Nicholas Grimshaw

For the British DJ and broadcaster, see Nick Grimshaw.

Sir
Nicholas Grimshaw
CBE RA
Born(1939-10-09)9 October 1939
Hove, East Sussex, England
Died14 September 2025(2025-09-14) (aged 85)
EducationWellington College
Alma materEdinburgh College of Art
Architectural Association School of Architecture
OccupationArchitect
StyleHigh-tech architecture (modernism)[1]
Spouse
Lavinia Russell
​
(m. 1972)​
Children2

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw CBE RA (9 October 1939 – 14 September 2025) was an English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall.[2] He was president of the Royal Academy from 2004 to 2011.[3] He was chairman of Grimshaw Architects (formerly Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners) from its foundation to 2019, when he was succeeded by Andrew Whalley. He was a recipient of the RIBA Gold Medal.

Early life and education

Nicholas Grimshaw was born in Hove, East Sussex, on 9 October 1939.[2] His father, Thomas, was an aircraft engineer, and his mother, Hannah, a portrait painter and he inherited an interest in engineering and art.[1] One of his great-grandfathers was a civil engineer who built dams in Egypt,[4] and another (Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw) was a physician who campaigned for the installation of Dublin's drainage and sanitation system after showing a link between waterborne diseases and streams joining the River Liffey.[5][6]

The artist John Atkinson Grimshaw was another of his ancestors.[6]

Grimshaw's father died when he was two, and he grew up with his mother, a grandmother who was also a painter,[7] and two sisters in Guildford.[4] He displayed an early interest in construction; his boyhood interests included Meccano, building tree houses and boats.[8]

Grimshaw was educated at Wellington College in Berkshire.[9] From 1959 to 1962, he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, where he won further scholarships to travel to Sweden in 1963 and the United States in 1964.[9] While at the AA, he was influenced by professor Peter Cook, one of the founders of Archigram.[1] Grimshaw graduated from the AA in 1965 with an honours diploma, and having entered into a partnership with Terry Farrell, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects two years later in 1967.

Career

Grimshaw worked with Farrell for 15 years before establishing his own firm, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, in 1980.[9] In 1989, he won a Royal Institute of British Architects national award for his design of the Financial Times printworks in east London.[9] After designing Britain's pavilion for the Seville Expo in 1992, he was appointed a CBE in 1993, and the following year saw his Waterloo railway terminal awarded the accolade of RIBA President's Building of the Year as well as the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture.[10][4][11] 1994 also saw him elected a vice-chairman of the Architectural Association, a member of the Royal Academy[3] and a member of the American Institute of Architects.[4]

His architecture practice continued to grow, with offices in London, Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Dubai, Melbourne and Sydney.[12] The work of Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners was the subject of a series of monographs published by Phaidon Press: Architecture, Industry and Innovation deals with the years 1965–1988;[13] Structure, Space and Skin covers 1988–1993;[14] and Equilibrium looks at work up until 2000.[15]

In December 2004, Grimshaw was elected president of the Royal Academy of Arts, a position he held until 2011.[3] Grimshaw's firm were the architects for the National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats (NIRAH).[16] In 2019, Andrew Whalley succeeded Grimshaw as chairman of Grimshaw Architects.[17]

Style

Grimshaw was considered one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture, which grew out of the modernist movement.[1][18]

Grimshaw cited 19th-century architects Joseph Paxton and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as influences,[1] as well as the futurist style of Buckminster Fuller and the modernism of Charles and Ray Eames.[4][19] Fuller's influence on Grimshaw is visible in the geodesic domes of the Eden Project,[4] while Grimshaw's renovation of Paddington station paid homage to its original design by Brunel.[20]

Personal life and death

In 1972, Grimshaw married Lavinia Russell, an expert on Chinese culture and the daughter of art critic John Russell and Countess Alexandrine Apponyi.[4][21] Nicholas and Lavinia Grimshaw went on to have two daughters, both born in the 1970s.[22]

Nicholas Grimshaw died on 14 September 2025, at the age of 85.[23][4] His collaborator Terry Farrell also died that month.[24]

Projects

Projects include:

Awards and honours

Grimshaw was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2004.[37] He received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2019.[38]

