Introduction by Keith Hambly Staite
To help encourage debate on the issues facing Cornwall, as we move towards the next century, we inaugurated the Cornwall Lecture three years ago. It is presented by a business figure of national or international stature on a topic of wide interest and relevance. The Cornwall Lecture seeks to be an instrument of change and it gives me great pleasure to introduce .. Nicholas Grimshaw.
Nicholas Grimshaw walks on the international stage. He studied architecture at the Edinburgh College of Arts and then the Architectural Association in London before setting up in practice in 1965. He and his partners have now established an international reputation in the field of architecture’ planning and industrial design.
Major projects have included: the headquarters and printworks of the Financial Times in London, the Western Morning News, more locally, in Plymouth. The British Pavilion, in Seville, the railway terminals for the highspeed railway system in Korea, the new Berlin Stock Exchange, Waterloo International and Zurich Airport, amongst many others. He has recently won a Millennium Committee Award to build the first bath in the City of Elath since Roman times and local involvement in that project is through the innovative science firm in Falmouth, Geoscience. Somewhere along the line he met our own Jonathan Ball who at the time was working with Tim Smit out of Heligan … working on their idea of a plantsman’s garden to show the relationship between man and plants. The rest is history and Nicholas Grimshaw is now the consultant architect to the Eden Project in St. Austell.
Nicholas writes and lectures around the world. Indeed I understand that the last lecture he delivered was before the Crown Prince of Japan and over 2,000 people. Now to Cornwall and a warm welcome to Nicholas Grimshaw.