Picture the scene – the garden of an East Anglian manor house in early October in the late 1970s. A group of gauche first year architecture students are enjoying the hospitality of their tutor (the widow of an eminent professor of architecture at a Fenland university) and the company of the great and the good. Alison and Peter are prominent in batik, but many another brutalist hogs the bar. A circle of students are joined by a large man in a blue shirt, slightly perspiring as the evening draws in. A faux- suave nineteen year old decides to break the ice. He clears his throat, restrains his natural air of condescension, and asks the stranger “So, are you an architect?â€. Silence follows as James Stirling turns and walks away…
James Stirling 22 April 1926 – 25 June 1992