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Sir Basil Spence (1907-1976) is to be commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque at his former home and office at 1 Canonbury Place, Islington, N1, on 23 March 2011 at 11am.

A successful and eclectic modern architect, with a prodigious capacity for work, Spence - best known for his ground-breaking design for Coventry Cathedral - was among the leading British practitioners of his generation.

Anthony Blee - proposer of the plaque, practice partner of Spence, and husband to Gillian, Spence's daughter - will speak about the architect and his work. Gillian Blee will unveil the plaque.  The unveiling will take place on the 55th anniversary of the Foundation Stone laying by HM the Queen at Coventry Cathedral.

Born in Bombay in 1907, the young Spence was educated until the age of 12 in India before being sent to George Watson's College in Edinburgh. He studied architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art, and spent a year at the London office of Edwin Lutyens who was a clear influence on Spence's work. During the 1930s Spence undertook his first architectural commissions with the Edinburgh firm of Rowand Anderson, Paul and Partners, including the country house Broughton Place (1935-37), executed in Scottish-Renaissance style. After Army service during the war, Spence set up his first practice; he combined his home and office, first in Edinburgh and then at two successive addresses in London.

Following his 'interesting, exciting, and lucrative' work on the Scottish and ICI Pavilions at the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Glasgow, Spence designed the Sea and Ships Pavilion at  the Festival of Britain in 1951, and later produced an uncompromising design for the British Pavilion for the Expo '67 in Montreal. Public housing was a staple of Spence's work - his low-rise schemes in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey (1948-49, 1950-52), and at Dunbar, East Lothian (1949-52, 1955-56) won awards. But controversy dogged the twenty-storey twin slab blocks at the Gorbals, Glasgow, known as Hutchesontown 'C' (1961-65): they proved difficult and expensive to maintain, and were demolished in 1993. 

As a University architect, Spence is most renowned for the University of Sussex (1960-75), in which his use of vernacular materials in a parkland valley setting spoke of his respect for local and historic context. His university buildings at Cambridge, Southampton, Exeter, Liverpool and Edinburgh testify to his widespread reputation in that sphere. Other important commissions included Glasgow airport (1961-66; remodelled 1991), Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall and Knightsbridge Barracks (1967-70), which - for its 33-storey tower adjacent to Hyde Park - remains the object of controversy, while the Swiss Cottage Library (1963-1964) was noted as a civic building of significant distinction, following its recent sensitive refurbishment.

Overseas, Spence's distinctive 'Beehive' extension to the Parliament Building in Wellington, New Zealand (1969-79) enjoys general regard, as do his apartments in Cannes, his banks in Athens and Piraeus, his offices in Amsterdam and his work for the United Nations in Geneva.

Created an OBE in 1948 and knighted in 1960 Spence became only the second architect (after Lutyens) to be admitted to the Order of Merit in 1962. As President of the RIBA in 1958-60, and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy from 1961 to 1968, Spence was an unflagging advocate for his profession. The French Académie d'Architecture honoured him with their Médaille d'Or.

Spence died at his country home at Yaxley Hall, near Eye, Suffolk in 1976 and is buried nearby at Thornham Parva. Eric Lyons, a later President of the RIBA, stated that the best of Spence's public buildings 'reflected the spirit and vitality that was shared by the British people in the post-war era.' Fellow architect, Sir Frederick Gibberd, paid tribute to him as 'the best-known British architect, almost the only one known to the general public'.

Number 1 Canonbury Place was Spence's London home and office from 1956, until he acquired number 2, next door, in the mid-1960s; this then became the family home.  Number 1 - usually rendered as 'Number One', to which there was a connecting door - then became the nerve centre of Spence's large architectural practice, and continued functioning under his name until long after his death. It had been built in 1767-71 by John Dawes, and is listed Grade II. The Blenheim oak tree in the garden was presented to Spence by Sir Winston Churchill in 1959, in gratitude for his chairmanship of the competition committee for the design of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Howard Spencer, English Heritage's blue plaques historian, said:  "Although he has had his critics, there can be little doubt of Basil Spence's huge contribution to post-war architecture, or that his designs were executed with real spirit, adaptability, mastery of materials, and skill.  His reputation has rightly enjoyed a revival in recent years and many of his buildings have been listed.  English Heritage is delighted to commemorate Basil Spence with a blue plaque."

Anthony Blee said: "Spence's remarkable talents extended beyond planning and design. He was recognised as a gifted artist in that he was able accurately and convincingly to demonstrate how his buildings would appear in reality and in context. Likewise, he was charmingly fluent in explaining his concepts with vivid clarity. He had such design dexterity that he could take pleasure in applying himself to a wide range of challenges, from major building commissions to small scale details such as furniture design and architectural models."