Will Alsop died after a short illness on May 12, 2018. He was one of the most original architects of the late XX - early XXI centuries. He declared himself back in his student years, when he took second place in the competition for the Pompidou Center project in Paris, losing only to Rogers and Piano.
In the 1990s, his bureau implemented, together with Ostozhenka, two office buildings in Moscow, which for obvious reasons turned out to be more restrained than Olsop usually preferred (later he did other projects for Moscow, including the complex in Zaryadye, but all of them remained on paper). In the same years, he built the rich blue administration building of the Bouches-du-Rhône department in Marseille, several facilities in Germany. In England, success came to him with the Peckham District Library in London, which earned him the highest national architectural award, the Stirling Prize.
His other most famous - and consistently flamboyant and challenging representations of imagery and typology - include The Public Gallery in West Bromwich and the Sharp Design Center of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, mounted on multicolored feet and covered in pixel art. "Speckled".
In recent years, he often changed architectural firms, the fantastic nature of his projects was less and less combined with the spirit of economy that reigned after the 2008 crisis, The Public had to be closed and turned into a college - all this did not contribute to the image of a solid partner, however, at the head of his last workshop, aLL Design he found great creative freedom working for Chinese clients. According to him, you can discuss architecture with them "in essence", while in Britain everyone is now too afraid of any risk.
If possible, not parting with a glass of wine and a pack of cigarettes (
read, for example, his interview for Archi.ru), Alsop, nevertheless, could and knew how to support young talents and propose new ways of developing architecture - and also believe that it can bring people "joy and delight."
