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Breaking news: RIBA Royal Gold Medal-winning architect Michael Hopkins, who was one of the early pioneers of high-tech architecture, has died aged 88.

Hopkins, who was one of the UK’s most influential architects, “died peacefully at the age of 88 surrounded by his family”, his wife Patty Hopkins told the Guardian.

A pioneer of high-tech architecture in the 1970s and 80s, Michael Hopkins along with Patty Hopkins, was responsible for some of the style’s most significant early works and developing the later historicist high-tech style.

He was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, jointly with Patty Hopkins, in 1994. Projects designed by his studio have been shortlisted for the UK’s top architecturee award – the Stirling Prize – four times.

Influential buildings designed by Hopkins Architects include the industrial-looking Hopkins House, the Schlumberger Research Centre, Westminster Underground Station, Portcullis House and the Olympic Velodrome.

Born in Poole, Dorset, Michael Hopkins studied at London’s Architectural Association under tutors Cedric Price, Bob Maxwell and Peter Smithson, before joining Foster Associates (now Foster + Partners).

At Foster Associates he was the project architect for the highly influential Willis Building in Ipswich, before leaving to establish Hopkins Architects with Patty Hopkins in 1976.

The studio’s first project was Hopkins House in Hampstead. The stripped-back home, which combined glass and a modular framework of mass-produced components, was a translation of the industrial aesthetic being developed by the high-tech architects to a domestic scale. The couple would go on to live in the house their entire lives.

Following the Hopkins House, the studio continued to develop high-tech buildings throughout the 1980s included the Greene King warehouse in Bury St Edmunds, Patera Building System concept, Schlumberger Research Centre in Cambridge and Mound Stand at Lord’s Cricket ground in London.

In the 1990s the studio developed the style to include more historical elements with Bracken House in London and Nottingham’s Inland Revenue Centre both incorporating brick and stone. The development of historic high-tech culminated at Portcullis House alongside the UK Parliament, which was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2001.

Hopkins Architects remains one of the UK’s largest studios and was shortlisted a further three times for the Stirling Prize in the 21st century for the Evelina Children’s Hospital, Olympic Velodrome and 100 Liverpool Street – all in London.

More to follow…

The photography is courtesy of Hopkins Architects.

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