Ian Davidson

Architect committed to inspiring others

Ian Robert Davidson, architect: born Rugby, Warwickshire, 3 June 1954; director, Lifschutz Davidson 1986-2003; FRSA 1993; married 1977 Lyn Helmes (one son, one daughter); died London 6 February 2003.

With his architectural partner of 17 years, Alex Lifschutz, Ian Davidson ran one of Britain's most successful practices, Lifschutz Davidson.

Setting up together in 1986, they soon won commissions from Sainsbury's, the Palm Housing Co- operative and, the client Davidson was always proudest to have been associated with, Iain Tuckett's Coin Street Community Builders. For the last, as well as converting the Oxo Tower in 1996 (which had been built originally as industrial warehousing) into a mixed-use development of housing, retail and restaurant, Davidson built some of the best riverside housing yet seen in London and the firm is already working on another phase involving flats, community centre and a swimming pool.

Lifschutz Davidson is probably best known for its bridges, suitably since both partners were the sons of engineers: the chunky Royal Victoria Dock Bridge (1998) and the footbridges that straddle (and mask) the unlovely Hungerford Railway Bridge (2002). To Davidson's sadness, both projects were beset with problems, with developers and planners; it says much for the robustness of the designs that both succeed despite the difficulties.

Ian Davidson never went out of his way to fulfil the popular image of the architect, but he was in fact the consummate player. For Davidson, despite his refined artistic sensibilities, architecture was also a business. He appeared to be as uncharismatic as he was unflamboyant, yet he had a real sense of style and he inspired others to share his enthusiasm for architecture, because, although he was quiet and mild-mannered, there was an underlying stubbornness and a real passion for his subject.

His teaching was low-key. Not for him the big stage or the lecture platform. Most of his teaching was done one-to-one, or in small groups, communicating his vast knowledge and enthusiasm to younger practitioners. Few firms took the continuing education of its younger architects so seriously as Lifschutz Davidson; few architects spent so many hours, often late into the evening, on ensuring such sessions were meaningful and interesting. Again, this was good business, because the loyalty such treatment induces ensures continuity. Davidson himself had learnt at the feet of the masters – Richard Rogers and Norman Foster – and he saw it as his duty to pass the inspiration on.

And his engagement in architectural education went far wider than this: in the last few years he had been an external examiner at the Mackintosh School, Glasgow, and at the Architectural Association and the Bartlett in London. He was a member of the RIBA's Education Committee and on the Architects' Registration Board, recently having become its Vice-Chairman. He had served too on Cabe (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), the Government's advisory body on architecture and on the committee that advised the European Commission on Architectural Education.

Few architects would have the patience for, or understand the importance of, such work – fewer still would be so generous with their time. Davidson's approach to all the committees he chaired was always the same: he would cajole, nag, persuade, until in the end most would agree with him, no longer remembering why they had ever held a contrary point of view. His other tool was humour. Davidson had a wit as dry as gin and could win an honest argument with a pithy phrase that went straight to the heart of the matter; he was economical with words, never with the truth.

One of Davidson's greatest sources of pride was the success of the RIBA's Stirling Prize for architecture and its televising by Channel 4. Again he followed the big names, taking over as chair of the RIBA's Awards Group in 2000 from Marco Goldschmied and Michael Manser (both RIBA Presidents – something Davidson himself was supremely well qualified to be and, in time, he might well have been persuaded to overcome his natural modesty).

His approach to the awards job was quite different from theirs. He would worry away at small points (because as an architect he knew that was where the success of any project lay) until he had assured himself that everything was on course, then he would step back and let others take the credit – never the blame.

It was typical of the man that, last October, he missed what turned out to be his last Stirling Prize presentation because he was away in China with his daughter, Lucy, cycling 450km, and raising between them £15,000 for the Trinity Hospice. He did insist on being rung on his mobile with the result, though.

Ian Davidson was born in Rugby in 1954 and trained at Leicester Polytechnic, where Foster's partner Ken Shuttleworth was a contemporary, as was his wife-to-be Lyn Nelmes. In 1978 Davidson went to work for Richard Rogers, where he was one of the designers working on the Lloyd's building and on RRP's own Thames-side offices at Hammersmith (a development that includes the River Café and latterly the offices of Lifschutz Davidson). But, before that, he served his time at Foster Associates. God is in the detail and Davidson demonstrated this truism with his work there with Alex Lifschutz, his future partner, on the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.

Davidson was a proud family man. He dedicated so much time to others, but he always found time for his family. In his final summer, as well as that bike ride in China with Lucy, he managed a walking holiday with his son, William.

Paul Hyett and Tony Chapman