A pod on stilts, mobile towers, castles and skyscrapers were some of the visions children had of housing a hundred years from now.

Models of houses in 2112: 'Your House, Your Home', Florence Hall, RIBA

Models of houses in 2112: 'Your House, Your Home', Florence Hall, RIBA

Yesterday, RIBA headquarters was the venue for Your House, Your Home, an event that saw families celebrate the end of half term and the start of the Home Season. Families began arriving early and by midday it was a full house with children designing and making their own homes. Young learners were charged with a brief to think about how housing will change in the future in 2112, when these young architects will be aged 107, 108, 109, 110…

Early preparations

10.55am: Florence Hall, RIBA

1pm: Florence Hall, RIBA

1pm: The city taking shape

The atmosphere was lively and a sense of excitement grew as the city expanded with new additions, each model was unique and reflected the imagination and tastes of the young designer. Some incorporated enduring architectural principals through the use of perfect proportions and columned porticos. Others were organic, incorporating trees into their structure or shaped like animals. More hi-tech houses has glass penthouses and lifts to the waterfront. The needs of the user were considered in-depth; one house has three connected towers, two were for the maker’s friends, all on wheels to allow for a quick change of scenery and with space garages for their space cars.

Waterfront designs: 'Your House, Your Home', RIBA

Classically-inspired designs: 'Your House, Your Home', RIBA

Modernist and organic designs: 'Your House, Your Home', RIBA

Roofscape architecture: 'Your House, Your Home', RIBA

In contrast, nearby, the exhibitions of the Home Season look at the evolution of housing and how we live today. Upstairs in the Education Room, a selection of drawings and photographs of British housing were on display just for the day. The material dated from the beginning and towards the later half of the 20th century and included Edwardian-era terraced housing, Highpoint One and the work of Ernö Goldfinger, accompanied by questions to stimulate young minds. One visitor did ask why there wasn’t more on display, but with just one room available, only a small number of the RIBA’s collections of four million architectural items could be on show!

Drawings of terraced housing, from the RIBA's collections: Education Room

A big thank you for all the families who came and contributed to the day with their vision of London in 2112. Thanks also to the many RIBA staff who made the event possible. London’s architecture is eclectic; the inventiveness and variety of models created yesterday indicates that this will continue into the next century. Many of the houses sported solar panels, wind turbines and other environmentally-conscious features – take it as a sign that the future is safe in the hands of the architects of tomorrow.

RIBA staff at the end of an enjoyable day: Mike Althorpe and Elizabeth Grant

 

 

 

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Future Trends Survey for January 2012 has revealed that overall confidence concerning future workloads is now reasonably stable.

 

A Place to Call Home, RIBA, 66 Portland Place

The RIBA’s Home Season has now opened with exhibitions exploring the evolution of housing in the UK and how we live today. With the installation over, staff at the RIBA have are now busy preparing for special events and talks that will accompany the season. The first will happen tomorrow. Helping families and their young learners celebrate the end of half term, Your House, Your Home is a free family day where children can design and make a house for the future (all materials will be provided), explore the exhibitions and see examples of houses from over one hundred years ago in photographs and original drawings from the RIBA’s collections.

One house has already been made – join the RIBA tomorrow and show us your design skills!

Outside 66 Portland Place

British Architectural Library, RIBA

A map of the Thames. Tomorrow, help us fill it with models of new designs for houses.

 

In 1830 artist Joseph Gandy imagined John Soane’s Bank of England in the City of London as a ruin like those of ancient Rome. Less than a hundred years later his drawing was to take a prophetic rather than romantic air when Soane’s masterpiece was mostly demolished – except teasingly the perimeter walls – and replaced by Herbert Baker’s larger, multi-storey design. Gone, but still much discussed and mourned today.

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, 1890, prior to the rebuilding of the bank (© RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, demolition of the Rotunda, 1925 (© RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

The architectural landscape of London has always been changing. On the opposite side of the Thames, on the site where currently the Shard is taking shape once stood Southwark Towers. In the collections of the British Architectural Library at the RIBA there are records of this former office block which is now largely forgotten (and if remembered, seemingly unloved) under the column inches generated by the statistics of its replacement. At 310 m (1,016 ft) and with 72 floors, the Shard is three times the height of its predecessor.

