His buildings were always ready for their closeup': how Terry Farrell's postmodern exuberance conquered the world

"Completed in 1994, MI6 showed Farrell, who has died aged 87, in his postmodern pomp, energetically juggling historicist motifs to conjure a flamboyant, flesh-coloured fortress, replete with ziggurats and crenellations, dominating its Thames-side locale. Deyan Sudjic described MI6 as an epitaph for the architecture of the 80s, and its styling that which could be interpreted equally plausibly as a Mayan temple or a piece of clanking art-deco machinery."

"Famously, in a case of art imitating life, the MI6 building featured in several James Bond films as home of the fictional 00 section, assailed by assorted villains and eventually reduced to rubble in the 2015 epic Spectre. Farrell would have doubtless relished this cinematic conjunction of architecture and popular culture. His buildings were nothing if not scenographic, always ready for their closeup."

"Further down the Thames there was more art deco clanking with the equally exuberant Embankment Place (1990), an office block suspended over Charing Cross train station, reminiscent of a colossal Wurlitzer organ emerging from the pit of a 1930s cinema. Augmenting the trio of London grands projets was Alban Gate (1987), which replaced an outmoded 1960s office block on London Wall with a heroically scaled tower connecting the City and the Barbican."

Terry Farrell's postmodern architecture reshaped parts of London with bold historicist references and theatrical forms. The MI6 headquarters (completed 1994) appears as a flesh-coloured fortress with ziggurats and crenellations dominating the Thames-side site. The building's styling can read as a Mayan temple or clanking art-deco machinery and has drawn both high praise and sharp criticism. The MI6 building became a cinematic landmark through multiple James Bond films. Other Farrell works include Embankment Place (1990), an exuberant office block above Charing Cross station, and Alban Gate (1987), a sugar-pink granite, horizontally banded tower linking the City and the Barbican. His designs prioritize scenography and bold ornament.

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