The Monty Python of Architecture? 1998

This post is about a major influence in my architectural education: Archigram. I made a brief reference to Archigram in New York in an earlier post ‘The Final Approach -...New York Part 5 ‘...where the work of the six was exhibited in different locations throughout the city...Columbia University, Cooper Union, and the part that I did experience in the metropolis Ron Herron’s work in the Storefront.  The intention was always to follow up with a post about the complete exhibition as viewed earlier in the year in Manchester.

In terms of Architectural education, 1998 was the ‘fifth year’ being the first one back in full time education after the degree and ‘year-out’ in practice, which for me is when architecture was its most fun, study was its most experimental and the mood in the studio was at its most diverse and collaborative. This post is based on a piece that was originally written for the school publication ‘BARC’ the student magazine produced by my colleages in ‘Archaos’ the Birmingham School of Architecture student society. The journey into the world of Archigram was made by myself and Darren Staples who has been a partner in crime over the years, and it is his entry in the visitor book at the exhibition that gave me the title for this post, and it was the discussions about our impressions of the exhibition and Manchester in general that was written on the train on the return journey.

Archigram: six guys, Warren Chalk, Dennis Crompton, Peter Cook, David Greene, Ron Herron, Michael Webb, actually they preceded Monty Python, but anarchic in their approach to architectural discourse in the way that Monty Python are seen as anarchic in their approach to comedy.  I had read about Archigram during the degree and this was the first time that the any of work was exhibited since 1970., and the first time that it was all exhibited together.

On arrival at Manchester Piccadilly on the train from Birmingham,  it is a ‘Groundhog Day’ Situation,  is almost as though we never left…’Millies Cookies’ is still the cookie shop at the end of the concourse. The concourse itself is out of the same design manual as the one at New Street. Most definitely part of the same modernisation plan of the rail network in the 1960’s. outside the station the walk down to Piccadilly has the same feel as walking down Smallbrook Queensway, long sinuous office block following the curve of the road, with the same kind of shops in the base, only with subtle differences, ‘Greggs’ instead of ‘Braggs’, the bakers, the graphics are the same just the spelling is different.

In search of the RIBA bookshop to purchase tickets and find out where the exhibition is located, is a second feeling of deja vu, strangely enough the RIBA bookshop is located on Portland Street, which bears a close resemblance to its London Address, being Portland Place. We did find the bookshop but found it hiding behind some mad façade, scaffolding tubes, toe boards, signage, plastic screens, and it had been deconstructed and reconstructed next door to where we expected to find it.

The visit revealed that the Cornerhouse Gallery was actually almost next to Piccadilly Station. Having retraced our steps the search of Archigram took us down a back street between Victorian warehouses, tall walls of repetitive openings cast iron beams, peeling paintwork, rust, broken window panes, with some areas filled with studio units and small light industrial units; to a triangular brick building on the corner, ‘The Cornerhouse’ with a huge banner hanging down the facade inviting us to ‘Zoom up into a New World’  So zooming up into the Cornerhouse Gallery, well more of a walk up the stairs really, and wow! Let’s just stand here a moment and take it all in

The exhibition titled ‘Archigram: Experimental Architecture 1961 – 71’, completely fills the gallery, there are banners hanging from the roof trusses with the slogans that originally appeared in the Archigram broadsheets, and magazines. The walls are completely lined are with drawings preserved behind a layer of Perspex.

Walking Cities covers an entire wall, drawn in immaculate detail on A0 sheets showing the workings of a  machine that is self sufficient and can plug into anywhere, New York, the Sahara desert, and then move on to its next location.

