Seven years after a devastating blaze tore through Norwich’s library, rendering the building obsolete, the city’s Forum was opened.
The renowned architect, Sir Michael Hopkins, the man behind the famous building, has died at the aged of 88.
One of the leading British architects of his era, he leaves behind a legacy of work including Portcullis House at the Palace of Westminster and the Mound Stand at Lord’s cricket ground - to name just a drop in his architectural ocean.
Born on May 7, 1935, in Poole, Dorset, to parents Gerald, a builder, and Barbara, they decided that when he was 12, he would be an architect.
He attended a public school in Sherborne before going on to study architecture at the Bournemouth School of Art. Aged 23, he enrolled at the Architectural Association in London.
While studying there, he met his future wife Patty Wainwright, and she would go on to be his lifelong collaborator. They married in 1962 and went on to have three children; Sarah, Abigail and Joel.
Today, they have 11 grandchildren.
Sir Hopkins partnered with Norman Foster, where he was the project architect of the Willis Faber headquarters in Ipswich.
In 1976, he set up what became Hopkins Architects in partnership with Lady Hopkins, who had run her own practice.
They were widely regarded as among the greatest of contemporary British architectural figures and were part of a select group of British architects who founded the "High-Tech" architectural movement alongside Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Terry Farrell.
One of their first buildings was their own house in Hampstead.
Other early buildings included the Greene King brewery in Bury St Edmunds and the Schlumberger laboratories near Cambridge.
Locally he will be remembered for the mark he left in Norwich.
When lottery money for public architectural commissions started to flow around the turn of the millennium, Hopkins Architects built the Forum, a new covered public space in Norwich.
It came about following the devastating fire caused by an electrical fault at Norwich Central Library on August 1, 1994.
In it, thousands of historical documents and more than 100,000 books were destroyed. At the height of the blaze, more than 100 firefighters were involved with the smoke visible 20 miles (32km) away.
Now, almost 30 years on, the Millennium Library based inside The Forum on the former library site is one of the most popular in the UK.
Paying tribute, The Forum team posted a statement online. It read: “We’re very sad to hear of the death of Sir Michael Hopkins.
“He also created the design for Norwich Cathedral’s Hostry and Refectory. Previously he worked with Norman Foster, who designed The Sainsbury Centre in Norwich: another inspiring cultural space.
“The Forum cost £67m to build, and our spectacular glass façade is 15 metres high. Across our building there are 1,235 panes of glass, which is equivalent to 18,000 square metres.
“Our building is loved throughout the city and county.
“He was a man who thought big. He was asked how long he thought The Forum would last, [he said] 'would it last as long as the nearly 500-year-old St Peter Mancroft? Of course’.
“We’re grateful to Sir Michael Hopkins and the rest of the team at Hopkins Architects for creating such a beautiful home for us, and a space which means so much to so many people.”
Sir Hopkins’ contribution to architecture was recognised both with a CBE in 1989 and a knighthood in 1995 for Services to Architecture.
He was also awarded the AJ100 Contribution to the Profession award (2011), elected a Royal Academician (1992), and was jointly awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture with Lady Hopkins (1994).
Paying tribute to her husband, she said: “Michael was obsessive about architecture and tenacious in refining a design until he was absolutely satisfied with it.
“He was usually (and annoyingly) right.
“He made the world – and the buildings so many people live, work and learn in – more beautiful. We will miss him more than we can imagine.”
Sir Hopkins died from vascular dementia on June 17, 2023, aged 88.
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