It was nice to get letter of the week in BD, even if it made me sound a bit grumpy. I also agree with the next guy's letter: Rogers has designed some outstanding buildings: the Lloyds building is still an Architectural milestone.
My point was that cities are very complicated things and the readily digestible urbanism promoted by Rogers missed many opportunities during a period when there was a lot of money thrown at cities. He's not the first great Architect to falter at urbanism. I also didn't mean to say, as the picture of Gillet square suggests, that the Mayor's 100 spaces are a bad thing. Some are good, some ok, some not so good; my point was that the programme as a whole has done little to tackle the more difficult problems of London and much of the better work carried out by Design for London has been less noticeable, like the Green Grid programme, which did really take on the complexities of London's spaces.
Mike Raco and Rob Imrie's book Urban Renaissance? Does a good job of getting under the skin of the matter. Of course these are not just architectural issues, but that's exactly my point. I met Mike Raco at a discussion group invited by the LLDC to discuss the challenges of the redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth park (the former Olympic park). This kind of cross-disciplinary approach is what is needed to properly inform urban proposals and its something that Architects are not conventionally good at.
To end on a less grumpy note, my favourite example of a new public space that does work properly in its London context is Windrush Square, Brixton.
My point was that cities are very complicated things and the readily digestible urbanism promoted by Rogers missed many opportunities during a period when there was a lot of money thrown at cities. He's not the first great Architect to falter at urbanism. I also didn't mean to say, as the picture of Gillet square suggests, that the Mayor's 100 spaces are a bad thing. Some are good, some ok, some not so good; my point was that the programme as a whole has done little to tackle the more difficult problems of London and much of the better work carried out by Design for London has been less noticeable, like the Green Grid programme, which did really take on the complexities of London's spaces.
Mike Raco and Rob Imrie's book Urban Renaissance? Does a good job of getting under the skin of the matter. Of course these are not just architectural issues, but that's exactly my point. I met Mike Raco at a discussion group invited by the LLDC to discuss the challenges of the redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth park (the former Olympic park). This kind of cross-disciplinary approach is what is needed to properly inform urban proposals and its something that Architects are not conventionally good at.
To end on a less grumpy note, my favourite example of a new public space that does work properly in its London context is Windrush Square, Brixton.
No comments:
Post a Comment