Look to the skies
Words | Beatrice Galilee What is most striking about London’s skyline? St Paul’s? ‘The Gherkin’? Or simply the fact that it’s always changing? This month the London Festival of Architecture invites you to see blueprints for the future, and to look again at some of the existing buildings you might have missed, with a special programme of hundreds of [...]
Words | Beatrice Galilee
What is most striking about London’s skyline? St Paul’s? ‘The Gherkin’? Or simply the fact
that it’s always changing? This month the London Festival of Architecture invites you to see
blueprints for the future, and to look again at some of the existing buildings you might have
missed, with a special programme of hundreds of events
alt="The view from inside Lord Foster’s ‘The Gherkin’, or 30 St Mary Axe, in the City of London">
FOR THE PAST 10 years London’s skyline has
been a battleground. The spire of St Paul’s
Cathedral has been fighting for its right to
prominence amid rotating wheels and gherkinshaped
skyscrapers, whilst digital drawings
promising vast shards of glass and new
‘blobitecture’– the current trend for buildings
with organic, bulging forms – appear in our newspapers
every day, each more futuristic and fantastic than the last.
“London always inspires architectural projects that are
unpredictable. I think it’s a great city,” remarks Zaha Hadid,
the Baghdad-born ‘starchitect’ who continues to take the
industry by storm. She is a British citizen and based in the
capital. “There’s a uniqueness to London – the education,
the amount of research and invention. Anything you want,
you can get someone to advise you on. It’s a global city that
has become very layered. Going through London is like time
travel,” she continues. “You go from one city to the next.”
This famously disparate city has always been
comfortable with contrasts in its streets and public
buildings, from the ornate Tower of London – which
has undergone several redesigns since its 11th-century
beginnings – to the brutalist style of the National Theatre
and industrial flair of Tate Modern, as well as iconic 20thcentury
housing developments such as the Barbican. London
has never been about a clear unity in architecture or design,
but a pragmatic acceptance of new alongside old, beauty
beside beast (though this is endlessly arguable). That’s the
spirit behind the London Festival of Architecture, which runs
until 20 July, with over 500 architecture-related events, talks,
exhibitions, debates, film screenings, walks and cycle tours
taking place all over the city.
This hugely ambitious event is not like anything that
has taken place in London before. It blows London Design
Festival, which takes place in September, out of the water by
its sheer volume of events and timespan. It was previously
known as the London Architecture Biennale, but this year the
organisers, chairman Peter Murray, managing director Nick
McGeough and deputy director Sarah Ichioka, have given
the festival a very different attitude. Instead of a closed
shop approach from architects to their fellow practitioners
and students, this year’s event is held mostly in the public
domain, with an international line-up of speakers, designers
and curators. The theme for the festival is “Fresh”, and the
team has been encouraging participants to put forward events
focusing on themes related to food, transport, sustainability
and talent. The last London Architecture Biennale in 2006
had 70,000 visitors, but by the time this festival winds down,
organisers are predicting a figure closer to 200,000.
alt="Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral looks down on John McAslan’s controversial proposal">
London is an appropriate setting for this kind of
debate because it has a strong history of pushing radical
architecture. It is home to some pioneering buildings,
from Richard Rogers’ high-tech Lloyds Tower – the eerily
beautiful, distinctive stainless steel structure near Bank
tube station, built between 1978 and 1986 but destined to
always look ‘futuristic’ – to the once highly controversial
Millennium Dome, now successfully rebranded as The O2
stadium venue; not to mention almost every structure on
London’s South Bank. This year’s festival doffs its cap to
the events of the 1851 exhibition and the Crystal Palace.
The spectacular building, which burned down in 1936, was
made only of glass and steel and it is going to be recreated
using helium balloons by Penoyre & Prasad architects.
There’s also an exhibition devoted to Skylon, the sculpture
which was built for the Festival of Britain held in 1951.
Street closures are one of the ways the festival
organisers are trying to help visitors get a better view of
the city’s architecture. The opening stages of the festival
already kicked off with the closure of Exhibition Road
– the street that is lined by the Science Museum, Natural
History Museum and V&A. This month, Montague Place
in Bloomsbury has also been closed and the winner of
Young Architect of the Year, the Carmody Groarke firm,
will build a temporary structure designed to re-interpret
outdoor spaces. The street, which is surrounded by
world-class academic institutions, will then be ready for
open-air theatre performances from RADA, world music
from SOAS, and family workshops from the team at the
British Museum.
