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| The output of the Glasgow-born architect James Gowan, who has died aged 91, ranged from austere social housing blocks to dreamy plans for gigantic, spindly-legged animals striding across the Thames. Best known as the reticent partner of the larger-than-life architect James Stirling, Gowan was Stirling’s equal in the design of most of their early projects, culminating in the celebrated Engineering Building at the University of Leicester in 1963. But he rarely received the credit he was due; following the duo’s acrimonious split shortly after the building was completed, he worked alone in obscurity. | The output of the Glasgow-born architect James Gowan, who has died aged 91, ranged from austere social housing blocks to dreamy plans for gigantic, spindly-legged animals striding across the Thames. Best known as the reticent partner of the larger-than-life architect James Stirling, Gowan was Stirling’s equal in the design of most of their early projects, culminating in the celebrated Engineering Building at the University of Leicester in 1963. But he rarely received the credit he was due; following the duo’s acrimonious split shortly after the building was completed, he worked alone in obscurity. |
| Considered to be the first postmodernist building in Britain, the engineering faculty represented a violent shift away from the prevailing functionalist doctrines of the postwar era, instead celebrating dynamic structural feats and forceful geometries, in what became known as the “engineering style”. Steeply raked auditoria thrust out from beneath a pair of glazed towers, as great monolithic wedges clad in red tile, while a crystalline roof sails over the workshop building, like a row of glass Toblerones. | Considered to be the first postmodernist building in Britain, the engineering faculty represented a violent shift away from the prevailing functionalist doctrines of the postwar era, instead celebrating dynamic structural feats and forceful geometries, in what became known as the “engineering style”. Steeply raked auditoria thrust out from beneath a pair of glazed towers, as great monolithic wedges clad in red tile, while a crystalline roof sails over the workshop building, like a row of glass Toblerones. |
| There is an almost gothic sensibility to the design, with concrete columns ending in fattened haunches, gripping the tower of offices and labs like medieval flying buttresses. Gowan later said one of the inspirations for the startlingly unusual composition was “the Picasso profile with the big eye slapped on the front.” | There is an almost gothic sensibility to the design, with concrete columns ending in fattened haunches, gripping the tower of offices and labs like medieval flying buttresses. Gowan later said one of the inspirations for the startlingly unusual composition was “the Picasso profile with the big eye slapped on the front.” |
| The building embodies what Gowan always referred to as “the style for the job”, an idea taken up by the critic Reyner Banham in his review of the project. “The building succeeds because job and style are inseparable,” he wrote. “The character emerges with stunning force from the bones of the structure and the functions it shelters.” It has since been Grade II*-listed and recognised as one of the most influential projects of the period. | The building embodies what Gowan always referred to as “the style for the job”, an idea taken up by the critic Reyner Banham in his review of the project. “The building succeeds because job and style are inseparable,” he wrote. “The character emerges with stunning force from the bones of the structure and the functions it shelters.” It has since been Grade II*-listed and recognised as one of the most influential projects of the period. |
| Stirling fell in love with this radical new engineering style, and he was determined to redeploy it in the following commission for the History Faculty Library at the University of Cambridge – against all of Gowan’s protestations. “At Leicester we had found a vocabulary that was recognisably ours … and Stirling was enamoured of it,” Gowan told Ellis Woodman in his 2008 biography, Modernity and Reinvention: The Architecture of James Gowan. “I haven’t changed my opinion that [the Cambridge building] is a most unlikely college library and repeating the aesthetics was unwise.” It has proved famously dysfunctional ever since, overheating in summer and leaking in winter. | Stirling fell in love with this radical new engineering style, and he was determined to redeploy it in the following commission for the History Faculty Library at the University of Cambridge – against all of Gowan’s protestations. “At Leicester we had found a vocabulary that was recognisably ours … and Stirling was enamoured of it,” Gowan told Ellis Woodman in his 2008 biography, Modernity and Reinvention: The Architecture of James Gowan. “I haven’t changed my opinion that [the Cambridge building] is a most unlikely college library and repeating the aesthetics was unwise.” It has proved famously dysfunctional ever since, overheating in summer and leaking in winter. |
| The fierce ideological split over the design saw Stirling and Gowan’s fractious seven-year collaboration finally come to an end in 1963, with Stirling going on to complete the Cambridge history faculty and the Florey Building in Oxford in the same manner, followed by a starry trajectory of galleries and museums. Gowan never enjoyed the same success, working on a few small housing projects and some healthcare buildings in Italy later in life. | The fierce ideological split over the design saw Stirling and Gowan’s fractious seven-year collaboration finally come to an end in 1963, with Stirling going on to complete the Cambridge history faculty and the Florey Building in Oxford in the same manner, followed by a starry trajectory of galleries and museums. Gowan never enjoyed the same success, working on a few small housing projects and some healthcare buildings in Italy later in life. |
| The son of James and Isobel (nee Mackenzie), from a family involved in the Paisley meat trade, James junior was brought up by his grandparents in Partick following his parents’ separation. After studying architecture at the Glasgow School of Art, he went to Kingston School of Architecture, in Surrey. He was taught by Philip Powell of Powell & Moya, where he went on to be briefly employed, working on the winning entry to the Skylon competition for the 1951 Festival of Britain. | |
