Place - A Story of Modelmaking, Menageries and Paper Rounds

As one of the world’s foremost urban designers, architect Terry Farrell has an acute awareness of the significance of place. Starting from his earliest years, as a child growing up in 1940s Manchester, Farrell’s imagination has been shaped and inspired by the many cities in which he has lived, visited and worked.

This is Farrell’s story, embracing four decades of observation of our built environment. Farrell’s anecdotes, recollections and musings take a nomadic journey through time and space. A walk down 1950s Broadway and along 1960s Charlotte Street; a visit to the Alhambra; tutorials with Louis Kahn in Pennsylvania; the significance of bungalows; continual round-the-world tours -- all are vibrantly related through words and pictures, many from Farrell’s personal photo collection.The book’s second section explores Farrell’s early projects, beginning with his student thesis, moving on to the Farrell/Grimshaw work and ending with Terry Farrell Partnership’s first schemes. Projects include the now listed Blackwall Tunnel Ventilation Towers and Park Road flats, the Student Hostel and Clifton Nurseries and housing and factory designs. Concluding the book are recollections from architects and critics casting an eye back over fifty years of design.This book is Terry Farrell’s strong statement for the humanizing of spaces and the need to nurture and protect the best of what the urban environment can offer.

Sir Terry Farrell graduated from the school of architecture at Newcastle in 1961. From 1962 to 1964 he studied under Louis Kahn at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1965 he established a partnership with Nicholas Grimshaw, and in 1980 he started his own practice in London, opening offices in Hong Kong in 1991 and Edinburgh in 1992. Knighted in 2001 for services to architecture and urban design, Farrell has created high-profile designs gracing cities as diverse as Seattle, Hong Kong, Dubai, Lisbon, Edinburgh and Seoul.