422 After the International Style: The Late Twentieth Century

ideal gallery space for the display of modern 21.8 (left) Norman Foster,
Willis, Faber & Dumas offices,
art. Other projects by Foster include the Law
Ipswich, England, 1970–5.
Faculty Building at Cambridge, England
A three-story office building for
(1995), which uses a high-tech truss structure the insurance company has an
of half-cylindrical form as a glazed shell above open central atrium, in which
the escalators connect the
multi-level platforms holding stacks and read- floors and introduce movement
ing areas; a spectacularly tall skyscraper tower into the areas where 1,300
office building in Hong Kong for the Shanghai workers are accommodated.
The visible structural framing
National Bank (1986); and the Sackler Galleries, of the skylight at roof level and
a new interior inserted into a courtyard in the the aluminum strips forming
Royal Academy in London (1991), which uses ceiling panels emphasize the
technological focus of the
subtle detailing to relate the classicism of the building’s design. Yellow wall
older buildings and the art they contain to the panels and green flooring
technically advanced new spaces. A contem- establish a bright and colorful
atmosphere.
porary art gallery and médiathèque, the Carré
d’Art (1984–93), in Nîmes, France, places a
glass-fronted grouping opposite the Maison
Carrée, an ancient Roman temple. Foster also
designed the Millennium Bridge (1999/2002),
a striking modern structure that crosses the
Thames to London’s regenerated South Bank
and the Tate Modern.

The most widely noted of Stirling’s later

Stirling
James Stirling (1926–92), a British archi-
tect, began his career as a proponent of
work is the addition to the Neue Staatsgalerie
21.9 James Stirling,
in Stuttgart, Germany (1979–84), which Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart,
moves away from technology and toward a Germany, 1977–84.

high-tech style but is generally considered a more adventurous direction; it is primarily A central courtyard—really a
room open to the sky—forms
post-modernist, largely on the strength of his this project that labeled him a post-modernist. the core of the art gallery,
later work, though he himself did not favor Gallery spaces are set around a circular court- which was a modern addition
the designation. Early projects include the yard (21.9) where marble walls, statuary (from to an older museum building.
Statuary, an arcade of stone
Engineering Building at Leicester University the museum’s collection), and a portal using faced in marble, and stubby
in England (1959, with James Gowan as a part- stubby versions of Tuscan columns make ref- Tuscan columns at the
ner), which attracted wide attention with its erences to historic architectural styles. The entrance point on the left hint
at a movement toward post-
glass office tower, wedge-shaped adjacent building is totally original, but still suggests modernism. A winding ramp
blocks containing lecture halls, and ship’s- complex relationships to classical art and leads to an upper level.
funnel-like ventilator. The exposed structure
and mechanistic qualities of the interior also
suggest the engineering-related role of the
building. The History Faculty Building (1964–
7) at Cambridge University, England, is mostly
devoted to a library, with a large gallery atrium
topped with glass skylight roofing. Here again
the mechanics of structure set the character
of the large and impressive interior space. As
Stirling’s career progressed, the technologi-
cal emphasis of his work moved toward a more
complex range of expression. At the Olivetti
training facility in Haslemere, England (1969),
interiors were more flexible, so that a “multi-
space” could be converted to accommodate
meetings of varying size and character. Glazed
galleries with ramped circulation paths con-
nect elements of the building.

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