Award-winning architect Gareth Hoskins dies of heart attack, aged 48
Gareth Hoskins, one of leisure architecture’s brightest stars, has died at the age of 48 following a heart attack.
The founder and MD of Glasgow-based Hoskins Architects passed away on Saturday 9 January. According to reports, he suffered the attack during a fencing match the weekend before and was being kept in an induced coma.
The architect – awarded an OBE in 2010 for his services to architecture – was perhaps best-known for his major renovation of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, which re-opened in 2011 and went on to win the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland's Doolan Prize for the best building in Scotland.
More recently, Hoskins was involved in the ongoing high-profile redevelopments of the Aberdeen Art Gallery and The National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a conversion of Edinburgh’s Royal High School building into a 147-room Rosewood hotel. The latter plan was rejected by the city’s council in December.
Hoskins founded his studio in 1998 after training at the Glasgow School of Art and at Florence University, and oversaw its development into one of Britain’s leading design practices.
In addition to his work at the company, he served as an advisor to the Royal Institute of British Architects and as a design panel member of Architecture and Design Scotland – the Scottish government’s design watchdog. In 2008 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.
Tributes for Hoskins have been pouring in on social media, including from Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon and Neil Baxter, CEO of RIAS.
Very sad to hear of the death of Gareth Hoskins, one of Scotland's finest architects. My thoughts with his family. https://t.co/oPlmAXC6Oc
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 11, 2016