Vitra Factory Building | Nicholas Grimshaw

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE (born 9 October 1939) is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. In late 2004, he was elected President of the Royal Academy.

Born in Hove, East Sussex, Grimshaw inherited an interest in engineering (one of his great-grandfathers was responsible for overseeing the installation of Dublin's drainage and sanitation system, while another built dams in Egypt). He is also reputed to have displayed an early interest in construction; his boyhood interests included Meccano, building tree houses and boats.

He was educated at Wellington College. From 1959 to 1962, he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he won further scholarships to travel to Sweden in 1963 and the United States in 1964. He graduated from the AA in 1965 with an honours degree, and having entered into a partnership with Terry Farrell, he joined the Royal Institute of British Architects two years later in 1967.

The Vitra Design Museum is an internationally renowned, privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany.

Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum founded the museum in 1989 as an independent private foundation. The Vitra corporation provides it with a financial subsidy, the use of Vitra architecture, and organisational cooperation.

Architecture (Latin architectura, from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων – arkhitekton, from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "builder, carpenter, mason") is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements.

"Architecture" can mean:

In relation to buildings, architecture has to do with the planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, environmental, and aesthetic considerations. It requires the creative manipulation and coordination of material, technology, light and shadow. Architecture also encompasses the pragmatic aspects of realizing buildings and structures, including scheduling, cost estimating and construction administration. As documentation produced by architects, typically drawings, plans and technical specifications, architecture defines the structure and/or behavior of a building or any other kind of system that is to be or has been constructed.