It's Oscars night
The Oscars of the architecture world, that is. The Stirling Prize. It's being awarded tomorrow night . Our very own Nigel Wrench will be reporting on it this evening - or at least we're really really hoping that he can, as long as some other crucial element to the global meltdown story doesn't develop in our time.
So, if all goes well, you'll be hearing from Nigel this evening. He's written this :
This station is in the running. Recognise it? Is it anywhere near you?
(photo copyright Mark Humphreys)
It's co-designed by the British Architects responsible for the Eden Project. Here's another shot:
(photo copyright Ger van der Flugt)
Nigel writes:
"The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) uses the word "heroic" to describe its soaring spaces and use of timber. On PM tonight I'll be talking to Sir Nicholas Grimshaw whose architectural practice is responsible for the station. Only likely to be local to you if you're in Amsterdam, as the photo below may indicate, if you're familiar with the skyline:
(photo copyright Mark Humphreys)
I thought you might like to see snaps of the five other nominated projects ( Riba says the award is for "the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year").
(photo copyright Tim Crocker)
Accordia, a housing development in Cambridge by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios/Alison Brooks Architects/Macreanor Lavington. One third of the homes are , in the jargon, "affordable".
(photo copyright Tim Griffith)
Manchester Civil Justice Centre by Denton Corker Marshall, an Australian architectural practice.
(Photo copyright Dennis Gilbert)
The Royal Festival Hall, London, £100 million restoration by Allies and Morrison.
(photo copyright Roland Halbe)
Nord Park Cable Railway, Austria, by Zaha Hadid Architects. Ms Hadid is the iconoclastic architect also responsible for the design of the controversial aquatic centre for London 2012.
(photo copyright Tim Soar)
And this is Westminster Academy, London, architecture by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, which the bookies have installed as the favourite.
Your thoughts?
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Hm, Sequin, where is Marc when you need him? But I look forward to the pics when they appear - The Stirling Prize usually has some interesting entries.
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Well, I've just gone 'elsewhere' to look at this year's entries, and frankly don't think much of any of them. Was it just the prospect of recession that caused architects and their clients to become more conservative in their projects, I wonder? Whatever happened to innovations, like the gridshells, etc?
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I'm pleased to hear Lucinda Lambton's back on the media trail, sharing her bonkers passion for architecture and design. I've missed her!
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Sequin, your photos are better than those I found and do give a better sense of the narrative of these buildings.
I'm amused by the Justice Centre. Are the stickyouty bits there as a reminder of the olden days (for the erection of gibbets)? I'm tempted by the Festival Hall - better than a facelift, I'd say! But I'm not convinced by the Academy, in spite of what the bookies say.
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I'm a bit concerned about the running station. Was it leaves on the line that made it late?
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You took the word right out of my mouth, Big Sister. I was just going to say, I note that stickyouty bits are this year's fashionable archi-accessory.
As Georgie would say in the Mapp and Lucia novels...
"How tarsome!"
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Good grief. Apart from the station, what a load of codswallop.
Very good for building the reputations of individual architects, but hopeless as actual buildings.
We have to decide what's more important; buildings that are practical to live and work in and harmonise with their surroundings, or adulation for the jumped-up engineers.
(Good idea actually, get the engineers to design the buildings and let the architects... um... well, put them in a big padded room with paper and crayons, where they'll do no harm.)
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I rather think, Cat, that the clients are as much the problem as the architects, in many cases. But innovation doesn't always equal good design (though is usually dependent upon good engineers).
I shall definitely visit the Festival Hall as soon as I can because I am intrigued by what I see in these photos, though as it is more of a refit (or facelift) than an entirely new structure, I personally wonder if it truly qualifies for this award. I like, though, the way it is still entirely recognisable to those familiar with it, yet with fifty years shaven off its age.
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Riba says the award is for "the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year"
In what sense is it British architecture? It cannot be architecture in this country, otherwise the two railway stations (one in Holland, the other in Austria) would be excluded. It cannot be that they are British architects or the Civil Justice Centre in Manchester would be disqualified as it was designed by Australians. Are they making the rules up as they go along?
H.
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Thanks for posting the photographs.
The station in Amsterdam would certainly get my vote. It is beautiful and I bet the trains arrive on time as well.
