Will Alsop

He worked briefly for Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, a couple who had been instrumental in introducing modernism to Britain in the 1930s, then joined Cedric Price for four years.

William Allen Alsop (12 December 1947 – 12 May 2018) was a British architect and Professor of Architecture at University for the Creative Arts's Canterbury School of Architecture.

He was responsible for several distinctive and controversial modernist buildings which are usually distinguished by their use of bright colours and unusual avant-garde forms.

After a short period with Roderick Ham, in 1981 Alsop set up a practice, Alsop & Lyall, with his classmate John Lyall in Hammersmith.

Alsop's first major commission was a swimming pool for Sheringham in Norfolk in 1984, followed by a visitor centre for Cardiff Bay.

Thereafter he worked on a number of projects in Germany, including the Hamburg Ferry Terminal.

Jan Störmer later joined the practice and a decade later, in 1991, the practice was renamed Alsop & Störmer after Lyall's departure.

In 1992, Alsop came first, against competitor Norman Foster, in the competition to design the Hôtel du département des Bouches-du-Rhône (the county government office of Bouches-du-Rhône) in Marseille, France.

The building, now considered a major work of late 20th century architecture and a Marseille landmark, nicknamed Le Grand Bleu, was designed by Alsop and Störmer, and developed its visual identity through the design process in collaboration with the architectural artist Brian Clarke, with the completed building externally clad in Yves Klein blue glass, with one elevation formed of a 1,200 m2 artwork by Clarke screenprinted in ceramic glaze onto the facade.

In 2000, Alsop won the Stirling Prize, the most prestigious architecture award in the United Kingdom, for the Peckham Library in London.

Alsop always wanted to be an architect, even before he really knew what architects did; when he was six years old, he designed a house for his mother to live in – its most striking specification was that it had to be built in New Zealand.

When he was 16 his father, an accountant, died, and being bored with school he left to work for an architect, doing his A-levels at evening classes.

He was greatly influenced by his drawing tutor, Henry Bird while at foundation course at Northampton Art School.

He recalled how he was taught to draw by him."He gave me a brick, told me to draw it and promptly left the room. I proceeded to draw it with all its shadows. On his return he went into a rage and chastised me for destroying the vision with shading, shouting: 'What is wrong with a simple line?' He insisted that I redo the drawing with line only so that I could begin to see the brick and its proportions. I drew that brick for two three hour sessions per week, line only, for three months. Eventually, he admitted that I had mastered the brick and I was allowed to progress onto the tin can."

Alsop then studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture where at 23 he entered the competition to design the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and came second to the eventual winners, Richard Rogers & Renzo Piano.

Alsop and Störmer divided into separate practices in 2000, with Alsop renaming the practice Alsop Architects.

Alsop was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and was elected to the Royal Academy on 18 May 2000.

Alsop's architectural heroes were Le Corbusier, Sir John Soane, John Vanbrugh and Mies van der Rohe.

His avant-garde, modernist buildings are usually distinguished by their vibrant use of bright colour and unusual forms.

Before Alsop begins to work on a new project, he uses painting to clear his mind, think freely and create an uncontaminated design approach.

"'One of the reasons for painting is that you are not really in control of what you are doing – and that interests me a lot. Instead of having a specific starting point, which perhaps, in architectural terms, would lead through to a series of logical thoughts working towards a designed building, you can start anywhere.'"

For him, the act of painting together with working closely with the client and the local community are necessary ingredients in urban design and architecture.

Since 2001–2002, three historical buildings at the Pier Head in Liverpool have been known as the "Three Graces": they are the Royal Liver Building (1908–11) by Walter Aubrey Thomas, the Cunard Building (1914–16) by Willinck & Thicknesse with Arthur J. Davis, and the Port of Liverpool Building (1903–07) by Briggs & Wolstenholme with Hobbs & Thornely – the so-called "Cloud Building" – officially because of rising costs and unrealistic design.

Alsop admitted to never being very good at handling finances, and his practice went through several difficult periods, including the cancellation in June 2004 of plans to build a "Fourth Grace" to be built on Liverpool's Pier Head waterfront.

In 2004, Alsop published a book entitled Supercity which elicited much debate.

It was the subject of a Channel 4 television documentary and an exhibition at the Urbis museum in Manchester.

This book described his vision of a "Supercity" – a futuristic conurbation – stretching along the M62 corridor from Liverpool to Hull.

It included a discussion of how the increasing interconnectivity of the cities along this corridor is changing the concepts of a "city", and how they can be developed to merge the idea of the rural and urban.

It also included a number of architectural ideas of possible buildings and communities in this city.

Although there was some political support for his ideas, with The Times claiming that former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was a supporter, the Supercity has its critics.

In early 2006, Alsop sold his practice to a design conglomerate called the SMC Group to concentrate on architecture.

After leaving ARCHIAL (formerly Alsop Architects, then SMC Alsop), he joined RMJM's London Headquarters as International Principal on 1 October 2009.

The office's name was "Will Alsop at RMJM".

Alsop's latest practice was called All Design and had practices in London and Chongqing.

Alsop's London office was located in Battersea.

Alsop was a tutor of sculpture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London for several years, and held many other academic posts, among others at the Vienna University of Technology, Universities of London and Hannover, and actively promoted the artistic contribution to built environments.

Alsop featured significantly in Iain Sinclair's book Ghost Milk (2011), especially the chapter "In the belly of the architect".

The book is a critique – written using the literary technique of psychogeography – of the capital used to drive through vanity planning projects such as the London Olympics, and Alsop's unbuilt planning projects in the north of England, such as Supercity, are seen as typical of these, where the architect fantasizes about how architectural design solves social and economic problems.

Alsop's architectural talents may be the subject of controversy built up an international reputation and a degree of celebrity and professional recognition, described by the Observer as "number three in the hierarchy of British architects after Lords Rogers and Foster".

In 2013, Alsop became Professor of Architecture at the University for the Creative Arts's Canterbury School of Architecture.