In 1981, Ian Ritchie established his own practice, Ian Ritchie Architects, on the basis of a possible commission for a private house from Ursula Colahan. Since 1978, Ian Ritchie had been working part-time as a consultant at Arup within Peter Rice’s Lightweight Structures Group, and also with Peter Rice on the Shelterspan system. He was also a partner in Chrysalis Architects and teaching at the AA with Mike Davies and Alan Stanton.
In the same year, Peter Rice had been approached by the French Government to help on the design of the new Museum of Science, Technology and Industry at La Villette. The design competition had been won by Adrien Fainsilber. Peter Rice was not too keen on undertaking the “structural steelwork” of the project, but was interested by the proposed glass facades and glass domes on the roof. Peter Rice invited Martin Francis and Ian Ritchie to join him. Martin Francis lived in France, designing yachts, and would be able to bring an extra expertise – industrial design – to the project. Martin Francis and Ian Ritchie were friends, and had worked together while at Foster Associates on the Willis Faber & Dumas office building in Ipswich. Rice Francis Ritchie, a design engineering practice, was formed on an equal basis between the three principle directors. The first engineer to join was Henry Bardsley, who was a key member of Arup’s engineering team, under the direction of Peter Rice, on the Centre Pompidou and in the Piano-Rice Partnership.
During the following six years, Ian Ritchie divided his time between London and Paris. Eagle Rock House for Mrs. Colahan was completed in England in 1982 and Jean Nouvel invited Ian Ritchie to exhibit the design of Eagle Rock House at the first Biennales de Paris des Jeunes Artistes. The seminal work of RFR La Villette was completed in France in 1986. Design work on the Louvre Pyramids and Sculpture Courts had begun in 1984, and the design of the ‘Cloud’ at the Arch at La Défense in 1987.
RFR combined, in a seamless working relationship, engineering, architecture and industrial design. RFR convinced Ian Ritchie that the project is the most important thing, that everyone owns the problems but nobody the solution. Different professionals do bring different skills at the appropriate moments during a project, but that all, when on an equal basis, genuinely contribute to the solution. RFR embedded a belief that collaboration, based upon trust and confidence in one’s colleagues, is a principal key to success.
Ian Ritchie retired as a Director of RFR in 1987, in order to focus upon his own architectural practice in London, remaining a consultant until 1989. He continued to work closely with Peter Rice on the Louvre Sculpture Courts until they were completed, and on other projects from Ian Ritchie Architects in London. Martin Francis continues with his naval architecture and design office in the south of France. He took a pivotal role with Peter Rice in transferring RFR into the hands of senior staff prior to Peter’s untimely death in October 1992. An RFR advisory board was established in 1992, which included Martin, Sylvia Rice and Joseph Belmont.
RFR continues to be one of Europe’s leading and innovative design engineering companies.
Ian Ritchie’s first building, the Fluy House exploiting solar energy was completed in 1978, and since leaving RFR several projects have been completed in France by Ian Ritchie Architects including the multi-million pound Albert Cultural Centre which was also construction managed by Ian Ritchie Architects, the Boves Pharmacy – a totally pre-fabricated building designed and engineered only by telephone and fax between London and Epinal, Daours nursery and primary school, and with Kathryn Gustafson the Terrasson Cultural Greenhouse in the new Gardens of the Imagination.
Ian Ritchie Architects has gone on to realise and contribute to other major new works throughout Europe, including the Reina Sofia Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, the Leipzig Glass Hall, The Spire in Dublin, the Theatre Royal Production Centre in Plymouth, Bermondsey Station Jubilee Line Extension, London Regatta Centre, the master plan and transport infrastructure and stations at Whitecity (Westfield) in London, and the RSC Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Ian Ritchie Architects collaborated with RFR and Kathryn Gustafson on the design of a new generation of high voltage EDF Pylons, completed in 1999, and the first were erected across the Rhône in 2000. In 2011, Ian Ritchie Architects, with Anne Christopher RA and Jane Wernick Associates were the top British design and laureate in the UK National Grid pylon competition. Since 2009, Ian Ritchie Architects has been designing a major neuroscience research centre at UCL London, an opera theatre at the Royal Academy of Music, University of London, a master plan adjacent to Edinburgh Castle, mixed-use developments, football stadia, and several cultural projects in Britain.
The creative design philosophy of the practice emerged from a research and investigative approach based upon its social, aesthetic, and ecological values allied to spatial, physical, and technical performance within the political and landscape context. Since the 1980s, Ian Ritchie Architects has enjoyed collaborations with artists, mathematicians, physicists, musicians and others, some very well known, others less so, but all to the benefit of the client’s project. As a result, the practice has cultivated a non-style which makes most of its architecture unrecognizable as that of one architect. However, during the 1990s Ian Ritchie Architects did become world renowned among the built environment professions for their glass structures, material-technical innovation and intelligent environmental and sustainable design. The range of work also expanded during this period into exhibition concepts and design, landscape, applied science, industrial R&D, and more recently into industrial design, furniture and lighting design.
Ian Ritchie Architects has won more than 40 competitions, premiated in 40 more and received more than 60 national and international awards. These awards include the Iritecna Prize for Europe, Eric Lyons Memorial Award for European Housing, Commonwealth Association of Architects Award for Innovation and the Advancement of Architecture, IABSE (International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineers) Millennium Outstanding Structure Award, two UK Millennium Product Awards, many Civic Trust and RIBA Awards and been shortlisted for the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize on four occasions and for the Mies Van der Rohe European Prize.
The practice’s work has been very widely published in books, reviews and journals, extensively exhibited in the UK and internationally and several films on the work have been produced.
Publications include: (well) Connected Architecture, Ian Ritchie (1994), published by Academy Editions, UK, and Ernst & Sohn, Germany; The biggest glass palace in the world, Ian Ritchie & Ingerid Helsing Almaas (1997), published by Ellipsis, New York; Ian Ritchie, Technoecologia, Alessandro Rocca, published by Motta, Italy (1998) and in the USA (1999) as Ian Ritchie, Technoecology, Whitney Library of Design, New York; Plymouth Theatre Royal Production Centre (2003), The Spire (2004) and The RSC Courtyard Theatre (2006) all published by Categorical Books, The Leipzig Book of Drawings (2007), The Royal Academy of Arts. Ian Ritchie’s autobiography, Being: An Architect, will be published in 2012 by the Royal Academy.