Architect Chris Wilkinson, co-founder of WilkinsonEyre architectural studio with Jim Eyre and winner of two RIBA Stirling Prizes, passed away on December 14 at the age of 76. The announcement was made on the studio’s official Twitter account on December 16.
On December 16, 2021 a brief message on the officialWilkinsonEyreTwitter account announced the death of the studio’s co-founder and director, architectChris Wilkinson. The British architect died suddenly at the age of 76, taking everyone by surprise.
Chris Wilkinsonwas not only an architect but an artist. He began painting in the 1990s, finding a sense of freedom in painting. The connections between art and architecture were very important for him, and in 2006 he was appointed an academician of the Royal Academy of Arts. After working with world-famous architects such asNorman Foster, Michael Hopkins and Richard Rogers, he foundedChris Wilkinson Architectsin 1983.Jim Eyrejoined the studio in 1987, and in 1999 the two of them foundedWilkinsonEyre.
Within a decadeWilkinsonEyrehad risen to international prominence, thanks largely to a number of significant projects such as the Jubilee Line for the London Underground,Stratford Station and the Stratford Market Depot, which Chris Wilkinson considered his most revolutionary project. Other important projects includeMagna Science Adventure Centrein Rotherham and theGateshead Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian and cycling tilt bridge over the River Tyne. These two constructions won WilkinsonEyre the RIBA Stirling Prize for two years in a row, 2001 and 2002. The studio’s fame grew when it placed first in important design competitions in the United Kingdom and abroad, constructing projects such asGuangzhou International Finance Centrein China, winner of the 2012 RIBA Lubetkin Prize, the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, in the United Kingdom, Singapore’sCooled Conservatories in the Gardens by the Baycomplex, winner of the 2013 RIBA Lubetkin Prize, and theCrown Sydney Resort Hotel(One Barangaroo), which has become an essential landmark on the waterfront of Australia’s Darling Harbour.
For his contributions to architecture,Chris Wilkinsonwas appointed to the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Millennium Honours list, elected an academician at the Royal Academy of Arts, and awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the American Institute of Architecture and honorary doctorates at Westminster University and Oxford Brookes University.
Chris Wilkinsonsaw architecture as a bridge between art and science, a concept which became essential to the studio’s way of working and which the architect expressed in his drawings, paintings and writings. The projects he worked on over the course of his career were all based on thorough, rigorous study revealing the specific features of the projects’ natural or urban context and his clients’ needs and requests, an approach which gave every single project its own unique character. Discussing his career in an interview in December 2020, the architect called himself lucky for having been able to work at the time of Modernism, and above all for experimenting with the high-tech approach to architecture employed by studios such as those of Foster, Hopkins and later Rogers, with whom he was involved in projects such as Lloyd’s of London. This background drove him to continue exploring new technologies, incorporating into them a poetic approach with stronger ties to narration, adding depth and significance to his built projects, as demonstrated in one of his most recent projects,Lille Langebrocycling and pedestrian bridge designed by WilkinsonEyre and Urban Agency in Copenhagen, among thefinalistsfor the 2021 RIBA International Prize.
(Agnese Bifulco)
Images courtesy ofWilkinsonEyreand RIBA
Project Name: Lille Langebro
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Architects:WilkinsonEyreandUrban Agency
Photos: Rasmus Hjortshøj (02-11)
Chris Wilkinson's Portrait by Rob Greig (01)
