James Stirling

One of the lesser known un-built projects of James Strling. In timeline it came just before the Olivetti Projects but after Leicester and Cambridge buildings. In a way, possibly the first project where Stirling is displaying clients products in the formation of structural framework in the shape of rolled steel columns and beams. This may well have been a client’s request through the brief. However, this concept fitted in his recent work on wall like structures for Churchill and Selwyn Colleges and a contrast with large precast concrete panels he just used in St Andrews Dormitories.

Olivetti Training School also referred directly to Olivetti’s plastic injection moulded products reflected in repetitive plastic panels. This design must have either followed Dorman Long or possibly overlapped with it. Dorman Long project seems to be the final chapter of first section of Stirling’s blockbuster book. Soon after this someone spiked his drink with a strong dose of some ‘Post- Modernist’ concoction and altered the entire future direction of work.