Architects

Name:

Richard Seifert

Designation :

Date of Birth:

Exact Date

Exact DOB:

25/11/1910

Year of Birth :

Circa Year of Birth :

Date of Birth Before (Year):

Date of Birth After (Year):

DOB (1st 'Or' Year):

DOB (2nd 'Or' Year):

Date of Death:

Exact Date

Exact DOD:

26/10/2001

Year of Death:

Circa Year of Death:

Date of Death Before (Year):

Date of Death After (Year):

DOD (1st 'Or' Year):

DOD (2nd 'Or' Year):

Town of Birth :

Bio Notes :

Richard Seifert was born Rubin Seifert, one of the ten children of a cinema manager. He won a scholarship and studied architecture at the Bartlett School from 1927. He graduated in 1933 and, after a brief apprenticeship as a trainee surveyor and architectural assistant, set up in practice on his own, working on small scale speculative housing of traditional appearance in north London for fixed fees.

He first attracted professional attention in 1939 when he won second prize in a competition for the design of a façade for the recently established Building Centre in Store Street, off Tottenham Court Road.

That same year,1939, he enlisted in the Royal Engineers and was posted to India and Burma where he was attached to the 14th Army, reaching Calcutta the night that Japanese mortar fire first hit the city. He learned a great deal from the Army and it gave him a confidence that never left him. From then on he was always Colonel Richard Seifert.

In 1946 he settled in north-west London with his wife, Josephine Harding, whom he married in 1939, in a modest semi-detached house which he extended by purchasing adjacent properties and in due course built a swimming pool. At home he happily did his drawings with his children playing at his feet. He commenced practice with two others in 1947.

Seifert had a great appetite for work, leaving for the office at 6.30 and arriving before anyone else. He dictated letters in the morning followed by meetings with clients and partners, but slipped out through his private door to watch his staff at work. There were more business discussions in the afternoon and site visits which he preferred to do alone and then a return to the office for more discussions, telephone calls and letter signing at 6.30pm. He was very keen on construction and kept a close eye on engineers and quantity surveyors, determined to build efficiently. He also made site visits on Saturdays to inspect the week’s work.

Centre Point, built 1961, is probably Seifert’s best known building and probably the one about which there was most controversy. It was built at a time when public feeling over the damage inflicted on British cities by speculative developments was strongest. However it is now a listed building and other Seifert designs are among London’s most prominent landmarks. Both Centre Point and another prominent Seifert building, the NatWest Tower are important structurally. Centre Point was built on a tight site with no scaffolding, all the parts being pre-fabricated and lifted into place by crane. The NatWest Tower, shaped in plan like the bank’s logo is interesting because the concrete mullions do not descend all the way to the ground but are supported on diagonal fingers. Though it suffered bomb damage, it is still structurally sound. Another technical innovation used by Seifert was the mix of white cement into concrete which resembles marble in the right light.

Two other striking buildings by Seifert date from the early 1960s, Tolworth House, on the Kingston bypass, possibly influenced by Oscar Niemeyer and the circular Space House off Kingsway.

Seifert was an expert in plot ratios and bomb damage grants and was able to secure planning permissions more lucrative than clients had anticipated. There were fewer planning regulations and controls in the 1950s and 1960s and Seifert, an expert in planning law, was largely able to get his own way. Eventually he built more than 500 office blocks. From the beginning of the practice in 1947 with two others in a single room, it grew to 200 staff in 1966 and 300 in the 1970s.

He was quick to exploit the hotel boom that came with the Wilson Government’s offer of grants of 1,000 per new bedroom. His first commission was the Royal Garden Hotel next to Kensington Palace and then the Britannia Hotel in Grosvenor Square with others in Knightsbridge, Shepherd’s Bush and Putney. He also involved at the beginning of the construction of private hospitals in the 1970s and built to a high specification following American standards, one example being the Princess Grace Hospital near Euston Road.