Southwark Towers, 32 London Bridge Street, 2007 (© Christopher Hope-Fitch / RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

Southwark Towers and the belfry of St Thomas's Church, view from St Thomas Street, 2007 (© Christopher Hope-Fitch / RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

Southwark Towers: Injecting new life into an neglected area

Designed by T. P. Bennett and Son and completed in 1976, Southwark Towers consisted of three wings, each was a different height: 20, 23 and 26 storeys. The original design brief called for extensive perimeter walling to maximise daylight (Glass Age 1977: 20). Its distinctive feature was the projecting glass balconies that were designed to reflect solar glare and provide some acoustic insulation. But despite these features, Southwark Towers stood for a mere 30 years. When the building was opened it was described as a way to “inject new life into forgotten areas of the South Bank” (Williams 1976:14), was part of the plan to redevelop London Bridge Station, it offered spectacular views of London and used innovative glazing technology. Although radically different in appearance, the Shard also shares these aims.

The Shard though is not exclusively office space, but will accommodate a hotel and prominent (but exclusive) apartments. In contrast, here at the RIBA, the new Home Season will begin in a few days with exhibitions and events looking at mass housing in Britain and how most ordinary people live today.

Shard London Bridge and the Tower of London, February 2012 (Photograph by Wilson Yau)

Shard London Bridge, February 2012 (Photograph by Wilson Yau)

Shard London Bridge, view from Goodman’s Yard, February 2012 (Photograph by Wilson Yau)

Architectural tastes and the usefulness of a building will change. Southwark Towers and Soane’s Bank of England building were victims of increasing pressures to build bigger – somehow it is hard to imagine the Shard coming under the same pressure.

 

References:

• Glass Age (May 1977): Window-wise at London Bridge. Glass Age. 20 (2) p20-24
• Williams, S. (30 January 1976): The Saving of South Bank. Building Design. 283 p.14-15

More images from the RIBA’s collections can be seen on RIBApix.

This year’s Royal Gold Medal Student Critique, which took place in the morning of 9 February at the RIBA, was a very popular event. The Wren room (on the 6th floor of the building) was packed with past RIBA Presidents, past Royal Gold Medallists, academics, students, and journalists who came to listen and watch the presentations by the 2011 RIBA President’s Medallists being reviewed by a panel that included the RIBA Gold Medallist Herman Hertzberger, RIBA President Angela Brady, Professor Peter Blundell Jones (University of Sheffield), and Professor Kate Heron (University of Westminster).

Hannah Robertson (University of Melbourne) presenting her work

The first presentation came from Hannah Robertson, who was awarded the 2011 RIBA President’s Dissertation medal for Bush Owner Builder. Her project was focused on the issue of how to develop culturally sensitive housing for the aboriginal community of Hope Vale, in north Queensland, Australia. As part of her research, Hannah looked at how self built housing, which increases sentiments of ownership, can be introduced to an indigenous homeland community. Her role as an architect was to take an observational and collaborative approach, and to design with others in mind. As such, Hannah’s presentation touched on the personal journey she took as a student and an architect to explore this topic.

Kate Heron commended Hannah for the way she sought to develop new research methods for an architectural project through her collaborative and responsive approach to design. She wondered however, how this project became a dissertation as, in architectural education terms, it is very close to a design project. Hannah response was that it was on the advice of her tutor Philip Goad that she submitted to the dissertation category. She said that while she was developing the project, she realized that in design terms it was (necessarily) basic, therefore the words and exploration through the dissertation served to justify the design response.

Hannah Robertson, Bush Owner Builder

 

Professor Peter Blundell-Jones, who chaired the judging panel that awarded Hannah the medal, commented on how Hannah’s project stood out (from the 47 submissions!). The judges were impressed by how her design explorations and case studies presented a fascinating history of, and respect for, Australian aborigines and their architecture.

Herman Hertzberger wondered who in this project was the student and who was the teacher. Hannah explained that despite entering the project with strong convictions of what she wanted to explore, the role of her supervisor Philip Goad was incredibly important for raising questions and challenging her ideas. Hannah also explained how vital the contribution of the community was in developing the project: that despite her role as the architect, it was the community who had ownership of the project.  This approach was commended by Herman Hertzberger, who believes it is important for architects to do the sort of learning that Hannah went through in developing her design response to a community project.

