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1981 Pritzker Laureate - Sir James Frazer Stirling Sir  James Frazer Stirling, 1926-1992, of Great Britain was one of that country's best-known architects particularly since his 1963 project at Leicester University, the engineering building. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he took his architecture degree at Liverpool University, but set up his practice in London. In addition to the Leicester project already mentioned, his other major works at the time he was awarded the Pritzker Prize included a training center for Olivetti in Hasselemere; a History Building for Cambridge University; an expansion of Rice University in Texas, and numerous low cost housing projects, and residences. Since 1981, he has completed a major social sciences center in Berlin; a Performing Arts Center for Cornell University; and such major museum projects as the Clore Gallery expansion for the Tate Gallery in London; the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, an addition to Harvard's Fogg Museum; and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany. In an article written in 1979 for Contemporary Architects, Stirling said, "I believe that the shapes of a building should indicate—perhaps display—the usage and way of life of its occupants, and it is therefore likely to be rich and varied in appearance, and its expression is unlikely to be simple...in a building we did at Oxford some years ago, it was intended that you could recognize the historic elements of courtyard, entrance gate towers, cloisters; also a central object replacing the traditional fountain or statue of the college founder. In this way we hoped that students and public would not be disassociated from their cultural past. The particular way in which functional-symbolic elements are put together may be the "art" in the architecture." "If the expression of functional-symbolic forms and familiar elements is foremost, the expression of structure will be secondary, and if structure shows, it is not in my opinion, the engineering which counts, but the way in which the building is put together that is
important." Udo Kulterman, writing in the same publication, said "Stirling's concept of contemporary architecture is concerned with the humanization of the environment. Humanistic considerations dominate all technological, economic and aesthetic preconceived ideas and ideologies. Architecture has to re-establish its own criteria for evaluation; for Stirling this obviously means creating in harmony with common sense, tradition, the existing environment, and a concern for people."
James Stirling talks to Tony Russell of the BBC on 5 July 1986 (never broadcast) [MP3 files] 1 - Influence of father and Liverpool
2 - Architecture school and artistic influences
3 - Architecture and Technology
4 - Problems in planning public and private buildings
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