For almost all aspects of information access systems it is still the case that their optimal composition and functionality is hotly debated. Moreover, different application scenarios put different demands on individual components. It is therefore of the essence to be able to quickly build systems that permit exploration of different designs and implementation strategies. This paper presents a software implementation architecture for text retrieval systems that facilitates (a) functional modularization (b) mix-and-match combination of module implementations and (c) definition of inter-module protocols. We show how an object-oriented approach easily accommodates this type of architecture. The design principles are exemplified by code examples in Common Lisp. Taken together these code examples constitute an operational retrieval system. The design principles and protocols implemented have also been instantiated in a large scale retrieval prototype in our research laboratory. 1 Introductio...