Constructive criticism: the week in architecture
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Version 0 of 1. Who's the greatest architect Britain has ever produced? If you held a public survey, I'd put £50 on Sir Christopher Wren winning – not least because his face used to be on the £50 note. Wren's place in the national consciousness is assured, but that's more than can be said for his architecture – some of which is in an alarmingly precarious condition. Not St Paul's, whose restoration completed last year, but another London church: St Bride's on Fleet Street. It needs serious work, having not been restored since the blitz. There's apparently an inch of grime in places, plus it's been ravaged by weather, pollution, traffic vibrations and neglect, and there's now a real danger of the stonework falling off. The interior needs work, too. With this in mind, an appeal was launched on Wednesday to raise £2.5m to carry out the necessary restoration. It's called Inspire! – presumably as in church … spire … geddit? Losing St Bride's would be unthinkable. It's one of Wren's finest – one of the first to be rebuilt after the great fire of London (it opened in 1675), and the second tallest he designed after St Paul's. Its slender, tiered steeple is a structure of glorious lightness, and is said to have been the inspiration for wedding cakes. And of course, it's associated with centuries of printing and journalism. Caxton's apprentice Wynkyn de Worde, who operated England's movable-type printing press in the churchyard, and is buried there, and it has links from Shakespeare, Milton and Dickens right up to Clement Freud, whose funeral was held there in 2009. Its walls are studded with plaques to press figures and there's an altar where candles burn for fallen journalists. Rupert Murdoch is apparently a regular visitor too – surely he's got some spare change? Equally scandalously, the St Bride's campaigners point out, there is no national centre or society for Christopher Wren. Surely we can do better than just putting him on a banknote? I pledge £50 right here – who'll join me? Rupert? Are you reading this? Times are hard enough for living British architects, admittedly, but there's still a steady trickle of new projects to write home about, and two of them were unveiled this week, in Manchester and Maidstone. First is the new Chetham's School of Music, in the middle of Manchester, and at first glance it's rather impressive. It's by local architect Roger Stephenson, formerly of Stephenson Bell, who has had a hand in many of the city's regeneration projects over the years (including the apartments on the site of the famed Haçienda). He describes Chetham's as the most exciting project he's ever done. It's a powerful, solid building that looks like it's been sculpted out of rock, with small openings and massive ramparts. Then again, those sweeping bands of windows also look a bit like a musical score. There's something slightly modernist going on, too – echoes of Le Corbusier's fortress-like La Tourette monastery, perhaps. This fortified aspect is partly a response to the adjacent 15th-century manor, which is also part of the school, and the generally robust Victorian landscape surrounding (Chetham's claims to have the oldest English language library in the world – it looks like something out of Harry Potter, apparently). Those thick walls (of handmade brick) and small openings on the upper storeys help to control the acoustics – behind them are teaching rooms for the young musicians. Below is a 350-seat concert hall. It won't be ready for use until the beginning of the next academic year, but I'm already curious to see inside. There's also a bit of historical incorporation going on in Kent, but the Maidstone Museum's new east wing takes the opposite tack. Hugh Broughton architects extension to the gallery is all glass and gold cladding, in brazen contrast to the brick Elizabethan manor of the existing museum. You could say it's a bit of 21st-century bling to perk up a 150-year-old institution, and Prince Charles would doubtless add it to his "monstrous carbuncle" file, but on paper at least, the composition works pretty well. The gold shingles (actually a copper alloy) pick up on the leaded glass of the Tudor windows, while the boxy simplicity sets off the curvy gables. As well as adding a new entrance and exhibition spaces, plus amenities the Tudors overlooked (such as a baby-changing area), the new wing actually improves access to the existing building, opening up previously inaccessible areas of the museum. Even the heritage purists have something to be grateful for. Finally, a word from the sponsors. Hot on the heels of the world's largest McDonald's on the London Olympic site, Coca-Cola's pavilion is also taking shape. So far, so "corporate product that's the antithesis of the ideals of physical excellence the Olympics is supposedly about", you might say. Except this one's been designed by rising young architects Pernilla & Asif, who were responsible for the delightful Cloud installation at Design Miami/Basel last year – in which giant clouds of helium foam randomly formed on the ground then floated up to the ceiling. Their Coca-Cola Beatbox looks like an exploded Coke can, with its shards of red-and-white panelling. Visitors will apparently be able to "play" the building by "interacting with sounds embedded in the architecture itself" – something to do with a sports anthem being created by uber-producer Mark Ronson. Confused? Me too. But architects have to take what they can get. In Wren's day, you had the church and the great fire of London to drum up commissions; now you've got soft drinks companies and the Olympics. But good luck to them – Pernilla & Asif, that is, not Coca-Cola. |