Sir Nicholas Grimshaw

Visionary British architect behind the Eden Project, known for fusing bold design with engineering ingenuity

- Rowan Moore

“We spun him a narrative that we couldn't pay him,” says the entrepreneur and conservationist Tim Smit of his first meeting with the architect Nicholas Grimshaw, “but we'd like to offer him the opportunity to build the eighth wonder of the world. We fully expected to get a slap round the ear, but he was galvanised by the idea of embarking on an adventure.”

That adventure was the Eden Project, the conversion of a Cornish clay pit into a series of giant bubbles containing indoor rainforests and other environments from around the world, that has so far attracted 24 million visitors and contributed an estimated £2.2bn to the local economy. For Grimshaw, it was a dream commission (and one for which he was eventually paid) bringing together romantic visions and technical ingenuity. It was a pivotal moment in a career that progressed from out-of-town industrial buildings to landmarks in major cities. He was also, from 2004 to 2011, a transformative president of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Art and science were in his genes. His father, who died when he was young, was one of a family of engineers. His mother and grandmother, who jointly raised him, were artists. He studied in the 1960s at the Architectural Association in London, where he was taught by a young Richard Rogers and the inspirational Peter Cook. It was “the high noon of a kind of hippiedom”, says a former colleague of Grimshaw's, when students were encouraged to dream up futuristic cities inspired by science fiction and pop art.