Basmah Kaki (Architectural Association) presenting her work

Next up was Basmah Kaki, winner of the Bronze Medal for her project An Acoustic Lyrical Mechanism, a project that explores sound energy and ambient space in an active granite quarry in Bangalore, India. It is due to the working conditions of the mine, that the women and children (who work 16-hour days) lose their hearing. So Basmah explained that her response to this site was to explore how sound could be transformed into a beneficial force. She sought inspiration from the Aeolian harp, and investigated how the musical instrument could be a retreat from the otherwise damaging effects of the industrial environment. The models that she created as an initial response to this project explored how music could be generated from the wind, and be applied to a building.

Basmah was inspired by local religious traditions, and her site was based around an existing temple, located within the quarry site. Her design reflected the tonal qualities of the acoustic lyrical mechanism, and therefore presented a building that reflected both a sense of fragility and humanity in an environment that was otherwise dominated by the machines and damaging interventions of the quarry.

Basmah Kaki, An Accoustic Lyrical Mechanism

Herman Hertzberger commended this as an extremely important study: he believes that architects are so visual, and it is therefore easy to deny the important role of sound in how people experience space. Architects, he argued, use acoustics to temper sound, but do not use the whole acoustic dimension in the overall design as this project does. He paraphrased the 19th century composer Hector Berlioz, who believed that our experience of space is intrinsically linked to how music resounds though it. Hertzberger’s one (shielded) criticism was that the beautiful drawings that depict the project confuse the audience: in this instance the images dominate over the sound, when for such a project, it should be the other way around.

Kate Heron praised Basmah’s project for delivering such an extraordinary idea of having a building that generates sound. Her question to Basmah was where she could go to next with such a highly speculative, yet realistic, project? Basmah’s responded that it would be relevant to consider the future legacy of the building on this site: when the granite mining comes to an end on this site, the vibrations from the explosions that create the sound will no longer generate the acoustic dimension of the building. However, the sacred temple integral to this site will be the reason for visitors to return long after the granite mining has gone.

Kibwe Tavares (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) answering questions from the Crit panel

And finally, the 2011 Silver Medallist, Kibwe Tavares presented his project, Robots of Brixton. Kibwe provided the context for his project – which was part of a Bartlett unit that encourages the use of film in architecture. The brief for the year was ‘uncertainty’, which got Kibwe thinking about issues of race, class and identity and, more specifically, the cyclical nature of class politics and the Brixton riots of 1981. Rather than retelling the story, he chose to respond to the issue by setting it in the future.

The design of his project therefore had three elements: Brixton as a masterplan, the design of the robots, and the design of the film. Kibwe then explained the design concept behind the film: the investigation of the site of Brixton, including thinking about how to move through the spaces on the high street through the film:

Kibwe talked the audience through the four main sequences of the film: setting the scene, depicting the robots in their own area of the city, the dream place that the robots have created in their heads, and finally the riot sequence, based on interviews and the photographs of David Hoffman. He went on to discuss the discipline and detail required for this project; as an example, a three-second shot from the film took three days to do due to the drawings, layouts, 3D rendering, and detailed character design required.

Herman Hertzberger was the first of the panel to praise the ‘unbelievable talent’ shown in Kibwe’s film, and he advised him to use his talent to save the world! The answer of how he could do that bore out in other responses from the panel.

Kate Heron remarked that Robots of Brixton was a fantastic and ground-breaking project. She mentioned the mixed press reaction to Kibwe’s Silver Medal award that raised questions about whether the project was architecture. Kibwe response was that he believed that using film in architecture made the profession more accessible and allowed architects to present their messages to far more people. He added that Architecture consists of many different things, including art and photography and, in this sense, film is just one of many mediums for architects to use.

At this stage, Herman Hertzberger stated that he was a bit too old to accept that the virtual world is taking command, but Angela Brady believed it was a good thing for architects to use new virtual media. She agreed with Kibwe’s approach: if architects want to get across to society, film is a great way to reach a wider audience, allowing practitioners to have a greater impact.

