William Whitfield (architect)
Sir William Whitfield was a British architect and town planner.Early life
Whitfield was born in Stockton-on-Tees into a coal owning family and studied architecture at Newcastle University, where he was admitted at the unusually early age of 16. and where he later studied Town Planning after the war.Career
Whitfield designed the Glasgow University Library and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery Extension at the University of Glasgow, as well as an extension to the Newcastle University Students' Union building and University Theatre. He designed the Business School and the Science Library at Durham University. In 1970 a major bush-hammered concrete Brutalist extension to Whitfield's design was opened at Arthur Beresford Pite and John Belcher's 1890-1893 Institute of Chartered Accountants headquarters, Chartered Accountants' Hall, including a new entrance; as well as the 1987 Department of Health building, Richmond House in Richmond Terrace, Whitehall, London. He designed the Chapter House at St Albans Cathedral, the Catheral Lodge in the close at Canterbury Cathedral and the new Mappa Mundi Library at Hereford Cathedral in a free gothic style.
With Andrew Lockwood he designed the neo-Palladian mansion Tusmore Park in Oxfordshire for the Saudi Arabian financier Wafic Saïd.
He was Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral from 1985 to 1990, architect for the restoration of Christ Church Spitalfields, a Commissioner of English Heritage, Commissioner of the Royal Fine Art Commission and a Trustee of the British Museum. He was awarded CBE in the 1976 Birthday Honours and knighted in the 1993 New Year Honours.