On the floor: models of Instant Cities made up of a combination of trucks, capsules and hot air balloons. Plug-in Paddington East, Living pod, Cushicle, Monte Carlo Entertainments complex are exhibited in Perspex cases like rare finds in a museum, well maybe they are, and they are certainly treasures. It is pure commitment to illustrate the group’s thinking of the contemporary condition, (circa 1968). Entire exhibitions: ‘This is Tomorrow’ and ‘Living City’ for example are arranged in all their glory, images montages critique of the modern age, and reluctance of people to embrace new ideas, ‘It is all the same’ seemingly relevant today considering the Groundhog Day reference earlier. Some of the presentation techniques looking like cartoons from the Beatles movies,  giving a sense of being there through pop culture even though I was not born at the time. The exhibition captures the mood of optimism in the future from a 1960’s perspective with the ideas still looking and sounding fresh and very much still relevant reinforced by Ron Herron’s Imagination headquarters built in 1990 proudly sitting alongside the unbuilt projects.

A blacked out space at the back corner, with images and slogans being projected onto and through muslin screens hanging from the ceiling bring the ideas to life, far too many ideas to be comprehended in a single visit. Happily there are books that were produced to coincide with the exhibition, and having made my purchase of ‘Concerning Archigram’ there will be time to explore the ideas more fully.On signing the visitors book all I could write was ‘truly amazing!’ and on leaving I don’t think I will ever see so many great ideas in the same place again.

On leaving the Cornerhouse and returning to the contemporary of 1998, I cannot help but feel depressed by the environment, and the view of the city is one framed by the feeling of missed opportunities as real life took a different direction. On exploring the city, the recent addition of trams and the tram lines in the public paved areas give the city centre a European feel, it seems strange how European cities did not remove all their old tram networks and we in England are now striving to discover what was lost during the 1960’s. The feeling is reinforced by the 1980’s architecture...neo-classical or neo-Victorian Gothic decorated facade on the front, and blank brick walls to the sides, facade and pump up the volume. In contrast, the Arndale Centre, bombed by the IRA in 1996 now hidden behind rusting corrugated sheet hoarding.

A road too far and a bridge to nowhere...Having flicked though some of the Architectural magazines at the time, I had seen images of the regeneration of Salford quays and a dramatic footbridge as a centrepiece, which for some reason I had associated with Chris Wilkinson, and also attending a lecture by 1996 Stirling Prize Winner, Stephen Hodder, for Centenary Building at Salford University, there was a sense of something happening. On making the long walk from the city centre the journey comes to the end of a back road, where there is indeed a white skeletal steel bridge spanning the river Irwell, linking Manchester to Salford, a plaque on the bridge reveals that it is the Trinity Bridge by Dr Santiago Calatrava opened in 1995. The bridge itself comprises a deck suspended on cables from a single spire, with cracked paving slabs and graffiti applied to the base of the main steel members. marking the regeneration of the much neglected waterfront  area, as it stands it is at majestically spans the river to land of timber hoardings with a narrow path leading between them apparently to nowhere, evidently the regeneration of Salford has not caught up with the bridge yet.

On making the journey back to Piccadilly, the impression of the city improves from one of stark contrast to the optimism of Archigram, there are many civic buildings like there are Birmingham, only bigger and more of them, giving a sense of pride in city, and the overall  impression of Manchester is one of city coming alive and well worth another visit.

No Photos...Parc de la Villette - 1995

In my view no photos can do justice to this masterpiece in design, Bernard Tschumi's Cinematic promenade that was completed in 1987. The point grid of folies that define the structure of the park cannot be captured in a single frame, except from a hot air balloon perhaps, along with the lines being the elevated walkways that bind the elements together and the surfaces, the individual parks that combine to make up the whole. The only way to appreciate the project is to walk along the lines, climb on the folies and experience it on the ground. As an architecture student as I was in 1995, the tendency was to concentrate on the folies, particularly with the emphasis on them in the architecture books that could be found in the university library.

Over the years I have been telling students and colleagues about what an amazing place I think it is, but up until now I have not attempted to articulate all of those thoughts in a single piece. Now with my attention on the transformation of Olympic Park at Stratford, soon to become the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, I cannot help casting my memory back to my experience of La Villette some 18 years ago. For me the similarities are obvious: both have transformed industrial wasteland areas of city that would not ordinarily be considered as prime areas for redevelopment; and now in post games mode Stratford will start its new life as a park with indeterminate future events that can continue to reinforce the park's identity, which is how La Villette was envisaged at the outset.