Kibwe concluded by saying that he has now set up a studio with fellow graduates from the Bartlett School of Architecture, and they are doing a mixture of architecture work, design and video work. At the moment he doesn’t have to make a choice between pursuing a career in architecture over film as he is able to do both.

The 2011 RIBA President's Medal winners answering questions from the audience

Angela then invited the audience to participate in the questions. First up was Past RIBA President Owen Luder who praised the projects for demonstrating the lateral thinking of architects to respond to problems. Rod Hackney, another Past RIBA President, also praised the work of the medallists. His treatise to the audience: to survive as architects, we should look at what the students have done today, how their projects engage with humanity and present real responses to architectural problems (rather than just taking orders from clients). His question to the medallists was: how can they help to re-educate older architects?

Hannah believed that, as Kibwe’s project shows, as another medium for communication, film should be explored further by architects as it allows them to take their ideas to a broad mass of people. She believes that in architecture school students are encouraged to use language that alienates them from the masses. If architects are to succeed in making themselves accessible to more than just the privileged few they need to simplify their language and incorporate other media for communication that more people can relate to. Basmah agreed that it was important to establish how you can communicate your ideas as widely as possible. She said that students of architecture are given briefs to look both at innovative design ideas but also to think about cultural aspects. In that sense, they are not just taking a brief from a client or an office, but are able to explore greater social relevance and issues related to the brief. Kibwe responded that a greater breadth in the type of people who are practicing architecture is required. Speaking from personal experience, he added that at University he felt like a minority, coming from a working class background. Increasing diversity within architecture will help architecture remain relevant; as an example, an architect will not be able to solve issues relating to social housing if they have never experienced it.

The Royal Gold Medal Student Crit panel

Professor Murray Fraser was next up. He started by praising the students’ work as ‘not just good but outstanding’. His comment was that the projects seemed to be shifting boundaries and challenging conventions. With this in mind, he asked the President’s Medallists if they thought that this was a sign of a strength in architectural education, to which all responded affirmatively. Kibwe remarked that the real strength of his architectural education was that it allowed him to graduate with a broad range of technical and practical experience. Basmah stated that the freedom she was given at her school was a real credit of the Architectural Association’s approach to learning: if she hadn’t been given the chance and freedom to  build instruments and play around with the models she would never have come to the idea of creating a building that was also a musical instrument.

One final question remarked on how the projects share a similarity in that they are concerned with empowering those that have been oppressed. If architects’ clients are the privileged few, did the medallists believe that this could be changed and that we could reach beyond the richest 2% of the population?

Kibwe responded that he had a bleak outlook; his experience in architectural practice was developer-led. As the projects in which he was involved included apartments that most people can’t afford to live in, he finds it difficult to see beyond this elitism in architecture. However, Hannah was more optimistic. She believes that the current economic crisis is forcing architects to seek work in different ways, and to look beyond their usual clients. In seeking this wider audience, architects are changing the way they communicate, and they can broaden out who hires them.

Left to right: Kibwe Tavares (2011 President's Silver Medal), Basmah Kaki (2011 President's Bronze Medal), Herman Hertzberger (2012 Royal Gold Medal), Hannah Robertson (2011 President's Dissertation Medal), Angela Brady (RIBA President)

In conclusion, the 2012 Royal Gold Medal Student Crit included a great panel of talented medallists presenting truly inspirational work. If the audience’s response is anything to go by, we have a lot to learn from our students and graduates about the relevance of architects in society, and how practitioners can adapt to survive the economic crisis.

© Joanna Scott

High Society: Curators Jonathan Makepeace and Justine Sambrook preparing material for installation

It is exactly one week until the RIBA’s ‘Home Season’ officially opens. After months of planning comes the short but frenetic installation period. With today’s post are images of the curators from the RIBA Library Photographs Collection busily installing ‘High Society’ in the British Architectural Library, an exhibition looking at five post-war high-rise housing schemes:

• the Alton Estate, Roehampton
• Churchill Gardens, Pimlico
• Park Hill, Sheffield
• Hutchesontown, Glasgow
• Thamesmead

 

High Society: Archive boxes with exhibition material

High Society: Archive box with photographic material of Park Hill

High Society: Curator preparing material for installation

Original material selected from the archive of the Photographs Collection will examine in detail these key experimental schemes. From tomorrow, visitors to the Library will get an early preview of ‘High Society’, part of the RIBA’s new season of exhibitions and events looking at mass housing from the late 18th century to the present. Admission to all the exhibitions is free.

