On 14 September 2025, British architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw passed away. He founded Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners in 1980, and the practice now numbers more than 650 employees across four continents. AA pays tribute to an architect whose work has long graced the pages of our magazine.

As a true son of the ‘high-tech’ movement and a man of art, Nicholas Grimshaw secured institutional recognition for exposed rivets, honeycomb beam parapets and constellations of tie rods. Yet he refused to be satisfied with the simple union of aesthetics and technique. Like his compatriots, he understood that the task was not simply to replace stucco with metal, but to construct buildings with a sharp awareness of the scientific and climatic challenges already looming on the horizon. The editorial team took great pleasure in delving into the archives of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui to rediscover his achievements as viewed by his contemporaries.

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw; left, detail of a biome, Eden Project, Cornwall, United Kingdom, 2001

In the 1960s, Nicholas Grimshaw, a scholarship recipient, pursued his studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He subsequently received funding for study trips that would leave a lasting mark on his sensibility: to Sweden in 1963 and to the United States in 1964. After graduating in 1965, he entered into partnership with Terence Farrell and, in 1967, became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). In 1980, he founded Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, advancing an approach in which technique and aesthetics interact seamlessly.

In 1989, RIBA awarded a prize to the Financial Times printing works in East London, a project documented in a report by Armelle Lavalou and Jacques Ferrier entitled Le goût de l’ingénierie (A Taste for Engineering), published in L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui in February 1990. Alongside projects by other architects, including Calatrava, Foster, Arup and Rice, the printing works exemplify France’s enduring fascination with those ‘artisan engineers’ who endeavour to ‘use technique as the plastic expression of a certain contemporaneity.’ [1] ‘Blocked in the inevitable peak-hour traffic, they will now have the consolation of admiring an industrial building whose architectural quality is well above the average for this type of programme,’ the authors emphasise, praising the ‘elegant anthracite-grey cladding, in aluminium’, set off by stainless steel bolts, micro-corrugated sheets, and the glass façade, ‘the most spectacular part of the project’.

Nearly ten years later, the British architect was still enjoying a flourishing career in engineering and architecture, with his projects regularly featured in the pages of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui. In 2001, Ariane Wilson described the Eden Project, a ‘planetary garden’ in Cornwall, as both a ‘fabulous hymn to technical prowess’ and ‘the result of the same enthusiastic commitment to technology in the service of sustainable development’. While the expression may be overused today, the author’s conclusion underscores an achievement that cannot be taken away from Sir Nicholas Grimshaw: his capacity to translate his architectural expertise, enriched by engineering methods, into a genuine conviction for the future of construction, rather than a mere aesthetic label. Andrew Whalley, current Chairman of Grimshaw, makes the same point: ‘His architecture was never about surface or fashion, but always about structure, craft, and purpose – about creating buildings that endure because they are both useful and uplifting and, in Nick’s words, “bring some kind of joy”.’

[1] Jacques Ferrier, « Les ingénieurs artisans », L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, No.267, February 1990, p.75
[2] Ariane Wilson, « Eden Project, Cornouailles, Royaume-Uni », L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, No.335, July-August 2001, p.39