James Stirling

Who was James Stirling?

Sir James Frazer Stirling was a British architect. Among critics and architects alike he is generally acknowledged to be one of the most important and influential architects of the second half of the 20th century. His career began as one of a number of young architects who, from the 1950s onwards, questioned and subverted the compositional and theoretical precepts of the first Modern Movement. Stirling's development of an agitated, mannered reinterpretation of those precepts – much influenced by his friend and teacher, the important architectural theorist and urbanist Colin Rowe – introduced an eclectic spirit that allowed him to plunder the whole sweep of architectural history as a source of compositional inspiration, from ancient Rome and the Baroque, to the many manifestations of the modern period, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Alvar Aalto. His success lay in his ability to incorporate these encyclopaedic references subtly, within a decisive architecture of strong, confident gestures that aimed to remake urban form. For these reasons, it can be said that in his time, Stirling's architecture was a rebellion against conformity.