No House Style: The Drawings of Stirling & Wilford | Architects Journal

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stirling Prize, Chris Dyson has shared some memories and reflections on his time working at James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates in the Architects Journal.

I started working with Jim aged 25, having graduated from the Mack.

It was like an extension of university education; each project involved research into historical background of the place and a fresh interpretation of the architectural language.

There was no obvious solution, no house style – we would refer to other projects in passing, and often the work of great, usually dead, architects.

The plan was the originator – initially quite diagrammatic, it was then fleshed out using the axonometric, the worm’s eye, the split up view and the single-point perspective.

Projects discussed include No 1 Poultry, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Abando Passenger Interchange, Bilbao (below).

The initial conversation with Jim about this project I remember well – ‘How do we avoid the box?’ He sketched out a box, implying that stations had by that time become dull shopping centres with little contextual connection.

The challenge was to create inviting, interesting and three-dimensional civic space from an interchange, and I think we achieved that in this unbuilt design.

Full article can be read here.