At an event in London on 13 February, architect Piers Gough received an Honorary Fellowship from the RIAI. The presentation was made in the presence of RIAI President, Ciaran O’Connor; two Past Presidents of the RIAI, Carole Pollard and David Browne; Angela Brady OBE, Past President of the RIBA; and RIAI CEO Kathryn Meghen.
Speaking at the event, David Browne referred to “a mutual appreciation of the very fine architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens” by Ciaran O’Connor and Piers Goff: “Piers has been an advocate of Lutyen’s work for a long time and designed an exhibition of his work at the Hayward gallery in 1981-82. Ciaran, for his part, was instrumental in the restoration of Edwin Lutyens’ War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, Dublin.
“I first met Piers and his CZWG colleagues when we were joint winners of a competition for Newcastle 900 in 1980 which was about reimagining their marvellous 1000m long quayside. Derek Heavey, then my partner and still my partner, and I designed a nice formal residential scheme. However, Piers and CZWG’s scheme was wonderfully flamboyant – a beautiful 1 kilometre long Quayside roller coaster spelling out the word ‘Quayside’ – a real harbinger of great things to come.”
David Browne also read a citation for Piers Gough: “Piers established CZWG with Nick Campbell, Rex Wilkinson and Roger Zogolovitch in 1975. He is one of Britain’s leading architects, widely recognised as a writer and leader in the profession and always with unshakeable enthusiasm for uncompromising modern architecture. He has led the design of many of CZWG’s buildings over the years and also exhibitions on extraordinary architects such as Edwin Lutyens, John Soane and Giles Gilbert.
“Words and thoughts such as optimism, positivity, colour, enlivening, brave, designed around people, never drab or background are what I think of when I think of Piers and his work. He has said “All architects have to be optimistic to survive,” I am sure that he and CZWG, will go on building housing that in his words “has tended towards the flamboyant and heroic as a counter-balance to dreariness”.
Denise Maguire
Editor of Plan Magazine
Email: denise@mcdmedia.ie
