Rodney H Gordon (2 February 1933 – 30 May 2008) was an English

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. He was the primary architect of the

Tricorn Centre The Tricorn Centre was a shopping, nightclub and car park complex in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. It was designed in the Brutalist style by Owen Luder and Rodney Gordon and took its name from the site's shape which from the air resembled ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most d ...

, and

Trinity Square, Gateshead Trinity Square is a shopping and leisure centre in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. The new centre was constructed on the site of former multi-storey car park and shopping complex going by the same name, which originally opened in 1967. The fo ...

. Architecturally, his works were primarily in

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

; he was said to be a

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

and his buildings have been described as "dramatic, sculptural and enormous" as well as "futuristic".

Biography

Gordon was born on 2 February 1933 in

Wanstead Wanstead () is a town in East London, England, in the London Borough of Redbridge. It borders South Woodford to the north, Redbridge to the east and Forest Gate to the south, with Leytonstone and Walthamstow to the west. It is located 8 mi ...

, East London to Chilean-born Carmen F (Poirier) and East London-born Hyman Jacob Hyman. His mother was from the naval port of

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Are ...

Tierra Del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

, the southernmost city on Earth, overlooking the Straits of Magellan. Situated astride one of the world's historic trade routes, its prosperity has risen and fallen with that trade. Gordon's mother left there sometime in the 1920s and returned to London, England, where her parents had been living sometime before they left for Chile around 1903. They had initially come to London in the 1880s or 1890s to escape the Pogroms of Russia and Eastern Europe. He went to University College Hospital Medical School at the age of 16 but then, two years later inspired by the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

, he switched to the Hammersmith School of Building, going on to the

Architectural Association School of Architecture The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...

, where he studied under the distinguished German Jewish modernist architect and urban planner

Arthur Korn Arthur Korn (20 May 1870 – 21 December/22 December 1945) was a German physicist, mathematician and inventor. He was involved in the development of the fax machine, specifically the transmission of photographs or telephotography, known as the ...

, before graduating in 1957. He then went to work at the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kn ...

(LCC) architects department for which he designed his first great work, the Michael Faraday Memorial at Elephant and Castle. In 1959 he was introduced to Owen Luder by a colleague from the LCC and by the end of the year he was working for him in the ''Owen Luder Partnership'' for which he designed the Eros House. In the 1970s he founded ''Batir International Architects'', which later became ''Tripos Architects'', with Ray Baum and Larry Abbot. It was during this time, at the age of 42, that he suffered a heart attack from overwork. In 1979 he designed his last work for Batir, a bronze- and aluminium-clad commercial complex on St James's Street, London.

Personal life

He was married and had one child but was later divorced. He was a passionate skier and founded the ''Uphill Ski Club'' which helps teach the physically handicapped to ski. He died on 30 May 2008 at the age of 75.

References

External links

Documentary snapshot of the Tricorn Center with comments by the architect Rodney Gordon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Rodney Architects from London Brutalist architects 1933 births 2008 deaths People from Wanstead Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture