I am immensely sad that the architect, Nick Grimshaw, has died.

I always viewed him as a friend, as well as my employer when he was President of the Royal Academy. He was responsible for recruiting me and asked me the first question at my interview. ‘Did I have any experience of the art world ?’ At the time, I was Director of the National Gallery, so wasn’t sure what to reply.

I always found him thoughtful, decent and humane. We used to meet every Tuesday afternoon for quite a long time in which we would run through a list of what needed to be done. It would be the same list – a long list – until things could be ticked off. This was his approach: always systematic. I assume that it was his approach to architecture and to the management of his firm as well: focusing on the essentials, paring things down, quietly systematic.

I admired him very much and enjoyed working with him. There is no doubt more to say about his architecture, but he was a fine person as well as a fine architect.

Here he is in his office at the RA, which he redesigned to suit himself:-