Architecture & Infrastructure

This morning we are up super early to tour the recently completed buildings by Norman Foster. In The City there are several within a short walk from each other and the City is empty this early on a Saturday. The buildings on our list are not the iconic Foster buildings but low key office developments. Foster fully understands that buildings have hierarchy and that each has a place within the city context, some go almost unnoticed, some simply line the street, others open up hidden gardens or create public piazzas. I have a lot of time for the work produced by Foster’s office. Here the spaces and context need to be experienced so I took no photos.

Along the walk we discover other hidden surprises, a tiny grade 2 listed pub, The Ship 1802, a tile from the likes of Banksy, to the ‘Parents and Children’ vents on London Wall by Richard Rogers.

Further a statue by artist Damien Hirst, which aims to challenge our prejudices around disability next to London's Gherkin tower. The seven-metre high sculpture, called Charity, is based on a 1960s charity collection box depicting a disabled young girl clutching a teddy bear and a collection tin. The charity Scope withdrew the collection boxes in the 1980s in favour of promoting positive images of disabled people. Hirst's version depicts the charity box as worn and vandalised, with a crowbar lay next to the girl and her empty collection tin. This was a very interesting day out taking photos all the way.

Today, nearing the end of our vacation, we are at Middlethorpe Hall, York, a William III country house close to the city of York and set in 20 acres of its own gardens and parkland. Built in 1699, it was once the home of the famous diarist, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. It was bought in the 1980’s and reopened as a luxury Hotel, restaurant and Spa. In 2008 it was donated to The National Trust with all profits benefiting the house and the charity. A quite lovingly restored house that had fallen into quite alarming decay and it was a pleasure to study, camera in hand.

I have not been to The Hill House since I was an architectural student. The work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh has always been a little OCD for me but in the work of Mary Macdonald I see a softer more intuitive feel. At Hill House we get to see lots of work from both designers.

Barnard Castle, a French Chateau in Durham, now the Bowes museum. Sadly we were a few days too early to see the Yves Saint Laurent Exhibition: Style is Eternal but we did get to see The Silver Swan, a musical automaton and icon of the Museum along with the permanent collection of Canaletto’s, Turner’s, Courbet’s and El Greco’s. An interesting collection of early nineteenth century dresses meant that I never really was on holiday. There is too much here for the short visit our schedule allows and a focussed day would have been very useful.

Gideon Tapestries. So the road trip begins with a visit to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, an architecturally significant and leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. Built between 1590 and 1597 for the formidable Bess of Hardwick, it was designed by the architect Robert Smythson, an exponent of the early Renaissance style of architecture and renown for its brave use of glass. Hardwick also houses the Gideon Tapestries. The images below capture the intense and detailed workmanship of the tapestries used to line the walls of the stairwell and main hall and are themselves a virtual addition the enclosed space.

The view from the sky garden at Rafael Vinoly’s “Walkie Talkie” building looking towards Renzo Piano’s Shard. I just love London and it’s ever changing skyline.

Now for some time out over the Christmas Break at Buxted Park Hotel in the middle of Ashdown Forest, East Sussex. The Orangery is a favourite spatial type.

I’ve flown in to Vienna from Milan to view the Vivienne Westwood shop. There wasn’t much time to see a lot outside of work, but I did get to see works by Olbrich, Hollein and Wagner. The Secessionist building in Vienna by Olbrich is a must see and is usually on every tourist to do list. The works of Otto Wagner are less well known. The buildings are stunning and the detailing could well be used as a useful typological reference today, as I’m sure Herzog and De Meuron fully appreciate.

Images left to right - 1-2 Olbrich, 3-6 Wagner, 7 Hollien.

I have lots of time for Foster’s work. I have buildings that I admire and details that I enjoy but most of all I love the way Fosters work has evolved. Ideas develop from project to project and often can be traced back to the very beginnings of the practice. This constant refinement and development is very similar to the methodology of Porsche or Apple three firms I really admire. At the Swiss Re building we have stacked villages, spiraling atriums, tripe glazed vented skin, triangulated external structure forming the double curves of the tower. The true beauty of Fosters building is that it is the conclusion of a team effort from a team of the highest caliber. Today we (husband and I) are looking at all the pieces that have multiple functions like the street benches that are also security barriers, the urban space drainage system that both recalls the Piazza Del Campo in Sienna whilst creating a safety moat and collecting and clearing litter. The moat itself collects all the water from the piazza and building and all grey water is reused. It does all these things and many more without anyone noticing. It is a building with understated dignity.

Today my work takes me to Glasgow. The interior of the hotel room for my stay looking and feeling very much like an interior of Kisho Kurokawa’s Tokyo Nakagin Capsule Hotel of 1972 or a one hour love hotel of recent decades. The bed abuts the view of Glasgow from my window wall.

Japanese Metabolism addressed the fiscal and land availability issues of 1970’s Tokyo. The target market for each capsule was the ‘bachelor salary man’. In todays society we are all ‘bachelor salary men’, unable to buy and fed up of renting. Sadly the recent resurgence of interest in micro homes is market led and yield driven, this is a shame as the Capsule Hotel is an archetype that is very relevant to todays congested inner city urban life.