Nigel Coates

Nigel Coates (1949-) is a prominent English architect and designer. He began to express his taste for theatrical and somewhat provocative architecture starting in the 1980s, with the founding of the magazine NATO (Narrative Architecture Today) which served as a manifesto for his thoughts. A thought that found a practical outlet starting in 1985, when he founded the Branson Coates Architects studio together with Doug Branson (1951-), mainly active in the construction of shops such as Katharine Hamnett's in London (1988). His creations in Japan were also very important, where for example he designed the Metropol Restaurant in Tokyo (1985) and the Noah's Ark restaurant in Sapporo (1988), and those in the trade fair sector, including the British pavilion at the 1998 Expo in Lisbon. Alongside his activity as an architect he has also had an increasingly prolific career as a designer, which began for brands such as SCP and Poltronova and continued over the years with Slamp, Gebruder Thonet Vienna, Varaschin, Terzani, L'Abbate and many others, in a trend that has intensified since since 2006 when he left Doug Branson to found his own independent studio. Both in architecture and in product design he expresses a vital and bold style, often inspired by the shapes of the human body and not without its subtle sensual charge. Nigel Coates also carries out an important activity in the academic field, first as a professor at the Architectural Association in London (1979-1989) and then as head of the Department of Architecture of the Royal College of Art (1995-2011).