Wilford is his own man now, the 61-year-old head of a startlingly successful practice of global repute. But he wouldn't be in that happy position if, as a rookie architect in 1960 just emerged from a severely practical and unglamorous training at the old North London Polytechnic, he hadn't gone to work for a tiny, volatile firm of architects headed by James Stirling and James Gowan. His was to be an apprenticeship lasting more than three decades. "No," says Wilford, "I never thought I'd find myself in charge. I had to reinvent myself."

With Stirling gone in 1992, nobody knew what would happen next. A fistful of important projects was left hanging in the air. Presumably those could be completed. But beyond that - what? After all, everybody was of the opinion that Stirling was the creative genius, and Wilford the nuts-and-bolts man. Indeed it was precisely for his technical competence, says Wilford, that Stirling and Gowan took him on in 1960 to help with the seminal Leicester Engineering Building. Gowan and Stirling split after that project. Stirling took Wilford on again. By 1992, he was front-man for the practice. Even so, Jim's was the big name. Who would have bet on Wilford making it on his own, after all those years of second-stringery? Come to that, what did Wilford himself think?

"When Jim died, I found myself without a design guru," he reflects. "I think that a lot of people expected that the whole thing would just fold. And I had three choices. Yes, I could fold it, and go away and teach. Or I could have sold it. Or I could run with it."

Wilford ran with it, and this caused some ruffling of feathers. Some people left, others - like Wilford's present partners, Russ Bevington and Laurence Bain, rallied round. A German architect laid claim to some of the projects over there, and had to be fought off. Wilford himself embarked on a round-the-world tour to meet all the clients and reassure them that the ship was steady. It helped that he was the face of the practice many of them were most familiar with. Nobody cancelled any outstanding commissions, which was just as well because there weren't all that many although two - Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore, and the Stuttgart Music School - were vital. The Poultry office/building for Peter Palumbo in the city of London was still mired in planning controversy. Other projects were on hold. But with the clients on board, there was enough to keep things going.