Richard Seifert (né Rubin) was born into a Jewish family in 1910 in Zurich, Switzerland. Brought up in London, he studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture and established his own practice in 1934. After wartime service, he became one of Britain’s most prolific commercial architects, associated with Centre Point, Space House, and the NatWest Tower, reshaping post-war urban skylines across the capital and beyond. Richard Seifert died
Architect Richard Seifert (né Rubin) was born into a Jewish family in Zurich, Switzerland, on 25 November 1910, moving with his family to London as a child in 1913. He studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, from 1927–33 under Sir Albert Richardson, whose Beaux-Arts classicism left a lasting impression. After a brief period with the architect George Wimborne, Seifert established his own practice in 1934. His early career was diverse, if later overshadowed by his postwar fame. Among other projects, he designed a health centre in Bow Road, east London, and laid out housing schemes in places such as Dollis Hill, Cricklewood and Potters Bar. Other pre-war commissions included blocks of flats, factories, cinemas and community buildings in north and east London and beyond. Although later archival sources reveal a respectable quantity of work, Seifert himself remembered the 1930s as a time of struggle, and financial difficulties culminated in bankruptcy proceedings in 1939 (Harrison 2020, p. 31). Even so, these years gave him first-hand experience of speculative development, client negotiation and the practical realities of building, all of which would become central to his later success. During the Second World War he worked first as a garrison engineer and then served with the Royal Engineers and later in India and Burma, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He became a Fellow of the RIBA in 1945. After the war he briefly worked for the War Office before resuming private practice in 1947. His first post-war buildings, including factories, commercial premises and housing, were stylistically cautious, often hovering between modernism and traditionalism.
A significant turning point in Seifert’s career occurred within the changed political and economic climate of postwar Britain. He mastered the planning rules, development law and plot-ratio calculations that governed reconstruction and speculative building, and this expertise became one of the foundations of his practice. Commissions from developers such as Felix Fenston in the mid-1950s helped transform the scale of his business and paved the way for later work for Harry Hyams. His office expanded in these years, particularly after the arrival of George Marsh in 1957 and the formation of R. Seifert & Partners in 1958. Seifert also rejected the image of the architect as a solitary artistic genius, arguing that ‘architects should be eager to share design with others—that is the clients, the users, and the consultants,’ and insisting that an architect had to be ‘a technologist, a lawyer, a cost controller, conservationist, sociologist and administrator’ (as quoted in Stamp 2011).
From the late 1950s, the practice emerged as one of the most prolific forces in British commercial architecture. Its designs moved towards a more expressive modernism, often using precast concrete, sculptural façades and strong geometric forms. Tolworth Tower and Space House reflected this new phase, while Centre Point at St Giles Circus became Seifert’s most famous and controversial commission. Built for Harry Hyams, it rose to 36 storeys and was erected without scaffolding, using telescopic cranes to lift prefabricated sections into place. Its height and conspicuous location made it one of the most contentious new buildings in central London, many critics seeing it as out of scale with its setting. The controversy intensified when it stood empty for years after completion, becoming a symbol of speculative development. Although closely associated with Seifert, later accounts have emphasised the important design role of his partner Marsh. The building epitomised the ambitions of the practice: technically bold, commercially driven, and visually assertive. More broadly, as the office expanded, Seifert increasingly concentrated on client relations, planning negotiations and development strategy, while major design work was often carried forward by partners, including Marsh and Tony Henderson.
Seifert’s reputation rested not only on design but also on his skill in navigating planning law and maximising development potential on difficult sites. A well-known example was Drapers Gardens in the City of London, where he exploited a planning loophole to increase the plot ratio and secure an additional 40,000 square feet of office space for his client. Such strategies made him highly effective for developers, but also drew criticism from planners and architectural commentators. The practice grew dramatically, eventually employing around 300 staff and producing hundreds of office blocks, as well as hotels, hospitals and housing across Britain and Europe; in its scale, organisation and collaborative structure, it also anticipated aspects of the modern architectural super-practice (‘In Conversation with Dominic Bradbury’). Later landmarks included the Royal Garden Hotel, Sussex Heights in Brighton, Alpha Tower in Birmingham, and the NatWest Tower, completed in 1981 as the tallest building in Britain. Long distrusted by much of the architectural establishment, Seifert was increasingly reassessed in later life and after his death. A major RIBA exhibition marked 50 years of practice in 1984, the year of his retirement, after which his son John Seifert took over the firm. Richard Seifert died in London, England on 26 October 2001.
Irene Iacono
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Richard Seifert ]
Publications related to [Richard Seifert ] in the Ben Uri Library