 

Park Hill Estate, Sheffield (© Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

Queen Elizabeth Square, Hutchesontown C, Glasgow (© Henk Snoek / RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

 

 

Laura Collins – RIBA Stephen Williams Scholar 2009

The award of this scholarship provided me with invaluable financial support to continue with my final year of the M.Arch (Part 2 Course) at the University of Sheffield, thereby underpinning the necessary academic platform for my architectural career. Early on during my architectural studies I recognised the benefits of professional work experience and travelling as an essential aspect of my architectural education and an unrivalled investment.

My undergraduate study at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow was complemented by sum¬mer work placements (2005, 2006, 2007), independently organised in Belfast and, through IAESTE, in Belgrade. As a result I felt able to organise my professional year out abroad securing placements working for two contrasting architect firms in Paris with the aim of further broadening my work portfolio beyond the cultural sphere of the UK. This was a fantastic experience both professionally and personally, but soon left me in a bleak financial position for funding my Part 2 studies.

Informal Activities in Chapultepec Park

Despite gaining Erasmus funding and a travel bursary from my undergraduate school , my salary during this time was around 15% of the typical year out salary for a year out student.

Tracing Memory in Tadcaster – Perspective view across the River Wharfe

Coupled with the fact that the recession has just reared its ugly head, this meant that a second year out in a UK practice soon became an unfavourable option. Consequently I had no means of saving money to fund my RIBA Part 2 studies in any way comparable to the position of a ‘year out’ student receiving a standard salary in a UK architecture practice. On commencing the Part 2 course I applied for and was awarded the RIBA Education fund for my first year of the M.Arch course at the University of Sheffield. This additional money provided me with financial assistance to help cover the costs of the course fees for that year. In addition to this I coached hockey part-time for a local club and in my department I helped out with student reviews and tutorials to help fund additional costs for materials and printing as well as study trips.

Entrance to Chapultepec Park Mexico City

However, I was concerned that I would not be able to continue with my final year of study without some kind of additional financial support and was encouraged by my course leader to apply for the inaugural RIBA Stephen Williams Scholarship sponsored by Aedas in memory of a past director who was devoted to mentoring students. I feel extremely honoured to have won the award which supported me financially and allowed me to capitalise on a number of opportunities which served to enhance the final year of my architectural study. The award of this scholarship assisted me in developing my M.Arch dissertation, Mexico’s Green Mirror, which is primarily a case study of Chapultepec Park, Mexico City. I was able to spend two weeks in Mexico City in August 2009, conducting interviews with leading local landscape architects and members of the park’s administration and trust foundation, as well as experiencing the site for myself. These experiences were extremely beneficial in assisting my understanding of the legacy and cultural reference of park spaces and have served to deepen my interests in landscape and urban design.

The scholarship has thus enabled me to broaden my knowledge of the built environment and explore the role of memory in existing settings. This interest in the significance of memory formed the groundwork of my thesis design project for a dementia care facility and landscape conservation master-plan in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. The support of Aedas, particularly David Simister, who provided enormously helpful comments and advice in his role as mentor, formed the backdrop to my design work and I cannot underestimate its significance to me during my final year of study at the University of Sheffield.

Since completing my Part 2 studies I have moved toLondonamidst a challenging economic climate but have been successful in securing job opportunities with several firms, which I am certain, is thanks to my extensive work experience and self-motivated attitude both within and outside the university studio life.  Aedas have continued to offer me both career advice and work opportunities during my time living inLondonand this pays testament to the significant role that the scholarship has played in my life these last few years. I am currently making preparations to undertake the Part 3 course with the intention to qualify within the next year. After this I hope to continue to travel and work abroad, expanding my architectural horizons as my career develops.

