Ian Ritchie Architects
110 Three Colt Street
London
E14 8AZ
t: +44 (0)20 7338 1100
In 1981 Ian Ritchie established his own architectural practice – Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd. (iRAL) and co-founded Rice Francis Ritchie (RFR) a design engineering practice in Paris – with Peter Rice and Martin Francis.
RFR did seminal work on glass and fabric structures during the 80s on the Museum of Science, Technology and Industry at La Villette, and the Louvre – pyramids and sculpture courts.
By the 1990s iRAL had become world-renowned for their glass architecture, material-technical innovation and intelligent environmental and sustainable design – of which iRAL’s most recent major projects, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (2016), and Royal Academy of Music Theatre and Recital Hall in London, (2018) are an evolution.
iRAL has won over 60 competitions in Europe and the UK and received over 90 national and international awards.
In this book extract Ian Ritchie RA reveals the deeper meaning of his life as an architect
A career in architecture engages with so many disciplines and aspects of life it is impossible not to enjoy it. The cyclical phenomena of nature – day following night following day, the life-regenerating cycle of the seasons – provide evidence for the Taoist paradigm. Successes and failures in architecture are part of the duality of being alive – happy and sad, good and bad, life and death. I am reminded that no amount of darkness can extinguish a candle’s flame. This is why, for me, optimism always prevails.
Architecture provides a physical reference to our cultural past and, at the point of conception, both expresses and gives us confidence to imagine a better future.
Beyond utility and aesthetics, built architecture has a metaphysical role - it shapes the emotions and behaviours of those who will live with it.
A metaphysical inquiry into the nature of space, structure and light is essential to envisage architecture that will lift the human spirit.
When the elements of this trinity are in harmony, a tangible sense of wholeness and serenity imbues an architecture that is able to touch the mind through the observer’s senses.
Architecture makes the existential tangible, and our sense of place is both a response to our physical environment and a cultural creation.
110 Three Colt Street
London
E14 8AZ
t: +44 (0)20 7338 1100