James Stirling and Michael Wilford

by Thomas Muirhead

James Stirling's untimely death in 1992 cut short an immensely fruitful later phase of a creative career which began in the 1950s. Stirling inaugurated this second period in the Seventies when he established his main London office in partnership with Michael Wilford and devised his ambitious urban-planning proposals for the area round the Cathedral and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. International recognition resulted in a host of spectacular commissions for the team, consolidating its reputation and its influence on a younger generation of architects.
James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Buildings and Projects 1975-1992 is a retrospective documentation of this achievement, detailing the plans and projects that Stirling executed right up until his death. Critical appraisals, technical data and extensive illustrations record many important buildings, including the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the Sackler Wing extension to the Fogg Museum, Harvard; the Science Centre in Berlin; the Clore Gallery for the Turner Collection at the Tate Gallery, London; the Performing Arts Center at Cornell University, New York State; and the B. Braun Melsungen A.G. buildings at Melsungen in Germany. All these projects testify to Stirling and Wilford's ability to synthesize many types of architectural idiom into work rich with a sense of play and spontaneity.
Some of the most celebrated - and often controversial - buildings of recent years are included in this comprehensive summary of an impressive canon of modern British architecture. Their fame is a measure of James Stirling's attainment, which now receives its proper commemoration.

Genres: Architecture

307 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1994

Reviews

[Douglas Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for me, years into my career, to properly familiarise myself with the later work, especially the many projects that were never built, and, you know, I'm trying, I'm really trying, and this isn't because of some dumb argument about modernism and postmodernism, but I still can't love it. The wibbly lines, the circles vs squares vs triangles, there's something about the compositions that somehow *annoys* me. I need to think further on it, of course, but I'm still far from convinced.

[Mohammad Fallah · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتابی که تجارب یک معمار زیبافکر به نام استرلینگ رو به تصویر میکشه .مقدمه ابتدایی کتاب که سخن همکار ایشون هست به نظرم جز زیباترین متون کوتاهی هست که یک دانشجوی معماری در طول تحصیلش میتونه بخونه