In the current economic climate and with ever –increasing course fees, the need for additional funding to support architectural studies is more crucial than ever before.  The profession has experienced a permanent shift in outlook and the budding architects of tomorrow will benefit immensely from support from scholarships such as the one I received, which was sponsored by Aedas. The award of this scholarship not only saved me financially, but also offered me an invaluable insight into the professional world which is often so disjointed from the academic sphere. The network of opportunities that the scholarship has opened up to me has been fantastic and I would encourage any architecture student to apply for similar funding schemes organised by the RIBA Education Department. I would like to thank Aedas and the family of Stephen Williams for their ongoing support of my professional development. Through this awardUKpractices have been set an important precedent as to how they can really make a positive impact on the lives and career ambitions of struggling architecture students.

To apply for the RIBA Aedas Stephen Williams Scholarship or for more information visit the Scholarships on the RIBA website

 

The exhibition of entries submitted for the 2011 RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards is currently on display at the University of Newcastle until 15 February.

Other locations confirmed for the 2011 touring exhibition include Leicester and Liverpool (in the UK), Dublin (Ireland), and Suzhou (near Shanghai, China). Plans for Australia, Brazil, Romania, Turkey, and UAE are also underway.

Meanwhile, the 2010 exhibition continues to tour and is presently being displayed in Istanbul.

For more information, visit www.presidentsmedals.com.

The RIBA is providing six bursaries of £1,000 each for the RIBA Architectural and Construction MBA, at the Bradford Management School. The bursaries will be open to all RIBA members who apply to start the MBA in April 2012.

To apply for the bursaries, applicants need to submit a 500 word (max) statement which will include:

• their reasons for undertaking the MBA
• what they will bring to the course
• what they believe the course will offer them.

The statement is to be submitted to the Bradford Management School at the time of applying. Please email it to mba@bradford.ac.uk and state that you are applying for the RIBA Bursary.

Deadline for bursary submissions is Friday 2 March 2012. Successful applicants will be contacted before the end of March.

More information about the RIBA Architectural and Construction MBA can be found on the Bradford Management School website.

Applications are now open for the £2,000 RIBA WCCA Student Travel Award 2012. This award has been offered annually since 2008 by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects in co-operation with the RIBA. The award is made in memory of Stuart Murphy, the Chief Planning Officer of the City of London, and past Master of the WCCA.

The Award provides an international travel grant of up to £2,000 to a student or a group of students enrolled in a RIBA-validated Part 2 course in a School of Architecture in the Greater London area. Winners are requested to produce a report after the trip for the RIBA and WCCA.

The deadline to apply for the 2012 Award is 5 April. For more information visit the RIBA website.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is delighted to announce that six £1,000 bursaries are available for RIBA members wishing to undertake the RIBA Architectural and Construction MBA at the Bradford University School of Management.

University of Bristol: the roof of the entrance hall ( © Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

 

February sees the return of the Gothic style – if only on this post. This astonishing building for the University of Bristol was completed in 1925 at a time when modernism was growing and Art Deco was about to become an international style.

Why was such an extravagant building designed? The College of Bristol received a charter to become a university in 1909 and with its new status it was felt that “the existing buildings were not sufficiently outstanding” (Crick p.72). One hundred years ago, the sons of the university’s first chancellor, the third Henry Overton Wills, offered to fund a project to remedy this problem. They commissioned local architects George Herbert Oatley and George Churchus Lawrence to design a campus building to rival those of Oxford and Cambridge – no red bricks for this new university.

The Wills Memorial Building represented “the final flowering of secular gothic in England” (Stamp p. 62) though the style was still used for some new churches well into the 20th century. Being less than a hundred years old, this is a relatively young building in the architectural history of the South West.

More images of this Bristol landmark can be found in RIBApix.

 

References:

• Crick, C. 1975: Victorian buildings in Bristol.
  Bristol: Bristol & West Building Society in conjunction with the City Art Gallery, Bristol

• Stamp, G. November 2009: Dreaming towers. Apollo, vol. 170, no. 570,

 

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is calling for entries for the 2012 RIBA President's Awards for Research ...

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is endorsing four candidates for the Architects Registration Board (ARB) election which closes on 1 March 2012.

RIBA Architectural Design Competition ...

