Sir Basil Urwin Spence (13 August 1907 ? 19 November 1976) Sir Basil Urwin Spence was a Scottish architect, most notable for his work building a new Coventry Cathedral, after the old one had been gutted in World War 2. It was for this work that he was knighted in 1960. He would go on to design the "Beehive" Executive Wing of Parliament, as well as many other buildings in modernist/ brutalist style.