- Hardcover: 432 pages
- Publisher: Book Guild Publishing (29 Oct 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846243750
- ISBN-13: 978-1846243752
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 528,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Behind the Façade is an architectural autobiography, but it is less about buildings and more about how they are 'peopled'. The life of a building and what goes on in it carries as much weight as its appearance.
In his wide-ranging career, John Wells-Thorpe has designed more than £65 million worth of building projects in the UK and overseas. Excelling at art from an early age, it was almost natural that John should become an architect, and he studied at the School of Architecture in Brighton before winning an award to study in Rome - where the young student, faced with modern Italian design in a historic city, felt like a child in the world's best toy shop.
Work in all five continents over the following years included a 'relocatable church', a TV studio in the Arabian desert, financial headquarters abutting St Paul's Cathedral and an environmental impact study for a mangrove swamp in Malaysia. Dealing with Margaret Thatcher, Donald Soper, Anita Roddick,. Sir Kenneth Clark, Cleo Laine, The Duke of Gloucester and Margaret Atwood along the way, John Wells-Thorpe has encountered many characters, and shares his impressions of them with wit and vivid observations.
In his wide-ranging career, John Wells-Thorpe has designed more than £65 million worth of building projects in the UK and overseas. Excelling at art from an early age, it was almost natural that John should become an architect, and he studied at the School of Architecture in Brighton before winning an award to study in Rome - where the young student, faced with modern Italian design in a historic city, felt like a child in the world's best toy shop.
Work in all five continents over the following years included a 'relocatable church', a TV studio in the Arabian desert, financial headquarters abutting St Paul's Cathedral and an environmental impact study for a mangrove swamp in Malaysia. Dealing with Margaret Thatcher, Donald Soper, Anita Roddick,. Sir Kenneth Clark, Cleo Laine, The Duke of Gloucester and Margaret Atwood along the way, John Wells-Thorpe has encountered many characters, and shares his impressions of them with wit and vivid observations.
About the Author
Born and educated in Brighton, John Wells-Thorpe has designed over £65 million worth of building projects worldwide, including award-winning commissions. He was Honorary Librarian and Vice President of the Royal Institute of British Architects before becoming President of the Commonwealth Association of Architects, and was in private practice as an architect before becoming the first chairman of South Downs Health NHS Trust. He is a member of the NHS Design Review Panel, advises the Commission for Architecture and Built Environment, and has led numerous technology transfer initiatives in Third World countries. Among his non-architectural areas of involvement, he has chaired government independent inquiries into ophthalmic surgery and into adolescent homicide, was a magistrate, and a member of the BBC Advisory Council. He was appointed OBE for services to architecture in 1995.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Behind the Facade" is a wise and witty man, 16 May 2011
By Jan Stevens - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Behind the Facade: An Architect at Large (Hardcover)
Few successful architects have had lives as rich and colorful as John Wells Thorpe, and even fewer could recount that life with as much modesty and humor. Wells Thorpe's career spanned the world, from the corridors of power in Great Britain to the British Army abroad. This account of his life and work rivals the early reminisces of Winston Churchill and Wilfred Thesiger. The main difference? Wells Thorpe designed significant works of architecture as well.
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