Along with about 25 of my fellow Architecture students I took photographs of everything, from folies, reflections, shadows trying to compose images, but on having those films processed it was clear to me that my 36 exposures did not in any way capture the experience. I am ashamed to say that in the subsequent 18 years the opportunity has not presented itself to return so this is a piece based wholly on memory of my journey through the park in as it existed in 1995.

The first view was from the coach travelling along the motorway into Paris on our journey from Perry Barr, la Geode, a giant silver sphere that was not in the Architecture books, dominates the scene along with the expected red folies, serving to whet the appetite for the visit in the coming days. The actual arrival at the Park is at the front of Rice Francis Ritchies' (RFR) La Cite des Sciences (Museum of Science and Industry). Huge blue steel trusses, frame less glass boxes sitting in reflective water pools, fountains, immaculate stainless steel railings, very clean concrete and an old school briefing about what time we need to be back on the coach. A red steel frame leaning at a strange angle to the side of the entry plaza represents the first glimpse of Tschumi's fabled follies.

On crossing the entry bridge into the La Cite des Sciences, into a phenomenal space, some four to five storeys high, more of the huge steel trusses, a tent roof covers the central atrium, click! click! click! frame less glass joints, with stainless steel fixings are everywhere click! click! click! escalators climb through the atrium, glass sides, nothing new, glass sides to the lower section, with black steel truss and all the mechanism visible, have not seen that before, click! click! click!On crossing the entry bridge into the La Cite des Sciences, into a phenomenal space, some four to five storeys high, more of the huge steel trusses, a tent roof covers the central atrium, click! click! click! frameless glass joints, with stainless steel fixings are everywhere click! click! click! escalators climb through the atrium, glass sides, nothing new, glass sides to the lower section, with black steel truss and all the mechanism visible, have not seen that before, click! click! click!

On exiting the atrium towards the park, La Goede, absolutely no photographs can capture this click! click! click! anyway. But aside from the distorted reflection of the La Cite des Sciences behind, it is not only the visual that makes this so impressive, it is the aural!  It is a serene environment, where it is tempting to sit on the wall of the square pool that contains the sphere and get lost in the sound. I was told that the sound is created from a single sound wave being directed at the sphere and bouncing off surrounding surfaces, I don't know it it is true but the atmosphere it creates is impressive, the watery echoes would not sound out of place at a Pink Floyd concert.

Moving on into the park, L'Argonaute, a submarine! I did not know Paris was on the sea! Here we have a submarine compeletely out of place yet is sitting in a dry dock with one of the red folies acting as it's entrance pavilion.

A bit about the folies: each one is based on an enamelled red steel 10,8m cube laid out on a grid at 120m centres, each one different, some forming a more complete cube than others, elements have been removed, others have been added in a process of 'deconstruction' borrowed from film editing techniques; each frame changing slightly from the previous so that the image moves when viewed in succession. I have read multiple interpretations ranging from each folie being a 'deconstruction' of Le Corbusier's Buildings, another being an interpretation of Russian Constructivism to another being a physical manifestation of Tschumi's 'Manhattan Transcripts' a theoretical project ranging from 1976 to 1981 where abstract drawings are used to represent events that have happened. My interpretation from reading them on the ground? all could be true, there is certainly a passing resemblence to Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye in one, others do resemble imagery that originated in the Russian Constructivist movement, and sure the Manhattan Transcripts could inform the whole or even individual folies. Others resemble machines from the industrial revolution or even before, one contains a water wheel. As with all art and scuplture, each is open to individual interpretation and can be read as being purely built for pleasure at the same time as a statement on twentieth century culture, showing traces of past events that have caused us to be where we are today.

