Kirjahaku

A compelling personal account of Terry Farrell’s life in architecture, as an influential Postmodern designer, architect-planner and principal of a leading global practice. What have the defining projects and watershed moments and encounters been in Farrell's career? How has did he secure significant building projects such as Charing Cross, The MI6 Building and Beijing South Station? What have the highs and lows been in realising such large-scale schemes? Providing the inside view of what it is like to be an architect at the top of his profession, this autobiography highlights what it takes to develop a successful international practice. Farrell, alongside his High-Tech contemporaries, was a game-changer in the way he ran his business, with a deep commitment to marketing and finance. Working with the private sector, he made a complete break from a previous post-war generation of firms that were almost solely reliant on publicly funded building programmes. Tracing the story of his early life growing up in Greater Manchester and then on the post-war Grange Estate in Newcastle, before attending Newcastle University and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and subsequently setting up in practice in London with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in 1965, it highlights how Farrell, despite his working-class background, was able to seize the opportunities provided to him in the 1950s through free access to education. Featuring a richly illustrated full-colour section, including photos from his own private collection and images of Farrell’s most significant buildings, this book is a window into the life and career of one of Britain’s leading architects.

In this wholly new and dynamic view of London, Farrell looks beyond the contribution of individual buildings to the city. He creates a larger, more exciting frame, charting how the capital’s messy and complex shape has been hewn out of a series of layers – natural and manmade, so the Thames and the natural landscape gets as much attention as the railway infrastructure, the roads and the canals. This provides a whole series of revelations that allow us to see the city afresh: How might the natural bends in the river have impacted where and what was built? How have the Thames’ tributaries affected historic boundaries and development, played out in the estates of Mayfair? How is the Roman plan for the city of London still discernible in today’s street patterns? Illustrated with original sketches, maps, archive photographs and paintings, this book provides a vibrant and intriguing collage of London’s patterns and its history. Covers: • The Thames at West London, Central London, Docklands and the Estuary • Tributaries • Canals • Railways • The London Underground • The natural landscape