Shri Ram College of Architecture I 3rd Year I Semester VI I Theory of Design

I 2012-13 Shri Ram Group of Colleges

Post Modern Arch I James Stirling

Scientist
Inventor
Artist

Architect

Artist
Poet
Author
Moni bhardwaj

James Stirling
Sir James Frazer Stirling (22 April 1926 25 June 1992) was a
Scottish architect. Among critics and architects alike he is generally
acknowledged to be one of the most important and influential architects of the
second half of the 20th century.
His career began as one of a number of young architects who, from the
1950s onwards, questioned and subverted the compositional and
theoretical precepts of the first Modern Movement.
Stirling's development of an agitated, mannered reinterpretation of those
precepts much influenced by his friend and teacher, the important
architectural theorist and urbanist Colin Rowe introduced an eclectic spirit
that allowed him to plunder the whole sweep of architectural history as a
source of compositional inspiration, from ancient Rome and the Baroque, to
the many manifestations of the modern period, from Frank Lloyd Wright to
Alvar Aalto. His success lay in his ability to incorporate these encyclopaedic
references subtly, within a decisive architecture of strong, confident
gestures that aimed to remake urban form.
For these reasons, it can be said that in his time, Stirling's architecture a
rebellion against conformity. He caused annoyance in conventional circles,
who lost no opportunity to attack his work and led him to seek opportunities
outside the UK.
Stirling worked in partnership with James Gowan from 1956 to 1963, then with
Michael Wilford from 1971 until 1992i

neue
staatsgalerie
in stuttgart

Reassessment
Many architects and critics had disapproved of
Stirling's shift away from the modernist
assemblages of his early career, to explorations
of design that engaged the urban context more
directly and that appropriated elements from a
broader range of historical precedents than
the modern, engineering and vernacular
sources that typified the first works. This
seeming embrace of Post Modernism meant
that, despite the office's international array of
powerful urban assemblages that
reconceptualized architectural forms and
spaces, this work went rapidly out-of-fashion
with the architectural world's revival of
modernism. However, by 2010 a more
thoughtful assessment of Stirling's overall
career was underway, spearheaded by
Anthony Vidler's major exhibition and
catalogue, James Frazer Stirling: Notes from
the Archive.

Early life and education

Stirling was born in Glasgow. His year of birth is widely quoted as 1926 but his longstanding friend Colin
St John Wilson later stated it was 1924.
Stirling went to school at Quarry Bank High School, Liverpool, England.
During World War II, he joined the Black Watch before transferring to the Parachute Regiment. He was
parachuted behind German enemy lines before D-Day and wounded twice, before returning to Britain.
Stirling studied architecture from 1945 until 1950 at the University of Liverpool, where Colin Rowe was his
teacher.

Works
History Faculty Library, Cambridge, 1968
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (1984)
State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart
Clore Gallery (1980-87), London

In 1956 he and James Gowan left their positions as assistants with the firm of Lyons, Israel, and Ellis to set up
a practice as Stirling and Gowan. Their first built project - the 'Flats at Ham Common' (195558) - was
regarded as a landmark in the development of 'brutalist' residential architecture, although this was a
description both architects rejected. The best-known result of Stirling & Gowan's collaboration is the
Department of Engineering at the University of Leicester (195963), noted for its technological and geometric
character, marked by the use of three-dimensional drawings based on axonometric projection seen either from
above (in a bird's eye view) or below (in a worm's eye view). The project brought Stirling to a global audience.
In 1963, Stirling and Gowan separated; Stirling then set up on his own, taking with him the office assistant
Michael Wilford (who provided invaluable administrative help and later became a partner). From that point on
the design task, which had previously been shared between Stirling and Gowan, remained very much under
the control of Stirling, assisted by hand-picked helpers. Stirling oversaw two projects which confirmed his
credentials as a leading British architect - the History Faculty Library at the University of Cambridge and the
Florey Building accommodation block for The Queen's College, Oxford. He also completed a training centre for
Olivetti in Haslemere, Surrey and housing for the University of St Andrews both of which made prominent use
of re-fabricated elements, GRP for Olivetti and pre-cast concrete panels at St Andrews.
During the 1970s, Stirling's architectural language began to change as the scale of his projects moved from
small (and not very profitable) to very large. His architecture became more overtly neoclassical, though it
remained deeply imbued with his powerful revised modernism. This produced a wave of dramatically spare,
large-scale urban projects, most notably three important museum projects for Dsseldorf, Cologne, and
Stuttgart in Germany. The projects of the 1970s show him at the zenith of his mature style. Winning the design
competition for the Neue Staatsgalerie, in Stuttgart, he loaded its powerful basic concept with a large number
of architectural amusements and decorative allusions. It came to be seen as an example of postmodernism, a
label which stuck but which he himself rejected.

As part of the world-wide expansion of Stirling and Wilford's practice beginning in the 1970s, the firm
completed four significant buildings in the U.S., all university structures that exhibit inventive responses to their
existing campus settings: an addition for the Rice University School of Architecture in Houston, Texas; the
Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Schwartz Center for the
Performing Arts at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; and the Biological Sciences Library at the University
of California, Irvine. Among unrealized projects in the US are designs for Columbia University and a
competition proposal for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
In 1981, Stirling was awarded the Pritzker Prize. Stirling received a series of important commissions in
England the Clore Gallery for the Turner Collection at the Tate Britain, London (198087); the Tate Liverpool
(1984, but since then heavily altered and no longer recognisable as a Stirling project), and No 1 Poultry in
London (1986, but completed posthumously without his input and not therefore classifiable as a Stirling
building). This work revealed a particular interest in public space, and the meanings that faades and building
mass can assume in a constrained urban context.[6]
The last buildings to be completed under Stirling's name were a series comprising the Braun Headquarters in
Melsungen Germany, which was completed in 1992. The Braun complex was hailed by critics as the possible
beginning of an important departure in Stirlings's work (cut short by his death). However it is questionable to
what extent he designed the Braun complex himself and how much of a free hand he allowed his former
employee, Walter Naegeli. Naegeli effectively developed and built the entire project from Berlin, with little or no
input from London.
In June 1992, Stirling was given a knighthood which he accepted with reluctance, having never considered
himself a member of the establishment. After consulting with Michael Wilford, he accepted the award on the
grounds that it might help their practice.[7]

Death and legacy

Three days after the announcement of his knighthood, Stirling was hospitalised in London with a painful hernia.
What should have been a straightforward operation went wrong and Stirling's condition deteriorated
considerably. He was able to see his family before sinking into a coma. Stirling died on 25 June 1992. In
accordance with his wishes, his ashes are buried near to his memorial in the narthex at Christ Church
Spitalfields. Stirling's sudden passing was considered a great tragedy for architecture; the Italian architect and
critic Vittorio Gregotti wrote in "Casabella" magazine that "from now on, everything will be more difficult".[this
quote needs a citation]

After Stirling's death, Michael Wilford (who had became a partner in 1971) continued the practice, completing
the work that remained in the pipeline and had been left by Stirling at various stages of development. Various
buildings completed thereafter (such as No 1 Poultry and the State University of Music and Performing Arts,
Stuttgart) were attributed to Stirling, but completed under the direction of Wilford and his assistants.
The Stirling Prize, a British annual prize for architecture since 1996, was named after James Stirling.

The cultural depth and richness of Stirling's work attracted the attention of all the major world critics and
theoreticians, from Colin Rowe to Peter Eisenman to Charles Jencks, and the literature examining his
architecture is vast.

No 1 Poultry London