At the tender age of 42, Stirk has already served five years as one of the practice鈥檚 seven senior directors. His latest achievements are the completion of three substantial London buildings for people to live and work in.
They are two City office blocks, Lloyd鈥檚 Register of Shipping and 88 Wood Street, and the Montevetro residential tower on the Battersea riverfront. As well as working on the initial design of Montevetro, Stirk has been the director responsible for both office developments.
Despite his precocious elevation to senior director status, Stirk projects little of the celebrity charisma of the practice鈥檚 founding directors. Small, slight and softly-spoken, the Leeds-born architect dubs himself 鈥渁 backroom person鈥�.
Unlike Lord Rogers, heir to a famous Italian architectural dynasty, Stirk did not start his career with great ambitions. A fact deleted 鈥� to his amazement 鈥� from his official curriculum vitae drawn up by the practice is that he left school at the age of 16 to train in building construction. Only after gaining an ordinary national certificate, after three years of evening classes, did he start an architectural course, studying at Oxford Polytechnic and then the Architectural Association in London.
From college, Stirk moved straight into Rogers鈥� office, where he has now worked for 17 years. The two City office blocks are the first buildings that he has seen from initial design to completion. His earlier years in the practice were devoted to a slew of scheme and competition designs for grand projects across the world, most of which turned out to be abortive.
His lowly building background, his diffident manner and his capacity to keep his head down and work hard could all have conspired to keep Stirk in the back room of the practice for his entire career. Fortunately for him, things turned out differently.
鈥淥n my 30th birthday, I was working late in the office. Richard came by my desk and asked me if I would like to take on more responsibility in the practice. So I was promoted to director.鈥� The step up to the top, senior director level came only seven years after that. Stirk鈥檚 special design talents are well recognised beyond the practice, too, as is his break with the stereotype of the arrogant statement architect. 鈥淕raham catches flies with treacle rather than with vinegar,鈥� comments Mike Fletcher, Laing Management鈥檚 director in charge of 88 Wood Street. 鈥淗is soft manner wins people over without being threatening. But underneath, he knows exactly what he wants. He鈥檚 great at the concept design stage, and he has an eye for the practicalities of construction too 鈥� and that鈥檚 a nice balance.鈥�
For his part, Stirk finds concept design anything but a doddle. 鈥淭he idea that you sit down and pull out a standard brand product is far from the truth. We are selling prototypes each time. Design is not a linear process. It is a matter of gradual refinement out of initial panics and many wrong directions. For me, it is a very disconcerting, morale-sapping business.鈥�
Supervising a project on site seems slightly less disconcerting for him, as long as a robust design strategy has been worked out in advance. But even here, there can be sudden upsets. 鈥淲hen the district surveyor said we couldn鈥檛 have open risers on the stairs at 88 Wood Street, it kept me awake for two weeks. It would have destroyed the transparency of the stair towers. In the end, the district surveyor accepted our proposal to insert small metal upstands between the steps.鈥�
If this sounds like a typical architect鈥檚 whinge against building control, Stirk is quick to put the record straight. 鈥淚t may look as if you鈥檝e flouted the regulations. But you haven鈥檛 鈥� you鈥檝e gone back to first principles to find other strategies for dealing with the basic concern of the regulations. In this sense, the regulations are dynamic, and that鈥檚 great.鈥�
Stirk also differs from the practice鈥檚 founders in the sense that he has grown up in a professional world where architects are kept firmly in check by cautious clients, project managers, design-and-build contractors and product manufacturers that take responsibility for detailed design. He does not conceal his admiration for the daring, exuberance and rugged rectilinear forms of the early Rogers buildings, such as the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd鈥檚 building, designed when architects were still relatively free agents. But what, if anything, does Stirk鈥檚 generation bring to the practice?
鈥淲e are slightly more pluralistic. We are looser in urban form, and we鈥檝e introduced a diversity of shapes to buildings. We鈥檝e brought new materials and sculptural forms,鈥� he says, referring to the curvilinear timber-clad courtrooms of the newly completed Bordeaux courthouse.
鈥淭he younger generation has tried to move things forward in the practice. However, the methodology of design and the demystification of how the building works is still very much a continuation from the original four directors. If we鈥檇 lost their clarity of vision, then I think we would die as a practice.鈥� Such a combination of progress and underlying consistency augurs well for a high-profile practice now moving into its second generation.
