds Building by Rogers (1986) and the HSBC Building by Foster (1985).
Terry Farrell died age 87 a few weeks after the death of Grimshaw. The two were collaborators for 15 years and both were key proponents of the hi-tech movement. Farrell was, however, more of a non-conformist. Since he started his own practice in 1980 he became a leading light of post-modernism. Born as a free-spirited reaction to the austere rigidity of modernism, post modernism is a quest to make architecture fun again. Classical features such as columns and rotundas are welcome, especially if they are incorporated incongruously; and as for decorative features - the more the merrier. Farrell’s TV-am Studio in Camden Town, London (1981, since reconstructed) retained elements of the hi-tech style such as the metal arch that loomed over the entrance and the utilitarian sheet cladding of the front facade, but the rest of the building was a riot of post-modern features. The street-facing facade had metal strips in sunrise colours with “TV-am” spelt-out in giant aluminium blocks, whilst the canal-facing rear had a sawtooth-shaped facade topped by 11 outsized egg cups, which cleverly referenced breakfast as well as the use of urns as decorative features in classic English country houses. It was an exuberant design that really put the fun into functional. Farrell’s most famous project was perhaps the SIS Building in London (1994), known the world over, especially by James Bond fans, as the MI6 headquarters (until it was blown up by a baddie in Spectre). Often likened to a Mayan temple, the building is a contemporary glass and stone fortress with cascading terraces and rotundas. The frivolous features of the TV-am building have been replaced by a mature attitude but the building nevertheless retains a humorous, otherworldly edge. It remains one of the best loved buildings in London and still inspires awe and excitement.
Like Farrell, Robert AM Stern, who died age 86, was also a pioneer of the post-modern style. His early works, especially the buildings he designed for Disney, combined whimsical features with historical references in a style that suited the House of Mouse perfectly. However, Stern’s works were mostly on the classical end of the post-modern spectrum. His most successful project was 15 Central Park West (2008), an elegant skyscraper in the neo-classical style. The building was a huge financial success with its apartments selling for more than USD 1 billion at the time of its completion. I once spent a few years working in a building designed by Stern - a historic silver factory with a grand classical facade to which Stern added a modern extension at the rear, complete with slanting glass walls and art-deco inspired details. Business in front, party at the back, as they say; and further testament to the elastic nature of post-modernism.
In the hands of Frank Gehry, who died age 96, post-modernism took on a decidedly abstract twist. Gone are the nods to historical styles à la Robert AM Stern, and the fun and frolics of post-modern masters such as Terry Farrell are also missing. A veritable starchitect, Gehry’s best known works include the Guggenheim Bilbao (1997), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003) and the Fondation Louis Vuitton (2014). Often likened to balls of crumpled paper, they are icons of the deconstructivist movement. The liberal use of swooping metal cladding carry hints of the hi-tech style made famous by Grimshaw, Rogers and Foster, but these buildings were in truth conceived as free-form sculptures, their style liberated from dogma and their improbable forms made possible by advances in building technology. As befits a movement that is defined by what it isn’t, this latest iteration of post-modernism appears to suggest that anything goes, as long as it is not modernism. We should enjoy this profusion of design styles whilst it lasts, until the inevitable rise of a groundbreaking new philosophy will no doubt one day dominate design discourse, much like modernism had.
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What an absolutely fascinating blog.
And nice to offer a tribute to one between the greatest: Frank Gehry who recently left this planet to ... go back to his ideal home 💫❣️