25 Facts About Will Alsop

William Allen Alsop was a British architect and Professor of Architecture at University for the Creative Arts's Canterbury School of Architecture.

Will Alsop was responsible for several distinctive and controversial modernist buildings which are usually distinguished by their use of bright colours and unusual avant-garde forms.

In 2000, Alsop won the Stirling Prize, the most prestigious architecture award in the United Kingdom, for the Peckham Library in London.

Will Alsop was greatly influenced by his drawing tutor, Henry Bird while at foundation course at Northampton Art School.

Will Alsop recalled how he was taught to draw by him.

Will Alsop gave me a brick, told me to draw it and promptly left the room.

Will Alsop worked briefly for Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, a couple who had been instrumental in introducing modernism to Britain in the 1930s, then joined Cedric Price for four years.

Will Alsop's first major commission was a swimming pool for Sheringham in Norfolk in 1984, followed by a visitor centre for Cardiff Bay.

In 1992, Will Alsop came first, against competitor Norman Foster, in the competition to design the Hotel du departement des Bouches-du-Rhone in Marseille, France.

Will Alsop admitted to never being very good at handling finances, and his practice went through several difficult periods, including the cancellation in June 2004 of plans to build a "Fourth Grace" to be built on Liverpool's Pier Head waterfront.

In early 2006, Will Alsop sold his practice to a design conglomerate called the SMC Group to concentrate on architecture.

Will Alsop was a tutor of sculpture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London for several years, and has held many other academic posts, among others at the Vienna University of Technology, Universities of London and Hannover, and actively promotes the artistic contribution to built environments.

In 2013, Will Alsop became Professor of Architecture at the University for the Creative Arts's Canterbury School of Architecture.

Will Alsop has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and was elected to the Royal Academy on 18 May 2000.

In 2004, Will Alsop published a book entitled Supercity which elicited much debate.

Will Alsop featured significantly in Iain Sinclair's book Ghost Milk, especially the chapter "In the belly of the architect".

Will Alsop was an ongoing professor of architecture at the Vienna University of Technology and received many honorary doctorates such as the honorary Doctorate of Civil Law by the University of East Anglia and honorary doctorates at Ryerson University and OCAD University.

Will Alsop was known to be constantly drawing and painting either for his architectural work or for his own sake.

Will Alsop was a patron of the charity The Nightingale Project Archived 16 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine, which uses the arts to enhance the environment in hospitals, and has exhibited his paintings in a London hospital under the auspices of this charity.

Will Alsop conducted a series of workshops with psychiatric patients at London's St Charles, Chelsea and Westminster hospitals, creating large communal artworks.

Will Alsop has been chair of the board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation.

Will Alsop had a twin sister who still lives in Northampton.

Will Alsop would try to relax as much as possible on weekends and took a month off in the summer to go painting in Menorca with his friend Bruce McLean.

Will Alsop was, according to an April 2007 article in The Observer, "obviously not a man familiar with gyms".

Will Alsop died in London after a short illness on 12 May 2018 at the age of 70.