He went on to design numerous high-rise blocks in London, Birmingham and Glasgow. However he had some doubts about the effect of high-rise living on families and admitted just after the completion of his four 21-storey blocks in Surrey Lane, Wandsworth some qualms about the ‘social and human effect’ of these types of dwelling.

Outside the capital, Seifert undertook a range of projects which changed the face of several cities, such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Watford. He designed the hotel and conference centre at Wembley along with a vast multi-storey car park with separate ramps for each level. His hotels included the Metropoles in Brighton and Birmingham.

As regards the design of his buildings, the most interesting aspect is the way in which he used large volumes. Some of his most striking schemes were drawn up from his sketches by Fred Gill who would work overnight to produce striking artist’s impressions for the benefit of clients, an example being the large hotel in Cromwell Road which was initially modelled on the tailplane of a Bristol Britannia aircraft with sweeping balconies. The end product did not meet this standard. He drew plans for what was to be the world’s tallest building, a diamond shaped tower in Melbourne, but the project was not realised.

Seifert died on 26 October 2001, survived by his wife and three sons.

'Biography authored by the Dictionary of Scottish Architects Compilation Team.'

Bio Notes continued...

Additional Notes

The following private or business addresses are associated with this person:

Business Addresses2 classic

Address	Class	Date From	Date From Type	Date To	Date To Type	Notes
England	Business	196

row(s) 1 - 1 of 1

This person proposed the following individuals for RIBA membership (click on an item to view details):

RIBA PROPOSALS2 classic

Person	Date Proposed	Notes
Horace George Marsh	1956/03/10	for Fellowship
William Higgins Henry	1966/02/02	For Fellowship

row(s) 1 - 2 of 2

This person was involved with the following buildings or structures from the date specified (click on an item to view details):

Buildings and Designs2 classic

Building Name	Date Started	Town, District or Village	City or County	Country	Notes
Ailsa superstore	1960s		Glasgow	Scotland
Multi-storey Car Park, Waterloo Street and Douglas Street, Anderston Cross	In year 1966	Anderston	Glasgow	Scotland
Anderston Cross Commercial Centre	In year 1967	Anderston	Glasgow	Scotland
Anderston Cross Housing Scheme	In year 1968	Anderston Cross	Glasgow	Scotland
Charing Cross Railway Station	Late 1960s		Glasgow	Scotland
249 West George Street	In year 1970		Glasgow	Scotland
Norwich Union Life Assurance Building	In year 1970		Edinburgh	Scotland
A & G Thomson's Warehouse	In year 1971		Glasgow	Scotland	Rebuilding as offices.
Charing Cross Redevelopment, Phase I	In year 1971	Charing Cross	Glasgow	Scotland	Phase I
Hume House	In year 1972		Glasgow	Scotland
The Bowring Building	In year 1972		Glasgow	Scotland
Hamilton House	In year 1972		Glasgow	Scotland
Office development, George Street	In year 1973		Edinburgh	Scotland
District shopping centre and housing	Before 1975		Dundee	Scotland
Sun Life Insurance Office	c. 1976		Glasgow	Scotland	Tower added

row(s) 1 - 15 of 15

The following books contain references to this person:

Bib ref classic

Author	Title	Date	Publisher	Part	Notes
Glendinning, M, MacInnes, R and MacKechnie, A	A History of Scottish Architecture	1996			p594

row(s) 1 - 1 of 1

The following periodicals contain references to this person:

Period ref classic

Periodical Name	Publisher	Date Circ	Edition	Notes
The Guardian		2001/10/29		Obituary

row(s) 1 - 1 of 1

Basic Biographic Details

Addresses

Business Addresses

Business Addresses2 classic

RIBA Proposals

RIBA PROPOSALS2 classic

Buildings and Designs

Buildings and Designs2 classic

References

Bibliographic References

Bib ref classic

Periodical References

Period ref classic