Colin Madigan was an architect who found the beauty in brutalism and defined a city

THE architect behind distinctive buildings the National Gallery of Australia and the High Court, was a visionary.

THE architect behind two of the country's most distinctive buildings, the National Gallery of Australia and the High Court, was a visionary who linked design to cultural identity.

Colin Madigan, whose brutalist, concrete-dominated style remains a shorthand for Canberra architectural design, died, aged 90, on Saturday.

Australian Institute of Architects chief executive David Parken said Madigan's cultural legacy could not be overstated.

"Colin was a thinker. To use concrete in a way that expresses such beauty is simply amazing, and I don't think you'll see the likes of it again," he said.

"He saw architecture as an important part of Australian cultural identity. He helped to shape not only Canberra's architectural identity, but that of Australia, too."

In 1980 the High Court -- the tender for which the firm Madigan co-founded in 1954 outdid 157 competitors -- opened on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

In 1982, a year after Madigan was awarded the IAI Gold Medal, the doors opened on Edwards Madigan Torzillo Briggs's neighbouring work, the NGA. The paired buildings represented the architect's piece-de-resistance.

"They are two of the most important buildings in Australia," Parken said. "His work was built to a standard that pointed, internationally, to an advanced country."

Madigan, who was made an officer of the Order of Australia in 1984, retired in 1989. In recent years he defended his NGA plans vigorously, with his supporters claiming tampering with the original design would ruin the building's DNA.

"Col was a very determined person," Parken said. "He needed to be that way to get the buildings completed to the standard he did. He was a visionary, a great architect. His work was second to none."

Sydney architecture historian Philip Drew said that while Madigan's uncompromising style wasn't universally liked, he remained a powerful figure. "He was a very prominent in the 1950s and 60s, all the way to the 80s," Drew said.

"Madigan in some ways was quite exceptional in that he was working on these prominent government buildings. He needed to transmit a kind of civic gravitas -- the gravitas of the law -- and he was very successful in that.

"That's very apparent in the (gallery) and the High Court buildings."

Madigan, said Drew, had a "very strong personality", which also was reflected in his design.

The architect's work, strongly influenced by Swiss architect Le Corbusier, includes buildings at the University of NSW, Macquarie University and a range of projects in the Sydney northern beaches suburb of Warringah.

Born in Glen Innes, in northern NSW, in 1921, Madigan was destined to follow design. His father had an architecture practice, and the young Madigan worked in the family business from the age of 14.

He left the bush and enrolled in an architecture course at Sydney Technical College in 1939.

Madigan was one of the the few survivors of HMAS Armidale, which was sunk off Timor in 1942.