One of the most ambitious of all the events is a
new urban lido. The temporary bathing pool, designed
by Paris-based collective EXYZT (www.exyzt.net) and
filmmaker Sara Muzio, is open from 9-13 July on the
South Bank. It has a mobile sauna for a hammam-like
atmosphere, beach hut changing rooms and a children’s
paddling pool. Perhaps just as eye-catching will be a very
different kind of installation by Danish architect Bjarke
Ingels, who is presenting his portfolio of projects in
Lego form. His presentation is in association with
Storefront for Art and Architecture, a New York-based
gallery (www.storefrontnews.org).
While not part of the official festival, building buffs
shouldn’t miss this summer’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion,
either. Each year, a temporary structure is built beside
this Hyde Park exhibition space and this time it’s the turn
of ‘celebrity’ architect Frank Gehry, the creator of the
spectacular Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
alt="The innovative Lloyds Building, at Number 1 Lime Street, has 12 glass lifts on the outside">
It seems everybody wants to get in on the architecture
act. For the first time, at this year’s festival all the
international embassies in London have been invited
to present their countries’ best architectural projects,
present and future. Look out for new propositions for
buildings made from sustainable materials, from
forward-thinking Denmark and Italy.
WHO’S WHO IN ARCHITECTURE IN THE UK NOW
6a
www.6a.co.uk
Famous for: Oki-ni clothes
store on Saville Row.
Current projects: The
Contemporary Art Foundation,
a new gallery in Spitalfields,
east London; a new boutique
hotel in Amsterdam.
House style: Square, wooden
forms; sandy colours.
Awards include: D&AD Yellow Pencil, 2006.
PLASMA STUDIO
www.plasmastudio.com
Famous for: Hotel Puerta
America in Madrid; 136 Old
Street, an office space in
London. Eva Castro and Holger
Kehne, who founded Plasma
Studio in 1999, count Zaha
Hadid as a fan.
Current projects: See the firm’s
website for news.
House style: Twisting
geometric patterns.
Awards include: The
Architecture Foundation’s
Next Generation Architects
award, 2008; Building Design’s
Young Architect of the Year
Award, 2002.
ROGERS STIRK HARBOUR & PARTNERS (formerly Richard Rogers)
www.rsh-p.com
Famous for: The Pompidou
Centre in Paris; the
headquarters of Lloyd’s of
London; the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg;
the Millennium Dome (now The
O2 stadium venue) in London.
Current projects: Three new
London skyscrapers and a
radical refurbishment of the
Jacob K Javits Conference
Centre in New York.
House style: rounded
forms.
Awards include: The Stirling
Prize 2006 for Terminal 4,
Madrid Barajas Airport.
FOSTER & PARTNERS
www.fosterandpartners.com
Famous for: 30 St Mary Axe
(nicknamed ‘The Gherkin’)
and the Millennium Bridge,
both in London.
Current projects: The Aldar
Central Market, Abu Dhabi.
House style: Very
contemporary, with strong
organic forms.
Awards include: The Stirling
Prize 2004 for 30 St Mary Axe.
DAVID CHIPPERFIELD ARCHITECTS
www.davidchipperfield.co.uk
Famous for: The America’s Cup
Building in Valencia, Spain; The
River and Rowing Museum in
Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire,
Current projects: The
practice recently diversified
by launching a range of
contemporary furniture.
House style: Mixing the classic
and the contemporary.
Awards include: The 2007
Stirling Prize for the Museum of
Modern Literature in Marbach,
Germany; The 1999 Royal Fine
Art Commission Building of
the Year award for The River &
Rowing Museum.
RMJM
www.rmjm.com
Famous for: The Scottish
Parliament Building; the
Chemistry Research Building
at Oxford University, which
evokes test-tubes with its use
of glass and vertical space.
Current projects: A twisting
skyscraper in Moscow called
the City Palace Tower.
