Colin Fournier obituary

Nigel CoatesFri 11 Oct 2024 15.22 EDTLast modified on Fri 11 Oct 2024 15.44 EDTShareMy friend Colin Fournier, who has died aged 79, was an architect and planner. His two best known projects were Bernard Tschumi’s vast Parc de la Villette in Paris, which he helped to implement (1984-87), and the Kunsthaus building in Graz, Austria (2003-04), co-designed with Sir Peter Cook.
La Villette, one of François Mitterrand’s grands projets, captured a unique tension between grid-like geometry and naturalistic landscaping that concurred with Colin’s way of applying systems theory to planning. The Kunsthaus – which became known as the “friendly alien” – was built to house a contemporary art museum as part of Graz’s status as European cultural capital of the year, and has become the principal architectural landmark of the city.
View image in fullscreenColin Fournier believed that cities have some inherent force that results from the multiple desires of their inhabitantsOther projects on which Colin had a crucial design input included the Bâtiment Public de Portier, a multipurpose performance auditorium in Monaco (1972-75), the public spaces of the Swiss Federal Bureau of Statistics building in Neuchâtel (1993-99) and the Bath Western Riverside urban regeneration project in Somerset (2004-06).
Colin was born in Paris to George Fournier, a French physicist, and his English wife, Alice Craig. After attending Lycée Henri IV in the city, he came to London to study at the Architectural Association and was admitted to the register of architects in 1971.
Soon afterwards he became an associate member of the design group Archigram, working with them until 1976, when he moved to be planning director at the Ralph Parsons Company (now Parsons Corporation). There he planned the new town of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia before working with Tschumi on the Parc de la Villette.
In 1998 Colin moved into academia as professor of architecture and urbanism at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, although he kept up with his hands-on architectural work for a number of years, including with Cook on the Kunsthaus.
Later, from 2012 to 2016, he was a visiting professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in 2018 he took on the same role at the National University of Singapore, before becoming a professor at the Confluence Institute in Paris from 2021 until his death.
I first met Colin in 1972 at the Architectural Association, where he impressed me with his sensitivity and insight, as well as his notion that cities have some inherent force that results from the multiple desires of their inhabitants.
Empathy was one of his supreme skills, and was remarked upon by many of his students, who greatly appreciated his desire just to hang out with them, talking about life and architecture.
Uncertain Cities, his book of short stories of imaginary cities, will be published posthumously.
Colin is survived by his partner, Dominique Piwnica, a son, Neil, from his marriage to Christine Dolfing, which ended in divorce in 1988, and his twin sister, Stella.