The work of the celebrated architect Richard MacCormac, who has died aged 75 after suffering from cancer, ranged from Oxbridge college buildings and Southwark tube station to a Tesco in Ludlow. A former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he became known for a polite form of modernism that proved attractive to establishment clients, with its references to historical forms, often characterised by strong symmetry and the sort of spatial arrangements found in classical buildings.
He brought an uncompromising approach, with a fierce insistence on quality which was to prove too much for the BBC. The £800m redevelopment of Broadcasting House, designed by MacCormac and completed in 2012, ended in an acrimonious row that marked a dispiriting note towards the end of his career. After battles over his plans for the newsroom, and 300 changes to his design, MacCormac complained of "insufferable contempt" and a "dumbing down" of his scheme, warning it would become "no better than a speculative office building". He was sacked in 2005, five years into the project, in what the BBC described as an "exceptionally painful" break-up.
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