modernism · 2008-08-04 19:59
In the UK, we’ve seen three recent attempts to revive and recall modern architecture, and I’ve been surprised at the reactions.
During the London Festival of Architecture, there was a call to reconstruct Skylon, the 1951 Festival of Britain icon. As a lover of the Festival of Britain, I could be seen to be for this, but as a modernist, it strikes me as retrograde, and backwards looking, rather than a modern statement. This video report highlights the problem – architecture has grown bigger and better since the 50s – what should a truly new, bold structure be?
Developers are having another go at the forever doomed development of Battersea Power Station, this time into an ‘ecotown’, with a glazed commercial area and large tower outside the station, and a mall, residential units and hotel in the station itself. The central ruined area of the station will become a park, with no roof. The chimneys will have to be rebuilt completely, making the power station its own complete lifesize reconstruction. The new ecochimney completely dominates the power station, with the two sitting uneasily together. In my mind: knock the power station down. Seeing inside, it’s a wreck, and there’s seemingly no design that can turn it into a useful usable building in and off itself.
photo by joseph beuys hat
The third is Robin Hood Gardens, the Smithson’s postwar housing project. Whilst flawed, unloved, and unlooked-after, it’s a unique piece documenting a particular period. I’m not saying reconstruct it, or copy it and make new estates on a similar design, but it could be turned into a working estate, filled with people who like the feel. It’s an important piece as the Smithsons were part of the modern art discourse of the time, and these grand architecture projects describe a certain period and style of housing. Similar efforts in Sheffield are being converted into new living and working environments. Whilst modernism should provide the shock of the new, this can only be done by remembering the past, in all its glories and failures. Reuse, not reconstruction. Real life, not spectacle.
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Pimlico School is coming down too (http://tinyurl.com/5r4j3x) – a still working building, by all accounts. Tearing down buildings within the architect’s lifetime is a pretty damning indictment of our imagination, it has to be said.
On the other hand, there’s a fairly strong conspiracy theory that says the only reason Battersea’s developers are insisting on rebuilding the chimneys is so they can take them down, then find an excuse not to rebuild them… which would be another, different, but no less grand failure.
Hm, really good piece.
Whenever I wander old capital cities, I wonder what was destroyed and what was kept. Every generation has wanted to make its mark on the landscape and distance themselves (demolishing) from the past or even previous generation.
Yes, keeping stuff around as a record of another time and finding those who are willing to be retro is fine. But, it’s running counter of the big moneyed egos wanting to always start with a clean slate.
Ja?
@james Ouch.