George Tsiantar

George Henry Spiridion Tsiantar

1959-2020

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I first met George Tsiantar, who sadly passed away unexpectedly this summer, at his home in Hale near Altrincham in Cheshire, in the Student Union bar the night before we both started at the Manchester School of Architecture in September 1977. I have been privileged to have him as a close friend ever since and witness his development into one of the most sought after Architects creating homes for individual clients.

George was always a different type of student, thinking nothing of taking his pet rabbit to work during his first year out at Michael Hyde Architects. Born into a culturally rich and diverse family with a father from Greece and a French mother born in Vietnam, George’s design philosophy drew from the many countries he had travelled to and his resultant eclectic style was not always well received by his tutors.

Undeterred, George lapped up his second year out experiences at Leach Rhodes and Walker and David Dewhirst Architects in Manchester before qualifying in 1984. In 1986, George met John Dempsey; an inspiration builder of dream homes. John was a mentor to George, encouraging him to work from an office on site; to understand every inch of the new builds, to design plasterwork friezes, room bars, bespoke ironmongery and spindles, “kissing gates”, stained glass windows and furniture, applying creative design to every detail of the building and its fit out. This relationship stood the test of time, with John and Lyndsay’s last build before retirement – their own home.

Following a spell as Director at The Building a Theme Company, he co-founded Tsiantar Architects with his wife Suzanne over 30 years ago and continued his journey designing all manner of projects both commercial and residential. These ranged from hotels to schools, food courts to cruise ships, theme parks to restaurants, many of these overseas from the United States to South Africa as well as in Spain, Germany, Portugal and France.

Over the last 20 years, George focussed his skills on creating bespoke homes for clients that epitomise their individual personalities and influences as well as working alongside skilled, small developers to provide superb homes for the open market. With his small and long serving, dedicated team, Tsiantar Architects Ltd became one of the most sought after and respected residential Architects in Cheshire, with the Practice most recently winning the LABC Award for Best Individual House in 2020, Best Practice at the Northern Design Awards in 2019, Best Boutique Architect’s Practice 2018, both Finalist and Regional Winner at the Building Excellence Awards 2017, and many before that.

In recent years George returned to the Manchester School of Architecture as a part time lecturer and enthralled his students, both with his own life stories and personal experiences setting up and managing a small and successful architects’ practice. Whilst an extremely charismatic individual, part of George’s charm was always his understated and self-effacing, self-deprecating style, which endeared him to everyone he met. He did play up to his nick-name of “the housewife’s choice”.

For 30 years of George’s working life, he has been a Governor at St. Vincent’s Infant and Junior School, with a passion for improving and extending the school buildings in a cost effective and spatially clever manner. George’s dream was to design and oversee the building of a new school, with enough renewables to more than match the demands of the school and to sell electricity back to the grid. The school is designed, just for fun at home, waiting for the commission.

George also helped and advised on the St. Vincent’s RC Church Finance committee for many years and was rightly proud that English Heritage, when they were compiling their report to list the building, remarked on how well the building was maintained and sensitively decorated, giving the impression of a well-loved space in which a community can gather to worship God.

George’s other passions included rugby, skiing, anything French, Greek or Italian, especially the architecture and the food and most of all his family and friends. He cherished them as much as he was loved in return.

George is survived by his wife Suzanne who carries on leading the work of the team at Tsiantar Architects, alongside Drew Farren and Tom Bedford, Lee Pollitt, Sam Milne, Sarah Hardie and Zac Stretch; designing new and exciting homes for the current and future clients. He lives on in his three sons Christian, Jacques and Thomas, himself currently training as an Architect.

Stewart Grant