What makes these special for me is that each one is big enough to be a building, some contain program such as coffee shops, others are great to climb on, a spiral stair leads to nowhere except give an elevated view of the park, and what a view! this park is enormous! A canal runs through the middle of it, which at this moment has a barge loaded with sand making its way across the panorama. Bridges cross the canal one in a formal manner, making one of the 'lines' an elevated walkway that runs the length of the park, crossing a second that runs the width of the park. The second bridge crosses the river in an entirely playful manner, black steel structure that twists and curves its way across like a roller coaster whilst effortlessly carrying an aluminium deck into one of the folies to make the descent back to the ground. Walking along the promenade that runs alongside the canal the elevated walkway seems to float as very slender leaning columns meet the ground and disappear into the background. Moving on towards that background a football match is in progress on the immaculate green, whilst to the side appears to be a model of the Sydney harbour bridge, but on closer inspection part of a huge bike wheel buried in the ground, and over there is half a saddle, and there is the handlebar with a bell, it is as though a giant kid has chucked their bike down an gone off to play, and whilst they were playing the ground rose.

Outside a folly a bunch of steel chairs a strange angles stick out of the ground as though forming a bizarre cafe. Heading back through the gardens, some sunken, one of which bamboo climbs from a bed of gravel though a network of steel cables stretching from side to side at odd angles to define the 'ground' plane. Another plane appears to be formed of springboards, it seems that everywhere there is something different to play on, each space has a different character, and if you get lost it is easy to use the folies as orientation devices to find the way back, and on doing just that it is clear that there is far too much to take in during a brief single visit. What I did manage to take in has stayed with me, two hours spent in a most amazing place where time simply disappeared.

On leaving the experience of La Villette of 1995 and returning to the present, just a word to the nay-sayers: Parc de la Villette attracts 8-10 million visitors each year depending on which source you read and that is without having a hugely successful Olympic Games to kick start it's existence.

1000 views

The blog has just passed 1000 views since August 2012, 1000 views I guess that does not necessarily mean that people are reading it but for those who are, thanks and hope you are enjoying it. There is much more to follow.

Manama April 2013

March Madness: Manama-London-Riyadh 2013

It has been a crazy few weeks, work has been manic meaning that over 60 hours a week have been spent in the office, I have even been dreaming in SketchUp, there has been no training, no guitar playing and no new writing to contribute to the blog, although with 20% of registered architects in the UK out of work and countless architecture graduates unable to find placements I am not complaining.  What I have managed over the last few weeks is a rushed visit to London meaning that I have not really seen London, another to Riyadh where I have not really seen Riyadh and come to think of it I have not really seen much of Manama, deadlines have been met and life goes on.

What I have seen is signs of progress some rapid, some steady, and some limping along viewed out of the car or train window as I have been on the way to somewhere that I have not been to in a while.  The daily commute to work in the morning comprises threading through traffic and diversions that change on an almost daily basis as the Bahraini Ministry of Works move things around to dig great big holes, resurface roads that are far better than those in the UK and continue with the relentless construction of flyovers, slip roads to connect the emerging Bahrain Bay to the mainland. As a result most of the drivers don’t seem to know which lane to be in so do one of two things, one is to drive along dead slow causing everyone else to fall over them, the second being to change direction at the last moment, usually without indicating...Mirror, signal, manoeuvre does not operate here anyway, if it does it is in reverse, manoeuvre, and if you are lucky mirror and finally signal, in most cases the last two do not happen. Other drivers and diversions aside it is a pleasant drive with the sun glistening off the sea, and driving alongside rows of date palms. At Bahrain Bay a huge billboard announces that the development is ‘Celebrating Bahrain’s Future’  and in the background the Four Seasons and Wyndham Grand are really taking shape.

A rushed handover of work responsibilities for the next few days, a pint of Guinness at the Irish Lounge at Bahrain International Airport, constitutes my first drink of the year, not because it is not available, but with all the training it is not needed. An overnight flight with generous quantities of red wine courtesy of British Airways and arrival into the world of Richard Rogers at six in the morning. Heathrow Terminal 5 with its sculptural steel connections of the type that I first saw at Beaubourg, Paris in 1995, that form the structure that make the roof span a vast clear space effortlessly, through a network of automated lifts and underground shuttle train to the main terminal, quickly an efficiently to the smiling lady on immigration, and equally quickly and efficiently through baggage reclaim to the Heathrow Express’ which at 15 minutes is currently the quickest way to get into London.  Out of the tunnel into the very wet looking English countryside under the grey sky passing by rapidly out of the train window, joining the main line just west of Hayes. At Hayes a relatively new mixed use development sits one the site of a stone terminal if I remember correctly, with apartments looking directly over the railway, that must be a quiet place to live...

