The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Stirling, Sir James Frazer
1926–92, British architect, b. Glasgow, grad. Univ. of Liverpool school of architecture (1950). Settling in London, Stirling worked in partnership (1956–63) with James Gowan, and became known for straightforward and functional modernist public buildings executed mainly in brick and rough-finished concrete, e.g., Ham Common flats, London (1957), and the Univ. of Leicester engineering building (1963). After he formed (1971) a partnership with Michael Wilford, his stylistic approach changed as he made a transition to architectural postmodernism. Stressing a humanistic approach, he designed buildings at once classical and experimental, geometrically abstract structures in a variety of shapes and a wide range of colors. Among these works are the Stuttgart Art Gallery, Germany (1984), buildings for Harvard’s Fogg (1984) and Sackler (1985) museums, the Social Science Research Center Berlin, Germany (1987), the Tate Liverpool, England (1988), and Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore (1996). The winner of the 1981 Pritzker Prize, Stirling was knighted in 1992.
