Modern British Architecture

Housing numerous museums and being the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851, South Kensington, in West London, is known for its value as a cultural centre. In 1983, a new building entered this historic centre of culture and added to it, albeit in a decidedly un-English way. The Ismaili Centre was designed to be a meeting place, academic institution, and place of worship for the 8,000 Ismaili Muslims in Great Britain (Long) the first of its kind in the West. Located at 1 Cromwell Gardens, the Ismaili Centre is on one of the busiest streets in London, and is directly in the middle of the historic and cultural centre of South Kensington.

Although I will primarily focus on South Kensington, and the Ismaili Centre’s place within it, it is important to understand South Kensington in its urban context, as part of a larger whole. South Kensington is part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the second-smallest local authority in London geographically (the Corporation of London is smallest), and the most densely populated in all of Britain (Lightfoot 54). The Royal Borough is a relatively new entity, formed as a merger of the Royal Borough of Kensington and the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in 1965, and stretches from Notting Hill in the north all the way down to the river Thames. The former Royal Borough of Kensington (so titled by King Edward VII, whose mother, Queen Victoria, was born and raised in Kensington Palace) includes the area to the immediate north, west and south of Kensington Gardens, while the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea further south still. (Lightfoot 5) As a whole, the Royal Borough is the most affluent area in Britain, with an average household income of £42,272 annually in 2006; almost double the national average of £25,000. (Lightfoot 6, 54) It is home to some of the most well known landmarks in London, including Kensington Gardens, Notting Hill, Harrods, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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In March 2000, British Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett introduced a new program of City Academies, intended to revive underperforming schools in disadvantaged inner-city settings. Academies would be independently managed schools, funded primarily by the state, with an initial voluntary investment from private parties within the nearby community. Each of these schools would identify a specialist focus in one subject area, but must admit students without regard to demonstrated skills or aptitudes.

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Daniel Libeskind’s LMU Graduate Centre overlooking Holloway Road

As if to make up for its historical reluctance to, and often outright disavowal of, modern architecture, England and London in particular have become a hotbed of architectural advancement and ingenuity. Home to the Architectural Association School and studios of major-label architects like Zaha Hadid, London has seen a surge of new and innovative buildings within the past several years. Creations by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and the like have cropped up almost everywhere imaginable, both stretching the city’s imagination and establishing an architectural reputation to the rest of the world. Most of these novel buildings, bridges, and structures have grown up in the most predictable places, on the banks of the Thames, within the heart of the City, and among the office space of the flourishing financial district. Prime names will, after all, get prime real estate. Yet one finds Daniel Libeskind’s addition to the London Metropolitan University Graduate Centre, however, in the most unlikely of places, along the seedy strip of Holloway Road. Home to a notorious illegal tobacco trade and LMU students on their way to anywhere but there, Holloway Road seems to be the last place one would find the work of an architect now famous for his work on Berlin’s Jewish Museum and the Ground Zero memorial project. But there it is, looking like a series of jagged steel bricks dropped along the edge of the street, seemingly entirely unrelated to its context. Despite its alien form and facade, the LMU Graduate Centre Building is in fact a “good neighbor,” an asset to the university, and a welcome sculptural break from the glum Holloway norm. It is a haven for students and a flicker of hope for local revitalization.

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Historically a vibrant if rather seedy neighborhood, bounded on the north by the Thames and trailing off into suburbs in the south, the borough of Southwark was populated largely by poorer citizens and boasted theaters, brothels and taverns before the advent of industrialization turned it into a place of railway bridges and grimy warehouses. Bombing during the Blitz and a series of fires over the centuries have had a particularly devastating effect on its architecture. Southwark has lately sought to revitalize its status as a place rich in the arts and culture; cut off from the rest of the City by the Thames as it is, it faces the challenge of attracting tourists and inhabitants over the river, a task facilitated by the construction of bridges (most recently the Millennium footbridge) and the revamping of its northern limits, the Bankside area (Godley).

