James Stirling is one of the few post-war architects to whom the word genius can be applied. Formidable, ebullient, self-centred, at times outrageous, he pursued architecture and the creation of buildings with a single-minded intensity, evoking hero-worship and sometimes hatred in the process.

Mark Girouard traces Stirling's life from a grubby, bird-watching, exam-failing Liverpool schoolboy with a talent for drawing, to the dashing wartime parachute officer whose life was changed when he gazed up at the Adam ceiling of a military hospital in an English country house and vowed to be an architect.
In the bohemian energy of 1950s London - a world of late nights, talk, revolt against the establishment and early commissions - Stirling moved in a lively, irreverent circle of artists, architects, writers and jazz musicians, including Eduardo Paolozzi, Reyner Banham, Peter and Alison Smithson, Richard Hamilton and George Melly. In the 1960s came his daring achievements in the Engineering Building for Leicester University, the History Faculty Building at Cambridge and the Florey Building at Oxford.

In the 1960s came his daring achievements in the Engineering Building for Leicester University, the History Faculty Building at Cambridge and the Florey Building at Oxford. But then the controversial nature of his work led to a slump in commissions and his main support came from teaching at Yale, until a new wave of triumphs began with the Stuttgart Art Gallery in 1980 Celebrated abroad, in Britain Stirling's association with Palumbo's plans for a new building in the centre of the City of London divided the architectural world into furious camps, creating fiery debates which lasted until his early death in 1992. The arguments, and the passions, still reverberate today.

Stirling's designs were of a startling and unpredictable originality, which captured the imagination of architects around the world, but many had chequered histories, both before and after completion. Mark Girouard's perceptive, entertaining account combines an intimate picture of the man - his personality, his relationships, his life-style, his mania for collecting, his constant doodling - with an informed critique of his work and its enduring impact on the architecture of today.