CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE

As the vultures gather around the soon to be vacated carcass of E. Vincent Harris’s Central Library in Manchester, CiA student Michael Groves has discovered the above stygian description of the then new library’s 1934 context by an anonymous but poetic critic.

Some architecture students I recently met had never heard of Peter Zumthor (!). I offer a photoset of the Kolumba Museum in Cologne as a reminder.

Photoset

Charalampos Politakis, a Doctoral student at the Manchester School of Architecture (supervisor Eamonn Canniffe) is currently researching the philosophy of anthropomorphic architecture. Here are some images and text from his Masters project which he completed at the University of Salford in 2009.

From animism to the observation of nature, man has always turned his eyes to nature in order to explore it, study it, admire it, and deify the inexplicable. This relation between nature and man this ‘communication’ was an influence for mankind to create myths, works of art and architectural structures.

The ‘Emerging Face’ project is an artistic and architectural concept that finds its influences in Greek mythology, the anthropomorphic landscape, and the anthropomorphic structure of architecture in general. Anthropomorphic landscapes and how the human body and its parts are identifiable in nature, such as in mountains, has been a field of interests from an artistic and and architectural point of view, as well as the relation of the human body and the exterior form of architectural structures.

The basic concept for this project was the creation, at this initial stage of development, of a 3D virtual installation based on the shape of human face. The face appears not only as a 3D colossal sculpture but also as a 3D architectural structure; a building with the shape of a face in a supine position. The user navigates the installation and the 3D environment with the use of the game engine UnrealTournament 2003. The design of the 3D structure, its environment and installation, is a first step towards this concept being presented for a future development in the creation of a building based on the form of the human face.

The Politics of the Piazza has been awarded an Outstanding Academic Title 2009 by Choice the leading source for library-relevant book reviews in the United States. In his review David H. Sachs of Kansas State University describes The Politics of the Piazza in the following terms.

The book features an introduction and 14 historically ordered chapters arranged into four sections. Canniffe discusses the social, political, and economic conditions surrounding some of the most important public urban spaces of each historical era, and explains how these forces influenced the formation and evolution of each piazza. The book is thoroughly researched, appropriately referenced, precisely written, highly reliable, and genuinely insightful.

And you can Read more books by us

Manchester Town Hall appears uncredited in the new film, playing the Houses of Parliament. Under this very ceiling Holmes struggles with Moriarty. Continuity in Architecture will never mistake Waterhouse for Barry even if they can believe Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law are Holmes and Watson.

Neil Stevenson was a tutor at Manchester School of Architecture during the ‘nineties (now at Sheffield Hallam). He combines experience of practice with a generous approach to teaching, a wide knowledge of artistic culture and an ability to stop, look and draw. To mark his fiftieth birthday Neil undertook the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. He has scanned and published his camino sketchbook … Photoset

Manchester Cathedral dah-dah-dah-daah
You’re bringing me down dah-dah-dah-daah
(with apologies to The New Vaudeville Band)

Manchester and Salford’s contentious relationship across the River Irwell has always assured a clear, if far from beautiful, distinction between the two cities. The long awaited attempt to blur the differences, however, in the form of the Greengate public spaces suggests a decline in ambition (not to mention the graphic techniques) - perhaps in both cases as a result of the economic crisis.

In contrast to the substantial, if problematically detailed, landscape that characterises the corporate environment of Spinningfields, the cultural significance of Manchester Cathedral apparently merits nothing more substantial than a bit of decking-as-footbridge, the usual ‘feature lights’ and some suspiciously familiar curved seating. Is the palette of the ‘public realm’, dread misused phrase, so jaded in our post-boom environment that the designers of this project (Whitelaw Turkington and Arup) are forced to reference the dubious delights of Manchester’s Exchange Square?

Why not have done with it, replicate it all and put up another Big Wheel? Is it credible that any other European metropolis would treat its cathedral in such a parochial way? As always one looks for consolation and the pastel outlines of the blocks that frame these impoverished urban visions will at least remain just outlines for the foreseeable future.

Following the visit of MA Urban Design students from MMU to our fair city this week, I offer an aerial photo set of Preston in the ‘fifties (before the clearance of factories, mills and much else).

All the photos

Everybody is talking about it, so here’s a photo set of Nottingham Contemporary on the opening weekend. People were queuing to get in on the day and the visitor numbers continue to be healthy. It’s a serious piece of architecture that responds well to the scale of Middle Pavement and Weekday Cross, although I am slightly troubled by the massing of the building from the uphill approach - Nottingham is littered with buildings which turn their backs to the main vehicular routes and the gallery appears to do the same, but in a highly crafted way (see picture below for the approach up the hill).

The lace pattern is apparently controversial for some people. I wish it had been more explicit, less tentative. From a distance it is a milky sheen. The architects didn’t want to be ‘Pop’. The overall elevational treatment with it’s folds, borders and panels reminded me of Joseph Hoffmann’s work. To pursue the Secessionist theme, is the ribbed golden container on the roof a reference to Olbrich’s ‘golden cabbage’?

I was not allowed to photograph the interior. It is very good - simple, robust, well-lit.

The best article I have read about the building is by Ellis Woodman in Building Design.

Flickr Photoset

Work by CiA year six students at this year’s Archaeology’s Places and Contemporary Uses Workshop, created in collaboration with students from the schools of architecture in Barcelona and Venice, and the School of Archaeology in Catania.

More pictures 

Archaeology’s Places and Contemporary Uses: Website

Superimposed red line marking the axis between the Thiepval arch (east) and the River Ancre (west) in the Somme region.

Note the persistent marks of trench systems below the cultivation.

Early evening in late August 2009 and the sun is almost coinciding with the east/west axis. The light glances off surfaces and catches exposed corners.

The Thiepval Arch, The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. Inscribed with the names of 73,357 British soldiers of the Somme campaign whose remains were not identified. Unveiled August 1932. Architect: Edwin Lutyens.

More pictures of Thiepval in August: Photoset

Dominic Roberts of CiA will be talking about Architecture and some uses of Tradition: Projects by Francis Roberts Architects at the Centre for North West Regional Studies, University of Lancaster on Saturday 7 November, 2009. The talk forms part of the Architecture of the North West study day.

Centre for North West Regional Studies

Picture: Summer Hill under construction. Francis Roberts Architects.