Behind the Facade: An Architect at Large

Behind the Façade is an architectural autobiography, but it is less about buildings and more about how they are ?peopled?. The life of a building and what goes on in it carries as much weight as its appearance.

In his wide-ranging career, John Wells-Thorpe has designed more than £65 million worth of building projects in the UK and overseas. Excelling at art from an early age, it was almost natural that John should become an architect, and he studied at the School of Architecture in Brighton before winning an award to study in Rome ? where the young student, faced with modern Italian design in a historic city, felt like a child in the world?s best toy shop.

Work in all five continents over the following years included a ?relocatable church?, a TV studio in the Arabian desert, financial headquarters abutting St Paul?s Cathedral and an environmental impact study for a mangrove swamp in Malaysia. Dealing with Margaret Thatcher, Donald Soper, Anita Roddick,. Sir Kenneth Clark, Cleo Laine, The Duke of Gloucester and Margaret Atwood along the way, John Wells-Thorpe has encountered many characters, and shares his impressions of them with wit and vivid observations.