James Stirling (architect) - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Three days after the announcement of his knighthood, Stirling was hospitalised in London with a painful hernia. What should have been a straightforward operation went wrong and Stirling's condition deteriorated considerably. He was able to see his family before sinking into a coma. Stirling died on 25 June 1992. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes are buried near to his memorial in the narthex at Christ Church Spitalfields. Stirling's sudden passing was considered a great tragedy for architecture; the Italian architect and critic Vittorio Gregotti wrote in "Casabella" magazine that "from now on, everything will be more difficult".

After Stirling's death, Michael Wilford (who had became a partner in 1971) continued the practice, completing the work that remained in the pipeline and had been left by Stirling at various stages of development. Various buildings completed thereafter (such as No 1 Poultry and the State University of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart) were attributed to Stirling, but completed under the direction of Wilford and his assistants.

The Stirling Prize, a British annual prize for architecture since 1996, was named after James Stirling.

The cultural depth and richness of Stirling's work attracted the attention of all the major world critics and theoreticians, from Colin Rowe to Peter Eisenman to Charles Jencks, and the literature examining his architecture is vast.