Nicholas Grimshaw

Early life and education

Nicholas Grimshaw was born in Hove, East Sussex, on 9 October 1939. His father, Thomas, was an aircraft engineer, and his mother, Hannah, a portrait painter and he inherited an interest in engineering and art. One of his great-grandfathers was a civil engineer who built dams in Egypt, and another (Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw) was a physician who campaigned for the installation of Dublin's drainage and sanitation system after showing a link between waterborne diseases and streams joining the River Liffey.

The artist John Atkinson Grimshaw was another of his ancestors.

Grimshaw's father died when he was two, and he grew up with his mother, a grandmother who was also a painter, and two sisters in Guildford. He displayed an early interest in construction; his boyhood interests included Meccano, building tree houses and boats.

Grimshaw was educated at Wellington College in Berkshire. From 1959 to 1962, he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, where he won further scholarships to travel to Sweden in 1963 and the United States in 1964. While at the AA, he was influenced by professor Peter Cook, one of the founders of Archigram. Grimshaw graduated from the AA in 1965 with an honours diploma, and having entered into a partnership with Terry Farrell, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects two years later in 1967.

Career

Grimshaw worked with Farrell for 15 years before establishing his own firm, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, in 1980. 1994 also saw him elected a vice-chairman of the Architectural Association, a member of the Royal Academy and a member of the American Institute of Architects.

His architecture practice continued to grow, with offices in London, Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Dubai, Melbourne and Sydney. The work of Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners was the subject of a series of monographs published by Phaidon Press: Architecture, Industry and Innovation deals with the years 1965–1988; Structure, Space and Skin covers 1988–1993; and Equilibrium looks at work up until 2000.

In December 2004, Grimshaw was elected president of the Royal Academy of Arts, a position he held until 2011. Grimshaw's firm were the architects for the National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats (NIRAH). In 2019, Andrew Whalley succeeded Grimshaw as chairman of Grimshaw Architects.

Style

Grimshaw was considered one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture, which grew out of the modernist movement.

Grimshaw cited 19th-century architects Joseph Paxton and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as influences, Fuller's influence on Grimshaw is visible in the geodesic domes of the Eden Project,

Personal life and death

In 1972, he married Lavinia Russell, an expert on Chinese culture and the daughter of art critic John Russell and Countess Alexandrine Apponyi. Nicholas and Lavinia Grimshaw went on to have two daughters, both born in the 1970s.

Grimshaw died on 14 September 2025, at the age of 85. His collaborator Terry Farrell would die that same month.

Projects

Projects include:

• 125 Park Road, London (1970); joint project with Terry Farrell
• Herman Miller Factory, Bath (1976); joint project with Terry Farrell
• BMW (UK) headquarters, Bracknell (1979); joint project with Terry Farrell
• Oxford Ice Rink, Oxford (1984)
• Clifton Hill Sports Centre, Exeter (1984)
• Financial Times Printworks, Blackwall, London (1988)
• Rank Xerox Research Centre, Welwyn Garden City (1988)
• Sainsbury's supermarket, Camden Town, London (1988)
• Stockbridge Leisure Centre, Liverpool (1988)
• British Pavilion Expo '92, Seville, Spain (1992)
• Waterloo International railway station, London (1993)
• Compass Centre, Heathrow Airport (1993)
• South West Media Group (Western Morning News, Plymouth Herald) Headquarters and Printworks. Known as "The Ship", Derriford, Plymouth (1993)
• RAC Regional Headquarters, Bristol (1994)
• Pier 4A, Heathrow Airport (1993)
• Berlin Stock Exchange (Ludwig Erhard Haus), Berlin, Germany (1998)
• Lord's Cricket Ground Grandstand, London (1998)
• North Woolwich pumping station, London Docklands (1988)
• Bilbao bus station, Bilbao, Spain (1996)
• Paddington station redevelopment, London (1999)
• Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA station (2000–2007)
• Eden Project, Cornwall (2001)
• Frankfurt Trade Fair Hall, Frankfurt, Germany (2001)
• Enneus Heerma Bridge, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2001)
• National Space Centre, Leicester (2001)
• Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, United States (2002)
• 25 Gresham Street, London (2003)
• Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Goodwood plant and headquarters (2003)
• Five Boats, Duisburg, Germany (2005)
• Zurich Airport Expansion (2004)
• The Core, Eden Project (2005)
• Southern Cross railway station, Melbourne, Australia (2007)
• Caixa Galicia Art Gallery, A Coruña, Spain (2006)
• Thermae Bath Spa, Bath (2006)
• Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, New York (2008)
• igus Headquarters and Factory, Cologne, Germany (2000)
• University College London Cancer Institute, England (2007)
• London School of Economics New Academic Building, England (2008)
• London South Bank University K2 (Keyworth II) Building, England (2009)
• Eco Hotel Concept, United States (2011)
• St Botolph Building, London, England (2010)
• Mobilizarte Mobile Pavilion, Brazil (2012)
• Cutty Sark conservation project, London, England (2012)
• Fulton Center, Manhattan, New York (2014)
• Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg, Russia (2014)

Awards and honours

Grimshaw was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2002 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2004. He received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2019.

Bibliography

References

References

1. Steve Rose. (12 October 2007). "Bubble vision". The Guardian.
2. "Nicholas Grimshaw PPRA". Royal Academy of Arts.
3. (19 September 2025). "Nicholas Grimshaw, 85, Dies; British Architect Known for High-Tech Designs". The New York Times.
4. (15 September 2025). "Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, visionary architect behind the Eden Project and Waterloo Eurostar terminal". The Daily Telegraph.
5. "Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw".
6. (13 June 2010). "Sir Nicholas Grimshaw: 'It's quality that matters more than anything". The Independent.
7. (19 December 2003). "Desert Island Discs - Nicholas Grimshaw". BBC.
8. (2009). "L'enjeu capital(es): les métropoles de la grande échelle". [[Centre Pompidou]].
9. Weinfass, Ian. (11 March 2024). "Grimshaw unveils London Waterloo Station masterplan".
10. "Architecture & Emerging: 1994 Jury Proceedings".
11. (2024). "Photography for Architects: Effective Use of Images in Your Architectural Practice". Taylor & Francis.
12. "NIRAH". Grant Associates.
13. (11 June 2019). "Andrew Whalley to become new chairman of Grimshaw Architects".
14. (16 September 2025). "British architect Nicholas Grimshaw Dies at 85".
15. (24 August 2008). "John Russell, Art Critic for The Times, Dies at 89". The New York Times.
16. (14 September 2000). "Nick Grimshaw".
17. (15 September 2025). "Nicholas Grimshaw dies aged 85". Building Design.
18. Bakare, Lanre. (2025-09-29). "‘Nonconformist’ architect of MI6 building Terry Farrell dies aged 87". The Guardian.
19. (1994). "Terry Farrell: Selected and Current Works". Images Publishing Group.
20. (2002). "The Buildings of England: Devon". Yale University Press.
21. (24 September 2008). "Architects and Architecture of London". Routledge.
22. "Bilbao Intermodal Station". Industrial Gradhermetic.
23. "List – Projects".
24. (10 December 2009). "Grimshaw's South Bank K2 exhibits peak performance".
25. "London South Bank University". Pilkington.
26. (27 April 2011). "Grimshaw bags Brazilian mobile art pavilion".
27. "Heriot-Watt University Honorary Graduates".
28. Wainwright, Oliver. (27 September 2018). "Architect Nicholas Grimshaw wins RIBA gold medal". The Guardian.