A roof that curves subtly and stretches out to the distance, columns that are robust yet elegant, an overall shape that seems organic but is basically ambivalent and does not evoke any particular association: the recently completed Bijlmer Station in the south of Amsterdam is clearly not purely functionalist. Construction, space and light meld to form an impressive alliance. It is hard to believe that it was designed by an architecture office that started over thirty years ago with the purism of unadorned structure and modular geometry. Nicholas Grimshaw founded a practice immediately after completing his studies in 1965 and soon associated himself with three partners. Some years ago the office changed its name to Grimshaw Architects ltd; the partners became equals and their number has now grown to thirteen. Is the exuberant architecture of Bijlmer Station related to the changes in the organisation?

‘I think we all subscribe to similar values,’ Nicholas Grimshaw explained in his office in london. ‘We have our brand name of course. We used to be called Grimshaw and Partners. Now the name Grimshaw is a brand. It cannot be sold, and everybody has equal shares. The nearest analogy I can find is the engineering company ove Arup. They have done very well with being a brand. Some engineering firms are endlessly bought, sold, combined and merged, but Arup stays out of all of that. Arup has a strong reputation for integrity and research, for not really being part of the commercial world. In our company, there is a strong ethic of concentrating on engineering, detailing and materials. We also have a policy of doing projects across a vast field. We never let ourselves get typecast, because typecasting is disastrous for an architecture firm. We are, rather, intellectually- based and we love taking on new types of building – analysing what it is all about, what the site is about, and creating our answer to that. We are also very self critical. Every Wednesday we hold a design review. We go through one or two projects and tear them apart. You might think this is an exaggerated kind of democracy, but a good design has a certain naturalness to it. It will stand up for itself in an obvious way. We don’t want to be one of those style-based firms where people just look at the image of a building. We like to feel that the building grows out of studying the site, the ground. And a dialogue with the client also plays a big part.’

- Still, the difference in your designs is remarkable. In the sixties they were austere, simple and geometrical. They were based on a system. Does the change have anything to do with the way your office is organized?
‘i have always insisted on being a practising architect, not a theoretical architect; just as a doctor has to be a doctor and needs to have practical skills. I have never worked for anyone else. I built it all up and learned it by myself. If you want to work as an architect you have to deal with the jobs you can get. My first job I got through an uncle who worked for an organisation that provided accommodation for students from Africa. There was a nice row of houses, and he thought they just needed a little fixing up. It turned out to be a big job. The second project was a house for myself and my then partner, because we didn’t have anywhere else to live. Later we did some industrial jobs, and we started to use industrial techniques on school buildings. The schools were very cheap buildings, and we only had the structure to play with for generating a little excitement. So our designs have grown naturally from the type of jobs we got.’
- Does that apply to the extravagance of more recent designs? Or is it a case of loosening up as you get older? ‘Both, certainly, and also connecting with what is going on around you. Computers did a lot to enlarge the possibilities. We ditched all our drawing boards in 1988. That is the year we started on Waterloo station. I don’t think we could have done that without computers, because it was a tricky job with all those curves. We were determined to develop a system, one that was able to take the curvature of the rails into account. We spent about six months trying to find a way to vary the span using standard components. As in former projects, I held to the idea of modularity. I realized that you could create all kinds of curved shapes and still use a system – as long as the system is flexible enough. Soon after Waterloo station, we started on the eden Project, which also involved using a system of components.’
- Why are you so interested in systems? Is the aim to eliminate designing, the personal handwriting, and surrender to neutrality? ‘i think they are more like a DNA. DNA is a system, yet we are all different. As architects we also started with a kind of DNA – the components – and what emerged from it was Waterloo station. We found a company in Coventry which made hip joints in stainless steel. They loved the idea of diversifying into the building industry and using the same precision casting systems to make building components. For us, it is always a two way process. You have an idea for a building, then you think how to develop components, then you go back to the building and you change the design of the components. It is essential not to be a slave to any system.’ Boats have always inspired Nicholas Grimshaw, especially their three-dimensional curved geometry. There is nothing redundant in the design of a boat. A yacht does not have any decoration; everything does its job and nothing is designed just for the sake of it. ‘it could serve as a definition of modernism: stripping away redundant decoration. I once stayed in a Palladio villa. You could almost call him the first modernist, because he tried to strip away unnecessary detail. He does use decoration to some extent, but his designs are wonderfully stripped down.’

