DOODLES: STIRLING WILFORD AND ASSOCIATES, 1984–2000


Victoria Gallery
 Liverpool
2021

The architectural trajectory of James Stirling has always been considered that of the individual genius, whilst acknowledging his close links to certain educational and working companions: his lifetime maestro Colin Rowe; the partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford, and the Associates, Laurence Bain and Russell Bevington. Without diminishing the importance and the inspirational role of one of the most creative designers of the twentieth century, the everyday practice appears more varied and collaborative than one might imagine.

Through selected documentation held in the archive of the Associates, the exhibition, Doodles: Drawing and thinking architecture at Stirling Wilford and Associates, 1984–2000, analyses the architectural production of the last fifteen years of the firm, when the practice moved from Gloucester Place to Fitzroy Square. The exploration includes the schemes for Tate Liverpool, Number 1 Poultry, Palazzo Citterio, Carlton Gardens, Singapore Polytechnic and the Lowry, all challenges that were started with ‘Big Jim’, but significantly completed by the office. After the commissions for the red trilogy (Leicester, Cambridge and Oxford), the German museums, the high-tech experiments and the American universities, these late projects are a clear expression of a ‘monumentally informal’ production – to use Stirling’s own words.

The display is enriched with materials from several other individuals, including documents from the personal archives of Mark Girouard, author of the 1998 biography of Stirling, and of Richard Bryant, who has photographed most of the work of the firm since the Stuttgart New State Gallery. Excerpts from Michael Blackwood’s Stirling (1986) and a new documentary by Annalisa Sonzogni (Doodles, 2021) complete the exhibition.







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我们是一家位于伦敦和上海的跨学科实验艺术和建筑策展工作室，通过多媒体，交互影像和空间策展来探讨研究社会议题。我们以设计作为媒介，重新创造和延展对现实的讨论和不同的可能性。
About Us

We are a London-and-Shanghai-based multidisciplinary art and curatorial practice retelling social stigmas through interactive films and space curation. We chose to reside in the in-between and recreate from the othered - the stigmatised - revealing and reinventing different versions of realities. We value a collaborative nature in our works, as we work closely with marginalised groups and always aim to provoke discussion with a wider audience across different fields.