House style: Academic buildings;
buildings with form that
echoes their function.
Awards include: 2008 Civic
Trust Award for a new building
for the University of Kent.
GRIMSHAW ARCHITECTS
www.grimshaw-architects.com
Famous for: The Eden Project
– the famous dome-covered
botantical gardens and cultural
venue in Cornwall – and the
Thermae natural spa in Bath,
which has a rooftop pool with
a view of the city.
Current projects: The St
Botolph’s office building in east
London for Minerva Plc.
House style: Clean, rounded
forms.
Awards include: 2008
Architectural Practice of the
year at the Building Awards.
ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS
www.zaha-hadid.com
Famous for: The BMW Plant in
Leipzig, Germany; The Maxxi
(National Museum of the 21st
Century Arts) in Rome; Bergisel
ski-jump in Innsbruck, Austria.
Current projects: The Aquatic
Centre for the London 2012
Olympic Park; The Heydar
Aliyev Cultural Centre in
Baku, Azerbaijan.
House style: Striking metallic
structures with clever use of
negative space.
Awards include: 2007 Thomas
Jefferson Medal in Architecture.
A selection of London Festival of Architecture events happening this month
Skylon: London’s Lost Icon
This installation, curated
by Jack Pringle, remembers
the beautiful 300ft Festival
of Britain atomic-era tower,
designed by Philip Powell
and Hidalgo Moya, which
was demolished in 1952.
Venue: Jubilee Gardens,
South Bank
Date: 9-13 July
Times: see www.lfa2008.org
Price: Free
Southwark Lido
Take a dip in the temporary
bathing pool, relax in a sauna or
chill on a sundeck. Organised
by EXYZT and Sara Muzio.
Venue: 100 Union Street, SE1
Date: 9-13 July
Times: 9 July 7-9pm, 10-12 July 12noon-9pm, 13 July 12noon-7pm
Price: Free
Architectural Jelly Banquet
See 1,000 specially
commissioned jellies at this
huge party, and take part in jelly
wrestling and more. Visitors are
invited to come dressed as a
dessert. Curated by architectural
foodsmiths Bompas & Parr.
Venue: University College
London, Gower Street, WC1
Date: 4 July
Times: 8pm-3am
Price: £5
The Continuous Picnic
An all-day picnic forms part
of the Montague Place closure
weekend event. Organised by
Bohn and Viljoen Architects.
Venue: Montague Place, WC1
Date: 5 July
Times: 8am-8pm
Price: Free
Montague Place Installation
Montague Place plays host to
talks, exhibitions, open-air theatre
staged by RADA, world music
from SOAS and family workshops.
Venue: Montague Place, WC1
Date: 5 July
Times: see www.lfa2008.org
Price: Free
Storefront London
Pop-up Storefront London
presents an exhibition of recent
works by Danish architecture
firm Bjarke Ingels Group.
Venue: (temporary): 1-5 Exhibition Road, SW7
Date: Until 20 July
Times: 11am-6pm
Price: Free
Architectural Bike Tour –
The Great Freshway
Hop on a bike and ride along the
proposed Great Freshway, linking
the major buildings of London.
Venue: Royal Albert Hall,
Kensington Gore, SW7
Date: 19 July
Times: 10:30am-4:30pm
Price: £7
London-on-Film Pub Quiz
Teams of five compete in this pub
quiz on London locations and
buildings used in films.
Venue: Rich Mix,
35-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1,
+44 (0)20 7613 7498; www.richmix.org.uk
Date: 15 July
Times: 8-10pm
Price: £5 per person (includes
a free drink); free to spectators
Street Art
An exhibition of street art
goes on display around the
Brewhouse Yard. The artists,
sculptors and street furniture
designers are all Londoners.
Venue: 16 Brewhouse Yard, Clerkenwell, EC1
Date: 16-20 July
Price: Free
Design Overtime – What Is This Place?
An after-hours opportunity
to view the Design Museum
exhibitions, including Richard
Rogers & Architects – From the
House to the City.
Venue: Design Museum, Shad Thames, +44 (0)20 7403
6933; www.designmuseum.org
Date: 11 July
Times: Until 10pm (last
admission 9.15pm)
Price: £8.50