Olympic Park, 2011

 

Until the athletes begin winning medals this summer, the venues are taking up the role of representing the London Olympics on screen and in print. Architecture is now central; the completed buildings can be taken as an early sign of success and to show the world that the city is prepared. While construction timetables can be controlled, the idea of ‘legacy’ is much harder to quantify and sustain. The organisers claim that the Olympics’ legacy is already here, even before the games have begun, in the form of all the new infrastructure, green spaces and landmarks built in east London.

 

Perspective showing visitors to the Great Exhibition of 1851 viewing stained glass exhibits, Crystal Palace (© RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collections)

 

The Great Exhibition of 1851

Looking at the long-term impact of a major international event is the theme that quietly underlies the V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership’s latest display of original drawings, models and other material (open 26 November 2011 – 29 April 2012, Victoria and Albert Museum). The creation of Albertopolis is the greatest legacy of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Like the Olympics, the exhibition was held to peacefully bring together people of all nations in one place – but in this case for the purposes of industry, art and commerce. Commercially and critically, it was a success and the event is used as a historical marker: “Historians have made the Great Exhibition the pre-eminent symbol of the Victorian age” (Auerbach, p.1).

 

Aerial view of Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, 28 May 1851, © V&A Images

Display of examples of Gothic and Medieval style church furnishings as arranged by Augustus Welby Pugin, Crystal Palace (© RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collections)

 

Albertopolis

Albertopolis is made up of the educational institutions of South Kensington, built using the large profit from the exhibition. They were established at different times over the course of nearly a hundred years and each was set up when an opportunity came up or in response to a perceived need in the cultural life of the nation. The impact of the Albert Hall, V&A, Natural History Museum, Imperial Institute and others places of learning nearby can be felt today 150 years later. Prince Albert’s plan to create a cultural hub came together after the 1851 and, as the display at the V&A shows, this idea is alive and continues to develop. Included in the display is a large watercolour from 1851, featuring Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace set in its original home in Hyde Park. This was the venue of the exhibition, which was built on time and was “described in its own day as the Tenth Wonder of the World” (Piggott, p.5). The Crystal Place is the symbol of the Great Exhibition and represents the birth of Albertopolis.

 

Royal Albert Hall (© RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

 

Buildings have lifespans

In a similar light, the impressive work of the architects of the Olympic Park and Village, amongst them Zaha Hadid, Populous, Allies & Morrison and HOK Sport, will continue to be seen as the visual representations of the games beyond 2012 – no matter how many sporting medals are won or lost! We can expect these images to be enduring, even if the buildings themselves perish by plan or by other reasons. No doubt, with so many buildings one or two venues will feature more prominently than others in the forefront of popular memory as time elapses.

 

Crystal Palace, Sydenham, London, in ruins following the devastating fire of 30 November 1936 (© RIBA Library Photographs Collection)

 

In 1851, Paxton wrote a pamphlet entitled: ‘What is to become of the Crystal Palace?’ (Piggott, p.31). Paxton had wanted his iron and glass structure to be turned into a winter garden after the exhibition.  Despite years of difficulties it became a venue for other exhibitions and various forms of popular entertainment – even serving as the home of the Imperial War Museum for four years until 1924. With temporary stands and future uses considered, there is a clear plan about what will happen to the Olympic venues after this summer. But, like the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition, their fate and what will be the real legacy of the Olympics will be determined by future events. The Crystal Palace was lost in a fire in 1936 and is now just a memory; a few stone balustrades and steps in Sydenham, the palace’s second and last site, are the only physical reminders of the Great Exhibition building. The exhibition’s real legacy is therefore something that grew afterwards over time, Albertopolis, and not an iconic building that fell victim to poor maintenance – 150 years should be enough time to judge what the legacy of the next Olympics will be.

 

More images of the Crystal Palace can be seen on RIBApix.

References:

• Auerbach, Jaffrey A. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display
  Yale: Yale University, 1999
• Piggott, J. R. Palace of the People: The Crystal Palace at Sydenham 1854-1936
  London: Hurst & Company, 2004
• RIBA, Albertopolis online exhibition,  accessed 26 January 2012
  http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/Albertopolis.aspx

 

Top British architects and experts from the creative industries are on offer to give young aspiring architects and creative professionals their exclusive tips for career success.

The prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Aedas Stephen Williams Scholarship 2012/13 is now open to applications from postgraduate students enrolled at a UK or International RIBA-accredited school of architecture.

Carolyn Steel is an architect and one of the leading thinkers on issues of food and our urban environments. Her book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives, was published in 2008. She has won the Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, been acclaimed by The Ecologist magazine as a ‘21st Century Visionary’, and presented at the TEDGlobal conference in 2009 (see the video here). This is the first of three interview pieces with Steel on food, sustainability, and the future of our cities.

 

On arriving at Carolyn Steel’s home, the first thing she did, “of course”, was to offer me a drink. This simple act is indicative of the way that food offers structure and ritual to our day-to-day lives, yet it was so mundane that it would typically go unnoticed.

Such perceptions of ordinariness have long been of interest to Steel, going back to the mid 90’s when she was a Rome Scholar and wrote an essay titled ‘The Mundane Order of the City’, on 2000 years of everyday life in Rome’s Rione Sant’Angelo. “It goes back to a fascination with the word mundane. We use it to mean ‘boring and everyday’ whereas actually it means ‘of the universe’. It [food] could not be more important, so we call it boring. That tells you a huge amount… Food has to be part of everything. It’s because it is so important that we tend to forget it.”

This social dismissiveness of food is exemplified by an industrialized food system that attempts to render its production invisible. Even at the point of sale food has become sanitized; you probably only need think back to your last trip to the supermarket to recognize this, after all what is it that you remember? The overwhelming scent of fresh clementines? The earthy smell of mud-covered potatoes? Or how about the slight roughness of the skin of a pear, or the crunchy satisfaction of a bunch of kale? Probably not. Supermarkets today are de-sensitized places, the plastic wrapping that engulfs even the humble spud cuts off our senses, rendering touch and smell irrelevant. These over-abundant, artificially-illuminated sheds are an extraordinary culmination of a food industry that has gradually removed food – of rather the experience of its production – from most of our lives.

Even within our  own homes, the endless march of the ready meal, or the just-add-water cake mixes, have further separated us from the processes of making and preparing food. For Steel, it is a cultural question: “Historically if you were rich there was high status in not knowing where your food came from. You paid someone else to grow it, prepare it, do all the nasty stuff, cook it. You just sit there in glorious state, the stuff comes in, you eat it, and it’s taken away, and you don’t need to think about it again… The reason we have accepted this [current] system is that we are all in the cultural position of being rich. Not knowing where our food came from is something we aspire to.”

UK households waste 6.7 million tonnes of food each year. Image: Flickr/Sporkist (CC-BY-2.0)

With this willful ignorance of the origin of our food we have gradually designed it out of our lives, and designed it to be cheap, which “of course it can never be”. The infamous £2 chicken is a case in point. How is it, you have to wonder, that a chicken could possibly be this cheap? Can the cost of rearing the bird, slaughtering it, disposing of the waste, transporting and packaging it, along with profits for farmers and supermarkets, all be included in that price?

With such cheap food, and such detachment from the processes of food production, it is no wonder that so much of the food in this country goes to waste. As Steel notes in Hungry City, “we throw away 6.7 million tonnes of household food a year – one third of all the food we buy.” Such wastage she attributes to a singular reason: “[it] all boils down to the same thing: our disconnected food culture.”

Countering this, and reconnecting people with the food they eat, requires its production to be made visible again. We need to grow more food in our cities. For Steel however, this will never be in the form of the large-scale urban farm much beloved by architecture students, “high-rise vertical urban farming… is just utter fantasy. Smaller scale production, which is just about making food production more visible in the city, is extremely important.”

What form this takes, from allotments and window boxes, to complete hydroponic farms in your living room, will inevitably vary. None of them are going to provide all the food we need, but for Steel that is not the point, it is about making evident the process of cultivation, and making people more aware of the value of food. If it makes cities somewhat more self-sufficient and sustainable in the process, so much the better.

The vegetable garden of the future? The Philips Design 'Biosphere Home Farm' © Philips Design / via Dezeen

© Thomas Stoney Bryans 2012

Are our new homes fit for the way we live today? What are the barriers to delivering better quality housing? How can government better support high quality housing? ...