A group of local architects, led by neo-classicist Robert Adam, has taken to the streets in Winchester to protest against the successful planning application for a town centre redevelopment, designed by Allies and Morrison. This is an interesting spectacle. Robert Adam points out that the historical development of Winchester has been piecemeal, resulting in a [...]
McMorran and Whitby’s City of London Police Station (1965) appears like an architectural missing link. The rustication of its lower façade and oversized chimney-like ventilation shafts are strangely non-zeitgeist, and the proportional arrangement of the window openings willfully rhythmic. The 19-story tower has been influenced by the vernacular design of a typical brick warehouse. The [...]
Louis Kahn has been known as the architect’s architect. Others have had that title before him and a few have since. Aalto, Asplund, Stirling, Zumthor come to mind. But what makes these architects universally adored amongst their contemporaries while everyone else is unaware of their work? I suppose each demonstrated a puritanical work ethic in [...]
There is a very small room in the National Gallery that contains a selection of Flemish architectural paintings. There is something surprisingly domestic about Pieter Saenredam’s interior painting of the Grote Kirk at Haarlem. A small dog is looking for attention adjacent to a seated woman with basket and pot. Fifty meters to the west [...]
In 1999 the industry rallied to ensure that it was Stirling Prize nominated and for good reason. It was the most energy-efficient supermarket building we have ever seen and its form was representative of its ethos: huddled into to the ground between grass banks and timber facades, close to the earth. It was sustainable architecture [...]
The French have an expression, comme il faut, meaning in accord with convention and existing standards; as it should be. The contemporary design architect is more inclined towards re-invention. New principles are what are required rather than decorum. And when dealing with historic buildings we learn that a heritage approach requires the respectful repair of [...]
Yet another government commission, this time to decide the future of London’s airport expansion programme. A number of airports are jostling for position with proposals and plans. Architects have been wading into the argument. Norman Foster prefers the Isle of Grain site, as he has designed it. Terry Farrell prefers Gatwick, he designed that. Ken [...]
The architect, Terry Farrell, has been commissioned to produce a government sponsored report on how architects might be more successful in getting their message across: a manifesto that will become a rallying cry for British architecture. It has been suggested that what the industry needs is a media figurehead – an architectural ‘Jamie Oliver’ who [...]
“And While London Burns” is an interactive operetta produced by the enviro-political art activists, Platform. http://andwhilelondonburns.com. It is presented as a journey through the City of London to a musical and theatrical accompaniment. The trouble is – the opera was produced in 2007 – and many Landmarks and wayfinders have now disappeared. I have just [...]
My first visit to New York provided an initial insight. We arrived in the afternoon on a very hot day. The taxi that took us from JFK to the Upper Westside was air-conditioned in the old fashioned way. Blasts of warm air flooded through its open windows as we swung around intersections. The worn sound [...]