Dramatic, sculptural and enormous, the brutalist buildings designed by Rodney Gordon, who has died aged 75, are among the most iconic of the second half of the 20th century. Despised by many as concrete monstrosities, with some now demolished, they sought to bring what he saw as the logic and reason of Modernist interwar architecture to an invigorated postwar world of expanded opportunities - "the age of the people", where, as he recalled, "feelings of egalitarianism and concern for all was the norm".
However, while most of his successful contemporaries worked in the public sector, or for traditional prestige clients such as universities, Gordon was to build his reputation in a very different, new environment - that of commercial architecture and, especially, the developer-led shopping centre.
As the leading designer at the Owen Luder Partnership, he was responsible for the Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth (1966) - which, in 2001, BBC Radio 4 listeners voted the most hated building in the UK. It was demolished three years later, despite a campaign to save it.
He also designed the Trinity Centre, Gateshead, which became known to a wider audience as the carpark from whose roof mobster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) threw the corrupt councillor Cliff Brumby (Bryan Mosley) in the 1971 cult film Get Carter. Loved and loathed, but never unnoticed, Gordon's audacious designs marked him out as a seminal figure in English brutalist architecture.
He was born in Wanstead, east London, to a Polish-Russian father and a Chilean mother. While Gordon was a boy, the family moved to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and later to Chelsea. A gifted scholar, he went to University College hospital medical school, London, at 16. But, two years later, he moved to the Hammersmith School of Building and later studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, under the Bauhaus architect Arthur Korn.
On qualifying in 1957, he got a job in the general division at the London county council (LCC) - "the place to be for a young architect". While there he was responsible for designing the Michael Faraday Memorial, the elegant stainless-steel box that sits in the middle of the Elephant and Castle roundabout, housing a transformer for London's tube system. This structure was listed in 1996 as "a building of architectural quality and panache", and a precursor to "high-tech" architecture of the 1970s and 80s.
In 1959, an LCC colleague, Dennis Drawbridge, introduced Gordon to Owen Luder. By the end of the year he had joined the Owen Luder Partnership and drawn up Eros House, in Catford, south-east London, while sitting in bed recovering from jaundice. Realising that the budget was insufficient for high-quality concrete, he deliberately detailed the exposed beams, columns and floor slabs to make what he described as "a convoluted sculptural form" which would dominate and distract from the poor surface finishes. The building won the Riba bronze medal for London in 1962.
Although speed was as crucial as economy, Gordon felt in control of the end product. But this was not to last. Luder proved extraordinarily good as job-getter and business manager. Office blocks and shopping centres in Bromley, Hayes, Hounslow, Hammersmith, Coalville and Leicester, as well as the better-known examples in Portsmouth and Gateshead, followed and the office rapidly expanded. There was critical recognition and acclaim, with Ian Nairn, in an Observer article entitled Flamboyance in Concrete, describing the Tricorn as "an animal, various and cranky, capable of inspiring recognition and affection ... the first no-holds barred explosion" of a new architecture. It also won a Civic Trust award.
Gordon was design director, with Drawbridge leading on working drawings and site works. Luder never interfered in the design process directly, and Gordon was never to object to his name being attached to the buildings. But Gordon was demoralised when Luder started to accept invitations to represent the firm giving talks to architectural students - a role for which Gordon felt he was much better qualified. Developing tensions were exacerbated when offices in Harrogate and Newcastle were set up to interpret Gordon's designs and, as he later recounted: "Continuity of design was all but cut off, and I had begun to cringe ... at what was being built". He refused to visit Gateshead, not wanting to see it close up. It all ended acrimoniously, with Gordon leaving the firm after only seven years - followed shortly afterwards by the rest of his design team.
Gordon did not always design in concrete: as well as the Faraday Memorial, his 1961 house for his own family (in Burwood Park, Surrey) is a steel-framed structure, clad with diagonal timber boarding. It has triangular windows, and steel chains rather than down pipes to channel rainwater to the ground. He countered suggestions that it was unrelated to the famous projects by explaining that it shares an external expression of structure. This house survives, although the one built next door for a neighbour was recently replaced.
On returning to London after only a few years, Gordon settled in Kensington. Behind a conventional mews facade he constructed a multi-level open-plan space, with exposed concrete finishes.
In the 1970s he worked with Abbott Howard before founding Batir International Architects with Ray Baum and Larry Abbot - this became Tripos Architects in the early 1980s. In 1979, Batir designed one building with extraordinary panache, a bronze anodised aluminum-clad combination of shops, offices and flats on St James's Street, London. Its rocket-like corner turret is a nod towards the Edwardian listed building it replaced, and it was a controversial intervention in a highly sensitive area.
Gordon knew how to enjoy life and had a reputation for fashionable partying and fast cars. He survived a heart attack at 42, and even when wheelchair bound towards the end of his life was irrepressibly entertaining. His early buildings began to attract new fans, lured by their sense of bold confidence, and Gordon clearly enjoyed being asked to talk about them.
Sadly, this recent growing appreciation has had little effect on the owners of his work. Eros House has been altered out of recognition, Tricorn has gone, and Gateshead is set to follow. The Faraday Memorial stands in the way of the Elephant and Castle regeneration.
With Gordon's encouragement, The Twentieth Century Society has put the St James's building forward for listing. He is survived by his partner, Sonia Power, his former wife, Janet, and his son, Hugo.
· Rodney Gordon, architect, born February 2 1933; died May 30 2008