| After a period working on Stevenage New Town, he joined Lyons Israel Ellis – mistakenly thinking it was the practice of Eric Lyons, whose Span housing he greatly admired – where he met James Stirling. Together they designed the seminal Langham House Close on Ham Common, west London, in 1958, which quickly established the pair as one of the most radical practices of their generation. The boxy brick and concrete creation was hailed by Ian Nairn in 1966 as “the first building in a new tough style which was as much a reaction against well-meaning vacuity as the Angry plays and novels. The fierce but not overbearing yellow brick and exposed concrete still make their protest straight.” | After a period working on Stevenage New Town, he joined Lyons Israel Ellis – mistakenly thinking it was the practice of Eric Lyons, whose Span housing he greatly admired – where he met James Stirling. Together they designed the seminal Langham House Close on Ham Common, west London, in 1958, which quickly established the pair as one of the most radical practices of their generation. The boxy brick and concrete creation was hailed by Ian Nairn in 1966 as “the first building in a new tough style which was as much a reaction against well-meaning vacuity as the Angry plays and novels. The fierce but not overbearing yellow brick and exposed concrete still make their protest straight.” |
| It had a bluff, forthright feel that also characterised their housing estate in Preston, Lancashire, and Gowan’s later work in Greenwich, south-east London, as well as a house Gowan designed for his brother-in-law on the Isle of Wight. “We were reacting against the older generation,” he said, “setting up a critique of what might be done – a reaction against boredom, plainness and the mechanical nature of contemporary rationalism, of social rationalism and dainty well-produced things.” | It had a bluff, forthright feel that also characterised their housing estate in Preston, Lancashire, and Gowan’s later work in Greenwich, south-east London, as well as a house Gowan designed for his brother-in-law on the Isle of Wight. “We were reacting against the older generation,” he said, “setting up a critique of what might be done – a reaction against boredom, plainness and the mechanical nature of contemporary rationalism, of social rationalism and dainty well-produced things.” |
| After separating from Stirling, he went on to design what Woodman has described as “the most significant London townhouse of the second half of the 20th century”. The Schreiber House, built in Hampstead in 1964 for a wealthy furniture manufacturer, stands like a forbidding brick castle from the outside, looking more like a local authority housing block than an opulent villa. But within, the four-storey building opens up to provide a luxurious open-plan world, lined with bespoke fittings in teak and bronze, along with what were the latest mod-cons of warm blown-air and a built-in vacuum cleaner system. | After separating from Stirling, he went on to design what Woodman has described as “the most significant London townhouse of the second half of the 20th century”. The Schreiber House, built in Hampstead in 1964 for a wealthy furniture manufacturer, stands like a forbidding brick castle from the outside, looking more like a local authority housing block than an opulent villa. But within, the four-storey building opens up to provide a luxurious open-plan world, lined with bespoke fittings in teak and bronze, along with what were the latest mod-cons of warm blown-air and a built-in vacuum cleaner system. |
| While Gowan’s buildings often received lukewarm reviews in the press, his biggest influence could be said to be on his students. Teaching at the Architectural Association in London, he mentored Richard Rogers, Peter Cook, of Archigram, and the neo-classicist Quinlan Terry, among many others, a diversity matched by the range of his own work – he would go on to design a second, highly postmodern Schreiber House, in Chester (1982), and a colourful, toytown bookshop for the Royal College of Art (. | While Gowan’s buildings often received lukewarm reviews in the press, his biggest influence could be said to be on his students. Teaching at the Architectural Association in London, he mentored Richard Rogers, Peter Cook, of Archigram, and the neo-classicist Quinlan Terry, among many others, a diversity matched by the range of his own work – he would go on to design a second, highly postmodern Schreiber House, in Chester (1982), and a colourful, toytown bookshop for the Royal College of Art (. |
| It was this playful side to Gowan, and his little-known speculative projects, that drew me to meet him in 2011, while researching a series of articles on the weird and wonderful world of animal-shaped buildings. Reaching into the back of a deep drawer in his Notting Hill studio, he pulled out a sketchbook from the 1970s, full of gigantic bird buildings and portly pigs, as well as a giraffe-shaped skyscraper for the Thames at Greenwich Reach, whose long legs were suited to weathering the tidal conditions. For the Millbank housing competition, in 1977, he had sketched out a monumental howling dog, plated in gold, whose construction would have been funded by a massive levy on City bankers. | It was this playful side to Gowan, and his little-known speculative projects, that drew me to meet him in 2011, while researching a series of articles on the weird and wonderful world of animal-shaped buildings. Reaching into the back of a deep drawer in his Notting Hill studio, he pulled out a sketchbook from the 1970s, full of gigantic bird buildings and portly pigs, as well as a giraffe-shaped skyscraper for the Thames at Greenwich Reach, whose long legs were suited to weathering the tidal conditions. For the Millbank housing competition, in 1977, he had sketched out a monumental howling dog, plated in gold, whose construction would have been funded by a massive levy on City bankers. |
| “The quality I had in mind was the one that HG Wells describes in The War of the Worlds,” he said. “An object arrives in the middle of an English village and it is pretty fearsome. You can’t see a door. It just lies there smouldering and you are left guessing what it is until the hatch opens a couple of days later. It was that sense of wonder I was aiming for.” | “The quality I had in mind was the one that HG Wells describes in The War of the Worlds,” he said. “An object arrives in the middle of an English village and it is pretty fearsome. You can’t see a door. It just lies there smouldering and you are left guessing what it is until the hatch opens a couple of days later. It was that sense of wonder I was aiming for.” |
| Gowan married Margaret Barry in October 1944. She died in 2001. He is survived by two daughters, Linda and Joanna, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. | Gowan married Margaret Barry in October 1944. She died in 2001. He is survived by two daughters, Linda and Joanna, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. |
| • James Gowan, architect, born 18 October 1923; died 12 June 2015 | • James Gowan, architect, born 18 October 1923; died 12 June 2015 |