EG editor Damian Wild remembers the life and achievements of Irvine Sellar, who died yesterday aged 82.
As epitaphs go, there can be few greater than the Shard. Attention-grabbing, skyline-changing, always a talking point and, ultimately, a tremendous success. It’s not a precise parallel for its developer but in so many respects it’s damn close.
Irvine Sellar, who passed away yesterday after a short illness, was something of a reluctant property developer. He began in retail and preferred its fast pace to property. You saw the fruits of your labour selling clothes on the high street quicker than developing a building, he once told me. Given that the Shard took him 14 years from conception to inauguration, perhaps he wasn’t joking.
Sellar first made his name on Carnaby Street in its ’60s heyday with Mates, the first fashion retailer to sell both men’s and women’s clothing in the same store. He moved from retail to property in the 1980s. And over a six-decade business career his determination, resilience and a tough negotiating style poured out of him. Those who sat across the table from had to be on their toes. As did those he employed. Advisers could not afford to rest on their laurels for a moment.
He was mischievous, he could be contrary and he was always fiercely proud. In seeking to deliver a major new skyscraper, who else would have turned to Renzo Piano, an architect with a profound distaste for these “aggressive symbols of power”? Schoolchildren’s interest in the Shard delighted him. And he wanted to show off every square inch of the building.
Few individuals in recent decades have had such a profound impact on London. Not just through a 95-storey tower. He turned a rundown part of town into a destination. And in doing so he added greatly to the capital’s standing as a world city.
“We’ve changed this town,” he told EG a few weeks ago. “I did, if you like.”
Yes, he did. And for the better.
• To send feedback, e-mail damian.wild@estatesgazette.com or tweet @DamianWild or @estatesgazette
