Capturing the Concept - Nicholas Grimshaw

The few photographs and rows of wooden cabinets that occupy the main hall of the ECA do not immediately entice the viewer. But on closer examination the inner thoughts and working processes in this collection reveal an intimate portrait of the meticulous design process of a man hailed as one of Britain’s greatest architects.

The exhibition comprises a collection of Sir Nicholas Grimshaw’s sketchbooks, dated from 1982 to 2007, rangeingfrom initial proposals to Grimshack's private thoughts. Although illustrating the diversity and ingenuity of Grimshaw’s mind they are executed with a pervading sense of order. The books are all identical—A4 sketchbooks, with the same off-white drawing paper and illustrated with the same blue ink—and one cannot help but imagine Grimshaw at his desk realising preparatory sketches for the organic, undulating forms of his masterpiece, the Eden Project.

The sense of order and control that permeates Grimshaw’s sketchbooks recalls the notion of the architect as creator. The sketches depict the architectural process in its entirety: from initial limitations, like the climate considerations annotated on a sketch for Palkovo Airport in St Petersburg, to Grimshaw’s vision of how people will move through his buildings, as described in a plan for the British Pavilion. The totality of design so evident in Grimshaw’s sketches is reminiscent of the Corbusian vision of a utopian world with the architect as its supreme authority, and the idea that through efficient architecture once can achieve an efficient society.

The collection emphasises the importance of drawing within the design process. The sketches provide a portable platform with which the architect can record his thoughts and inspiration, with a sense of immediacy not available in the practice or studio. The consistency in Grimshaw’s sketchbooks results in a narrative of design in which the viewer is invited into Grimshaw’s mind and can trace the development from structural drawings and lists of materials, to the completed buildings shown in high-quality photographs that accompany the exhibition.

Capturing the Concept offers the viewer a rare insight into the primary stages of some of Britain’s most innovative modern architecture, while also providing an elegant portrayal of the process by which the drawn line is transformed into metal and glass.