Basic Biographical Details
| Name: | Kathryn Findlay |
| Designation: | |
| Born: | 26 January 1953 |
| Died: | 10 January 2014 |
| Bio Notes: | Kathryn Findlay was born on 26 January 1953 in Forfar, Angus, the daughter of a sheep farmer. The Angus light and landscape was to have a lasting effect on her. She was educated at Forfar Academy and studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. She continued her architectural education at the Architectural Association in London from 1972, studying under Professor Peter Cook, founder of Archigram, and qualified in 1979. Kathryn Findlay’s passion for Japan led her to move there after graduation. Initially she found work in the office of Arata Isozaki and later with her second husband Eisaku Ushida founded Ushida Findlay Architects in 1986. The practice soon had a world-wide reputation. Highly original designs such as the ‘Soft and Hairy House’ (1992-94) , the Truss Wall House (1993) and Polyphony (1997) in which the spaces spiralled in concrete from a central cylinder with a grand piano at its core, stunned both public and the profession alike. She remained in Japan for ten years and during this time taught at Tokyo University. She is believed to be Japan’s first female teacher of architecture and one of the first foreigners to teach there since the early years of the 20th century. Findlay and Ushida divorced in the later 1990s. She returned to Britain and briefly had an office in Edinburgh whilst working on her entry for the Homes of the Future demonstration site at Glasgow Green as part of the City of Architecture Festival 1999. She then re-established her practice in London. She won the RIBA design competition for a country house in Cheshire with her starfish shaped design, the building partly buried in the ground. The project was not executed but the design was partly re-used in a similar beach house project in Qatar. However this was demolished half way through the building process to make way for a railway. As a result the practice went bankrupt. Findlay began teaching at the University of Dundee. After a few years she returned to London and re-opened her practice. The design of a poolhouse in Sussex won much praise but it was not until her work on the ArcelorMittal Tower for the Olympic Games in 2012 that the originality of her vision made clear to many. The sculpture was designed by Anish Kapoor with engineer Cecil Blamond. Findlay and her team were assigned to make it functional for the public by designing how an elevator would take visitors up to two observation platforms and down via a winding staircase from which they could see the sculpture at close quarters and take in the view over the Olympic Park. Findlay was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2013 and died on 10 January 2014. She is survived by her daughter who is also an architect and her son. |
References
Periodical References
| The following periodicals contain references to this : | |||||
| Periodical Name | Date | Edition | Publisher | Notes | |
 | RIAS Quarterly | 2014 | Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) | Spring issue | |
| Scotsman | 16 January 2014 | |||
| The Times | 21 January 2014 | |||