John Wells-Thorpe


John Arthur Wells-Thorpe OBE was an English architect. He is best known for the breadth of his design capability in both the UK and numerous locations overseas.

Biography

Early life

John Wells-Thorpe was born in 1928 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. He attended the Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School. He graduated from the University of Brighton, followed by three international scholarships to Rome, Northern Italy and Moorish Spain.

Career

He designed the Church of the Ascension in Westdene, Brighton, in 1958. From 1958 to 1959, he designed the Church of the Resurrection, now known as St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, in Woodingdean. In 1968, he designed the Holy Cross Church in Woodingdean. Five years later, in 1973, he added an extension to St Wilfrid's Church in Chichester. In 1974, he designed Hove Town Hall. He also designed a "relocatable church", a TV studio in the Arabian Desert, and financial headquarters next door to St Paul's Cathedral in London.
He served as Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and President of the Commonwealth Association of Architects. He also served on the Advisory Board of the BBC. He was founding Chair of South Downs Health NHS Trust.
In the 1995 New Year Honours he was appointed OBE for services to architecture.
He died on 21 April 2019 at the age of 90.