Onward towards Old Oak Common, and a huge billboard alongside ABK’s disused Eurostar depot  ‘Say hello to 186mph’ signifying that the neo-Thatcherist government have been forced to commit to HS2, the new high speed rail line that will link Heathrow to the Midlands and the North of England, probably reducing the need for domestic flights, reducing congestion on the motorways, and with the ability to remove countless heavy goods vehicles from the road. At Acton a clear sign of the legacy of Thatcher, the privatisation of the national rail network, freight trains stand proudly displaying the branding of their current owner. DB Schenker, in short, Germany’s national rail operator.

Arriving into London Paddington, much of which is a construction site as ‘Crossrail’ limps ever closer to connecting the East-end with Heathrow.  Out into the cold air beneath Brunel’s great cast iron and glass roof and the morning rush hour, coffee to go, newspapers and watching movies on iPhones. Into the underground having let the first train go, squeeze onto the next one, change at Baker Street and repeat the process. As the train makes its way eastwards, different groups of people board and leave as stops are made, speaking so many languages...Japanese, Polish, German...Does anybody speak English here anymore? The recongisable stations of Foster at Canary Wharf and Alsop at North Greenwich and out into the grey daylight to Canning Town. Onto the DLR, Royal Victoria Dock looks as magnificent as ever, very still water, mirrorlike reflections, the Crystal looking very much part of the landscape and a dormant Emirates Airline?

A quick reunion with my family and out into the London traffic to drop Mummy off at work, well behaved drivers, indication before changing lanes and potholes everywhere! A quick tour of Canary Wharf and cross the bridge next to Alsop’s ‘Chicken’ and a day of much needed quality time with Natasha, my daughter on her last day of being 3. A drive to Kent of see her prospective school, and lunch at TGI Fridays, Westfield Stratford sitting in a car that somehow reminds me of ‘Pulp fiction’.

Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre looks magnificent as the wavelike sculpture begins to emerge from the grandstands as they are being steadily disassembled. The stadium every bit as impressive as it was on the TV last summer and the Orbit? Still not decided on that one yet, looking forward to being able the park when it re-opens.

A Disney princess birthday party, a night at the Legoland Resort Windsor, three happy people, and all too quickly it is back out into the cold heading back to the world of Rogers. On the returning Heathrow Express, the on board TV’s show Kent being paralysed by snow, M23 blocked for 12 hours and the usual finger pointing about authorities not being prepared.

Into the heat of Bahrain and the heat of the project, passport submitted for Saudi Visa, and a few days later back to the Irish Lounge my second pint of Guinness of the year and the brief flight over to Riyadh. Arrival at King Khalid not too dissimilar from my first time, a long static queue of Pakistanis in a glacial surge towards a gate that is not letting people through. For me a relatively short wait in line to be sent back, fill in a landing card (I did not need to do this in January) a longer wait in line as another plane load of people arrived whilst I was filling out the card,  fingerprints scanned, again, mugshot taken again, and out into Arrivals. No sign of our company driver so it is out to do battle with the airport taxis, except they are more like the minicabs driven by Birmingham’s Bengali community, usually a Toyota with dodgy steering, dodgy shock absorbers and a gear box that grinds along.

Here I have a Saudi driver so it is a white knuckle ride, driving over any available bit of road surface irrespective of lane markings and other road users. The bing! bing! bing! of the electronic warning that you are not wearing your seat belt does not seem to worry the driver, and it is very quickly replaced by a different bing! bing! bing! to tell you that you are travelling at over 120kph. Dodging in and out of the traffic along the Eastern Ring Road, neon signs flash by announcing a staggering array of fast food joints. Past Al Rawda, an area which was home to me for over a year and onto the Khurais Road which was my former commute to work.