- In your buildings, the decoration seems to be in the structural details. You have an almost exaggerated way of showing the details of components like bolts, girders and trusses. ‘We are not trying to deny the idea of beauty. What is functional can be very beautiful. But I wouldn’t call that decoration. I would call it expressing the form, the forces; expressing what is happening in there. Take for instance the brackets in our office building in Gresham street. They are not ornaments, they are an essential part of the building. And they happen to be beautiful. It has to do with proportion, shape and materials. I always have loved trying to understand the way things come together. I notice the same fascination in my two year old grandson when he is playing with lego. He takes a block, looks at it, turns it around and then works out how to fit things together. I truly believe people derive satisfaction from seeing joints and mechanical details. Consider the Golden Gate Bridge in san Francisco. Everybody loves it. But it is just a bridge. That is about the most functional thing you could possibly have, the most efficient way of spanning a distance. They were pushing bridge technology to the very limit, that was all.’
- Why is understanding a building so important? ‘Well, that is not easy to say. It has become a european tradition. After the second World War, europe diverged from America. We were poor and covering things up cost money, so we exposed everything, even concrete. Our buildings were utilitarian and very basic. Whereas America was the land of the cover-up. They had suspended walls, ceilings and floors. You could never see what was going on. Architecture in America is skin deep. But I think people get satisfaction from understanding a building, understanding the logic and the simplicity of how it works. It is almost a physical sensation to see how weight is distributed. My early training in edinburgh was old-fashioned. I remember one of our first student projects was to support a brick with whatever material we could lay our hands on. So we used straws, sugar cubes and all kinds of things. The idea of the exercise was to become aware of how loads could be transferred to the ground.’
- Steel construction seems to be a persistent thread in your oeuvre. Do you have a special preference for structural steel? ‘i also like wood. Timber. To some extent it has the same properties as steel. It’s possible to make very lightweight trusses from timber. You could say I love to realize the potential of materials. As far as steel is concerned, we have a strong tradition of steel frame construction in Great Britain. We had Paxton’s Crystal Palace, and Brunel with his wonderful bridges. I am not the only one to cite those sources of inspiration. So do Norman Foster, richard rogers and michael hopkins. The Crystal Palace was a seminal building because Paxton went into the componentization so carefully. He created shapes and forms exactly as I was saying earlier, using purpose-designed small components. He was a pioneer who led the way for all of us. I think he was actually working in a tradition which is part of the Britisch psyche – going back perhaps to the cathedral builders. British cathedrals are pretty minimalist. The tradition of shipbuilding was also relevant. We had a very powerful navy for a long time; in fact we cut down most of our trees to make ships.’

- But the work of Grimshaw Architects has gradually become richer and much more expressive. ‘Well, you learn over the years. You develop by doing jobs. It is not a question of choice. You just become more and more aware of possibilities. I wouldn’t call myself a purist, not even in those early years. You have to put things in a historical context. To build structures out of simple beams would now look rather affected, a bit purist for the sake of being a purist. We did that back then because it was the only way to think about it. We would have liked to design curves in the sixties, but the option wasn’t open to us.’
- There’s the risk of emphasising detail to the point of it becoming a fetish. ‘That is exactly the kind of point we discuss in our design reviews. It is something you have to watch out for. It is still our work, so I like everything to be doing something, everything to be expressing what is happening. We live in an age of style, of appearance. You could easily argue that our insistence on things being what they seem, of exposing the way the joints work, is a provocation. But in my view fashion and style in architecture are as ephemeral as they are in the design of handbags. By showing how things work and concentrating on structure and detailing, we are striving for a timeless quality. We have been absolutely consistent in this approach and that how we have managed to achieve the quality we want.’
- Do you agree that a lot of architecture is not about these aspects nowadays? ‘The converse of our approach is certainly a kind of arrogance on the part of architecture, where you do it mainly for your personal satisfaction. The best quality an architect can bring to a project is, in my opinion, humility. Not trying to stamp your own ideals onto something, but being there to absorb as much as you can: from the site, from the brief, from the people. And then giving them something back.’