Tate Liverpool The Auditorium
Saturday 25 June 2011
British architect, teacher and Pritzker Prize laureate James Stirling (1924–92) was one of the most innovative architects of the twentieth century. On Saturday 25 June, the nineteenth anniversary of Stirling’s death, experts will gather at his landmark design, Tate Liverpool, to discuss the influence of the North on his life and work.
Born in Glasgow, Stirling spent much of his childhood in Liverpool and trained at the Liverpool School of Architecture. The rich urban fabric of Liverpool and the North exerted a powerful fascination for Stirling and had a profound influence on the rich architectural language he was to develop.
Professor Robert Maxwell of Princeton University will join Elain Harwood of English Heritage and Brian Hatton of Liverpool John Moores University Architectural Association, for a discussion chaired by Mark Swenarton, James Stirling Professor at the University of Liverpool.
The debate coincides with a major retrospective currently on display in Stirling’s own Clore Gallery at Tate Britain, London
Reflecting on Stirling’s significance to architecture Professor Mark Swenarton commented: “Stirling remains an inspiration to anyone who believes in architecture’s creative potential. It is right to celebrate him as both the greatest British architect since Lutyens and the greatest architect of his day.”
Stirling and the North is organised by RIBA NW in association with the University of Liverpool and Tate Liverpool, is Part of AF2011 the North West Architecture Festival and supported by the Hope Street Hotel