My commute to work used to involve driving for about half an hour to an hour depending upon the volume of traffic, through what I can only describe as gaps in the traffic, and in most cases those gaps were millimetres from the wing mirror of the car alongside, and in many cases it felt as though my car was being squeezed from both sides as five lanes become one. Here I am back again sitting beside one of the worst offenders, I read in a guide book that Saudis automatically assume that they have right of way and therefore do not stop for anybody, I had not forgotten this from my time living in Riyadh, but being back again brings it all back in very clear focus. Squeezing into impossible gaps to get onto the highway, many sights familiar to me pass unseen as we head through the underpass no more than six inches behind the car in front, a lurch to the right and onto the service road, and a blaze of neon signs announcing a whole row of car rental offices and a sea of beaten-up old Japanese cars much like the one I that am currently travelling. At the intersection next to the Wooden Bakery, the road has gone, so it is a trip around one of Riyadh’s famous detours where the procedure is squeeze into a single lane perform a U-turn and cut across three lanes of traffic to make a right turn, to get back onto the road.

Arrival at the hotel and the customary haggling over taxi fare, he wants to rip me off, I don’t want to pay that much so there is a bit of a Mexican stand off  until I pay something closer to what is only slightly less than daylight robbery, although it is night-time. Into reception, ‘Welcome to Riyadh!’...err...Thanks.

Riyadh in daylight passes by slightly slower and more controlled in the hands of our company driver, but around us the madness continues. Omrania’s offices do not feel like Riyadh at all, it feels more like walking into a London studio, there are many European Expats as well as Arabs which reinforces the illusion. Three days of workshops, long intense days with client team, specialist consultants and our Architects, Engineers, Interior Designers to review our progress on a new expatriate compound.

Security strategies deal with requirements that are more stringent than a military establishment. Water treatment strategies get interesting as the site is so far north of the tide of development that is the expansion of Riyadh that the proposal is to use ground water, taken from a borehole that is 300m deep, it is brackish so will need treatment on site. The landscape design is for a lush ‘oasis’ and will be irrigated using recycled water on site, except that there is not enough landscape to use it all so some of it will have to be transported to a local facility, which I am led to believe currently comprises dumping it in the desert. Over the course of the workshop more planting  is introduced to reduce the amount of waste water being taken away, all of which is counter intuitive as the trend is toward arid landscape planting to reduce water demand.  How do we ‘green the desert’? some further study required I think.

The hotel is one that I know quite well although there is not much time to appreciate it, the days involve getting back from the office, order room service, eat, sleep and do at all again the next day. The hotel is undergoing a major redevelopment, next to the current hotel is a site hoarding, which I know has a three storey deep hole behind it as this is a project that I was involved in for a few months. In reception is a visualisation of the proposed lobby which is a rendering of a SketchUp model that I built two years ago.
On the drive out to the airport, through the ever present traffic, developments over the past two years are all the more apparent, a detour/U-turn combination that I used to have to negotiate is nearing completion, and now comprises a flyover that was not there before in fact at the time there was not indication that a flyover was imminent. High quality paving defines what looks like a public square over an underpass along with trees and ground-cover planting. Heading out on the new road, date palms are everywhere, planting defines verges what are either sand or concrete elsewhere in the city.

On rejoining the East Ring Road, the Hilton Hotel project at Granada is progressing nicely, structure is still growing out of the ground, glass and cladding is going onto the lower levels...Beyond the newly completed GOSI Office park. Continuing past the Princess Noura University for Women, a development so large that it has its own monorail system, but there again women are not allowed to drive in Saudi so how else are they supposed to get around? Onwards to another sign of Saudi Arabia’s development, Zaha Hadid’s Exhibition Centre, under construction with crystalline forms growing out of the ground, and trademark concrete pavilions in the landscape. And so to HOK’s King Khailid International Airport through an ever expanding swath of green as more and more trees are being planted to line the approach road and soften the edge of the desert.

Through departures, and a most definitely not smiley face on the person checking my passport serves as a reminder why I prefer living in Bahrain.