Clerkenwell's moo-vers and shakers host London's first architecture biennale.June was a busy month for London's architectural community. Not least due to the staging of the eighth annual Architecture Week, but also because of two new initiatives: the Architecture Foundation's Big Summer, under the direction of Rowan Moore Rowan Moore is an architecture critic. He is the brother of the journalist and newspaper editor Charles Moore. He trained as an architect at Cambridge, but, having gone into practice, turned to journalism. , and Peter Murray's consuming and ambitiously curated London Architecture Biennale The name Biennale is Italian and means "every other year", describing an event that happens every 2 years. One of the most important Biennales is an art exhibition that takes place for three months in Venice — the Venice Biennale — but there are numerous others: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the more earnest Biennale attendees, however, there was analysis and (occasionally) debate. Seminars included Gentrification gentrification, the rehabilitation and settlement of decaying urban areas by middle- and high-income people. Beginning in the 1970s and 80s, higher-income professionals, drawn by low-cost housing and easier access to downtown business areas, renovated deteriorating v Regeneration, Creative Industries as Regenerators, Who Makes London? (a seminar on risks associated with large privately financed developments), and two debates--The Tower Builders, and The Prince and the Architects. While diverse in content, these events high-lighted a number of common issues currently facing the capital (issues pertinent to many other city communities.) Do our cities need increased density, greater height, and more icons? Is it green fields or brown fields that hold the answer to Britain's severe housing shortage? (Places such as Thurrock, in the Thames Gateway The Thames Gateway is an area of land stretching 40 miles (60 km) eastwards from East London on both sides of the River Thames and the Thames Estuary. The area, which includes much brownfield land, has been designated a national priority for urban regeneration. greenbelt, feared to be the next sprawling, sub-suburb, Sustainable Community Sustainable communities are communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. They tend to focus on environmental sustainability (including development and agriculture) and economic sustainability. .) And, while we're on the subject, what exactly is a Sustainable Community anyway? Other than the latest development buzzword A term that refers to the latest technology or a term that sounds catchy. If not a flash in the pan, new technologies become mainstream. For example, Java was a hot buzzword in the 1990s, but should remain a major topic for decades. , as unattainable perhaps as contriving to simulate organic development, happy accidents and community diversity. From these, two issues stood out. As with the Groundlines v Skylines debate (p28), Tower Builders failed to raise any recognizable form of debate. However, the presentations were enlightening, especially Graham Stirk's description of the Richard Rogers For the American composer, see . Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside FRIBA (born 23 July 1933) is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs. Partnership's scheme: the 48-storey, 225m high, 122 Leadenhall Street Leadenhall Street is a major street in the City of London. It runs from Cornhill to Aldgate. Aldgate Pump is at the junction with Aldgate. Historically it has been the location of Lloyd's of London and the East India Company. The London Metal Exchange is located at number 56. . While acknowledging the contribution towers can make to cities as urban landforms, Stirk stirk a heifer or bullock 6 to 12 months of age. focused on the specifics of his tower's location: how it will touch the ground; how it will be viewed from below; and most profoundly, how it will be perceived by street-level city dwellers who may never enter the privatized high-rise world above. With a seven-storey foyer raising the building's threshold high above the street level, over 80 per cent of the site will be perceived as public space; an exemplary model for future schemes. Recalling Gordon Cullen's townscape town·scape n. 1. The appearance of a town or city; an urban scene: "The high school . . . once dominated American townscapes the way the cathedral dominated medieval European cities" principles, Stirk also considered pedestrian views along Fleet Street, demonstrating the derivation of the building's wedge-shaped silhouette as it yields to views of St Paul's. While Rogers' consideration of the dome of St Paul's has been successfully integrated into the rationale behind Leadenhall Tower--providing a stack of efficiently serviced diminishing floor plates--the influence of landmarks like St Paul's on future development continues to divide opinion today. Twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. later, in recognition of his controversial Hampton Court attack on the profession, a debate entitled The Prince and the Architects proposed the motion this house believes Prince Charles is good for architecture. Chaired by Philip Dodd, the Prince's former architectural advisor Jules Lubbock and RIBA RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects president George Ferguson defended the motion against journalist Hugh Pearman and architect Amanda Levete (from Future Systems). While a lively debate was recorded--later broadcast on national radio--many considered the Prince to have little relevance today, due to his proven inability to successfully educate, disseminate and demonstrate the realities of his vision. With his school of architecture the Prince's Foundation, his publication Perspectives on Architecture, and his model sustainable community Poundbury, seen by the majority as right royal failures, the motion was defeated. The Prince was not to thank for the discovery of contextualism contextualism a school of literary criticism that focuses on the work as an autonomous entity, whose meaning should be derived solely from an examination of the work itself. Cf. New Criticism. — contextualist, n., adj. , but rather for generating a depressing culture of fear. Seen as a disappointing leader in comparison with his visionary ancestor Prince Albert, the largely architectural audience was (not surprisingly) anti-Prince, and appeared deeply bored by the persistence of discussing his views at all. However, the debate is still continuing in other guises. In the month following the Biennale, Graham Morrison (of Allies & Morrison) confronted the issue of icons head on in his address at the Royal Academy. Promoting a debate that will run for a long time, he referred to Alsop's proposed Fourth Grace in Liverpool as a series of 'doughnuts on sticks', and criticized Libeskind's completed Metropolitan University Building as another example of 'crumpled thinking'. What, he asked, are appropriate icons for our cities today? Aside from presenting his personal view, Morrison's speech raises more questions: Is St Paul's, a monument visited by so few Londoners, really any more appropriate as an icon than the London Eye Ferris wheel, or Foster's 30 St Mary Axe St Mary Axe was a medieval parish in London whose name survives on the street it formerly occupied, St Mary Axe. The church was demolished in 1561 and its parish united with St Andrew Undershaft, which is on the corner of St Mary Axe and Leadenhall Street. ? Or, is it in reality as privatized as the towers conspiring to surround it? Are icons anti-urban, in cities that rely on background buildings to define foreground spaces? Or, as Koolhaas said in his address to Seattle (p52), do cities have to be prepared to accept the splendour and misery of living with metropolitan architecture? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] While LAB cannot claim responsibility for raising all these issues, as a catalyst for discussion it was excellent, broadening debate and reminding us how architecture touches people on many different levels. From transforming tarmac into grass for a street party, to presenting more extreme flights of fantasy, such as NL Architects' proposal for a new London Overground O´ver`ground´ a. 1. Situated over or above ground; as, the overground portion of a plant s>. as part of the Architecture Foundation's installation in Selfridges, Greetings from London. LAB has set a standard for other communities to surpass, and others will hopefully follow, giving more people the opportunity to consider their environment. As LAB drew to a close, we were reminded of Lubetkin's words, that architecture is far too important to be left to the experts. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For more information visit www.londonbiennale.org.uk and www.architecturefoundation.org.uk |
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