Bibliography

  • Moore, Rowan, ed. (1993). Structure, Space and Skin: The Work of Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. London: Phaidon. ISBN 9780714828503.
  • Amery, Colin (1995). Architecture, Industry and Innovation: The Early Work of Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. London: Phaidon. ISBN 9780714839349.
  • Pearman, Hugh (2000). Equilibrium: The Work of Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners. London: Phaidon. ISBN 0714839582.
  • Grimshaw, Nicholas; Davey, Peter (2009). Farthing, Stephen (ed.). The Sketchbooks of Nicholas Grimshaw. London: Royal Academy of Arts. ISBN 9781905711628.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Risen, Clay (19 September 2025). "Nicholas Grimshaw, 85, Dies; British Architect Known for High-Tech Designs". The New York Times.
  2. ^ a b c d e Steve Rose (12 October 2007). "Bubble vision". The Guardian.
  3. ^ a b c "Nicholas Grimshaw PPRA". Royal Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 4 April 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, visionary architect behind the Eden Project and Waterloo Eurostar terminal". The Daily Telegraph. 15 September 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  5. ^ "Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw". Grimshaw Origins and History. Archived from the original on 27 April 2025.
  6. ^ a b Amery 1995, p. 9.
  7. ^ "Sir Nicholas Grimshaw: 'It's quality that matters more than anything". The Independent. 13 June 2010.
  8. ^ "Desert Island Discs - Nicholas Grimshaw". BBC. 19 December 2003.
  9. ^ a b c d L'enjeu capital(es): les métropoles de la grande échelle (in French). Centre Pompidou. 2009. p. 101. ISBN 978-2-84426-432-9.
  10. ^ Weinfass, Ian (11 March 2024). "Grimshaw unveils London Waterloo Station masterplan". Architects' Journal. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  11. ^ "Architecture & Emerging: 1994 Jury Proceedings". EUmies Awards. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  12. ^ Knight, Martine Hamilton (2024). Photography for Architects: Effective Use of Images in Your Architectural Practice. Taylor & Francis. p. 172. ISBN 978-1-000-95700-6.
  13. ^ a b c Amery 1995, table of contents.
  14. ^ a b Moore 1993, table of contents.
  15. ^ Pearman 2000.
  16. ^ "NIRAH". Grant Associates. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  17. ^ Menking, William (11 June 2019). "Andrew Whalley to become new chairman of Grimshaw Architects". The Architect’s Newspaper.
  18. ^ a b c Templeton, Patrick (16 September 2025). "British architect Nicholas Grimshaw Dies at 85". Architectural Record.
  19. ^ Smith, Charles Saumarez (13 February 2019). "Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (1)". CharlesSaumarezSmith.com.
  20. ^ a b Slessor, Catherine (16 September 2025). "Geodesic genius: Nicholas Grimshaw brought futuristic grandeur to trains, planes, gardens – and shopping". The Guardian.
  21. ^ Grimes, William (24 August 2008). "John Russell, Art Critic for The Times, Dies at 89". The New York Times.
  22. ^ Baldock, Hannah (14 September 2000). "Nick Grimshaw". Building. Archived from the original on 10 November 2024.
  23. ^ "Nicholas Grimshaw dies aged 85". Building Design. 15 September 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  24. ^ Bakare, Lanre (29 September 2025). "'Nonconformist' architect of MI6 building Terry Farrell dies aged 87". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
  25. ^ a b c Farrell, Terry (1994). Terry Farrell: Selected and Current Works. Mulgrave: Images Publishing Group. p. 248. ISBN 9781875498161.
  26. ^ a b c d Grimshaw & Davey 2009, p. 115.
  27. ^ Cherry, Bridget; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2002). The Buildings of England: Devon (2nd ed.). Yale University Press. p. 403. ISBN 978-0-300-09596-8.
  28. ^ a b c Grimshaw & Davey 2009, p. 116.
  29. ^ a b c d Allinson, Kenneth (24 September 2008). Architects and Architecture of London. Routledge. p. 405. ISBN 978-1-136-42965-1.
  30. ^ a b c d Grimshaw & Davey 2009, p. 117.
  31. ^ "Bilbao Intermodal Station". Industrial Gradhermetic. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  32. ^ a b Grimshaw & Davey 2009, p. 118.
  33. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "List – Projects". grimshaw.global. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  34. ^ "Grimshaw's South Bank K2 exhibits peak performance". Building Design. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  35. ^ "London South Bank University". Pilkington Project References. Pilkington. Retrieved 21 September 2025.
  36. ^ Waite, Richard (27 April 2011). "Grimshaw bags Brazilian mobile art pavilion". Architects' Journal.
  37. ^ "Heriot-Watt University Honorary Graduates" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 November 2015.
  38. ^ Wainwright, Oliver (27 September 2018). "Architect Nicholas Grimshaw wins RIBA gold medal". The Guardian.
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