The Manchester Civil Justice Centre is uninspiring and, like many other similar buildings, only looks good in photographs taken at dusk using time exposure.
Best wishes,
Otter
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Big Sister (8):
You're right of course. A company (or a council) will see a building such as these as prestige alone rather than a part of something bigger.
There's a massive (and grotesque) tower block going up in Glasgow city centre which - at 40 stories - is the tallest building in the city by quite a margin. Glasgow has no shortage of brown-field sites near the city centre that could easily have been used to build out rather than up. This is simply a vanity project (indeed it *sounds like* a fallacy...).
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Well I'm waiting for HRH's comments!+)
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It's possibly sad of me, but I care a lot less about what a railway station looks like than about whether it is any use as a railway station.
I see nowhere in those photographs where a traveller could sit and wait for the train to arrive, nor clear arrivals/departures boards, and if it doesn't have plenty of each of those it can win as many architectural prizes as anyone pleases, it will still be a place to avoid if possible.
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I imagine that several decades ago, when the old Birmingham New Street was demolished and replaced with a concrete station, topped with a concrete concourse, topped with a concrete shopping centre, topped with a concrete multi-storey car park; architects were cooing and saying how brilliant it was.
A few decades and a couple of minor makeovers later, it's described as "The UK's largest covered urinal" (brilliant description!) and another makeover is planned. Although the vast majority of the existing concrete-ness will remain, and train capacity will not increase (passenger capacity increase will be due to building an additional concourse - so even more ways for passengers to get lost when the station announcer announces the latest keep fit campaign, otherwise known as last-minute platform alterations!).
Unfortunately, the station's location, status as a major transport hub, and a sizeable number of shops in the Pallisades means that the best solution - blow up the lot and start again from scratch - is unfeasible.
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mittfh @ 14, ah yes, Birmingham New Street. A majestic mess, and underground with it so that the meanness of the place could be emphasised by 'no smoking' being enforced there before it was the law everywhere. (It used to flood when it rained, and have to be closed. Gawdelpus!)
Having tried to get information from the boards there, and got three quite different lots about one train (one on the board outside the barriers into the place, one on the concourse, and one on the platform I struggled down the steps to with heavy baggage only to be told it was the wrong one) I will admit that this was one of the places I was thinking of as being unfit-for-purpose in the form it was then.
The other was Euston, revamped at great expense with huge fanfares and *deliberately* made without seating 'to discourage people from sitting around'! That was the excuse I was given, anyhow, when I had to wait more than an hour to meet someone off a delayed train, and the only place to sit down was in a cafe where one had to buy (overpriced, nasty) coffee to be allowed in at all.
Not the architects' faults, sure, because they control neither seating nor information-boards, but having those conspicuously absent from the plans would make me very wary of buying a design. Do the people who choose how railway stations are built ever travel by train, I wonder, and if they do do they ever carry more than one small bag with them?
I have watched as people sat in Paddington waiting to see where there train was to be, and then having almost to sprint to the right platform because the information is deliberately put up as late as possible to stop people from gathering round the barriers. I have watched someone who had been waiting for more than half-an-hour miss a train because she was old and laden and couldn't run to the far-off platform in the time between announcement and departure... And the doors of the train were locked before she got there and before the time of announced departure.
Do any of the top brass in the railways ever travel by train at all?
To blazes with shiny new stations, how about making the ones they already have a bit less awful for the passenger -- not the customer, the *passenger*! They have improved Reading to the point at which instead of being a reasonable railway station, it is a 'shopping experience' with occasional trains, and a complete pain to get onto if what you want is to catch a train rather than buy some fancy socks...
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Chris - I agree entirely. You are so right!
Euston is really appalling - it's like some refugee gathering-place, as most people end up sitting on the floor with their luggage piled around them while waiting for the last-minute information as to what platform they will have to run to. Twice in August we had to endure the floor-sitting followed by high-speed-sprint experience for our Manchester train. Surely the station layout could be better organised? And a few seats or benches- not too much to ask? (Apparently so, obviously...)
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SSC - how do you know how practical these buildings are? Have you tried them?
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It woz Accordia wot won it, guys! And if you look on the RIBA site, where there are other views, I can see that it seems to have a lot to commend it.
Nice to think that a housing project won against the big public projects.
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