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Everyone in Camden Town is selling something. The women working the food stalls in Camden Lock Market shout and wave free samples at passersby, while drug dealers lurking along the canal flash Ziploc bags full of weed. A walk through the neighborhood becomes almost harrowing, as one must navigate both the teeming crowds and the relentless appeals to one’s wallet. Made bleak by the industrialization of the mid-19th century, Camden Town has been revitalized in recent years by the conversion of unused industrial buildings into bustling marketplaces. The marketplace of the present and the industry of the past now exert a joint influence on the neighborhood’s urban fabric. The north/south axis of Camden High Street is defined and influenced by the markets on its northern end, reflected in the stall-ification of early Victorian shopfronts to the south. The buildings themselves become peddlers, selling themselves, their wares, and often an entire image to passing pedestrians. The buildings on the east/west axis of the canal are just as preoccupied with the idea of “selling it,� but they are also influenced by the area’s industrial roots, perpetually revising and revisiting the 19th century warehouse. All of this culminates with the Sainsbury’s superstore at the end of Hawley Crescent, a building that evokes both traditional marketplace and industrial shed.

Our neighborhood of interest is highlighted in yellow, and the Sainsbury’s block is shaded in blue.

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Across the Thames, from the OXO Tower in the west to the Southwark Cathedral in the East, extending southward to St George’s circus, the borough of Southwark faces, throughout its history opposing—or reflecting–the city center of London. Throughout developments of centuries, Bankside, traditionally defined as the short riverfront path running east from Bankend to a western point somewhere just past the Tate Modern, has been the hotbed of culture and character of this borough.
Largely, contributions of Southwark to the city have been overlooked by historians who preferred to ignore certain elements of the city they’d rather not bring to light. Historically, it has been seen as “unruly, badly run, poor industrial, overcrowded, immoral, polluted, coarse, raucous, and unhealthy.� What is often obscured beneath its seedy reputation, however, is its “creative, independent, cosmopolitan, tolerant, vigorous, reforming, resilient, enterprising� character. All in all, it has served as a sanctuary: a home for prostitution, for criminals, for the poor, for immigrant communities, for the theater, and for “a culture-led regeneration that is the envy of London� (Reilly).

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Figure 1. The Millennium Bridge from the Tate Modern observation deck.

Why did the public cross the bridge? To get to the other side.

That joke is old news, just like crossing the Thames by foot is old news. The Romans built the first bridge across the river almost 2000 years ago, and the oldest surviving bridge,  Newbridge - dates from the 13th century (South). So how did the Millennium Bridge, something as simple and old-fashioned as a footbridge, draw over 80,000 people to its opening day in 2000? Perhaps location is the answer, as the bridge connects two high profile landmarks: St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tate Modern Gallery. Then again, Southwark and Blackfriars, two other bridges perfectly functional for crossing the river (as most bridges are wont to be), flank the new site relatively closely on either side. Perhaps the appeal lies in the bridge’s technologically sleek design? The designers touted the project as a “blade of light across the Thames” an emblem of technology at the start of the 21st century that “gives space back to the people” (Foster). Perhaps it was just the novelty of the new. In any case, whether the draw was function or inspiration or something else entirely, the opening of the bridge enticed the modern masses to come out and cross the Thames. So many came out, in fact, that they caused a modern building based on an idea as old as antiquity to become structurally unsound. But more on the unsound bit later on!

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The neighborhood of Wembley is in the northwest portion of the city in the Borough of Brent and is one of the most culturally diverse regions in the UK.  In fact, around 39 percent of its population was born outside of the European Union, the largest percentage in England.  On the fringe of the city, it certainly has a different feel than Central London, with many of the buildings appearing to have sprung up around the 1950s and early 1960s.  Much of the development in Wembley, and especially its multi-million pound refurbishment, is thanks to the dominant building in the neighborhood, Wembley Stadium.  The original Wembley Stadium was built in 1923 for the British Empire Exhibition, and slowly, the neighborhood began to grow up around it.  The new Wembley Stadium was opened just this year and is by far and away the jewel of the neighborhood, with its gleaming steel structure and white arch visible from all over the area.  The stadium was designed by Norman Foster and partners, who are also responsible for the Gherkin in central London.  Yet for the power and beauty that the stadium commands, it is in marked contrast to the older, poorer buildings that surround it. 

            While Wembley is not an extremely poor neighborhood, there is still a marked difference between the area and its neighbors to the south, Chelsea and Kensington.  Many of the buildings closest to the stadium are three-to-four story apartments with small retailers and shops on the bottom floor.  The neighborhood is not a wealthy one, as many wealthy people probably would not want to live in a place that is periodically invaded by 150,000 people.  The ethnic diversity is apparent as you walk down the street, with many shops’ signs being in different languages.  Many of the buildings look as though they went up in the 1950s and early 1960s with simple exteriors of brick.  Along the main roads facing the stadium, most buildings are commercial in nature (except for the apartments above the stairs), with the residential area being farther out from the stadium.  

            At first, I wondered how the poorer residents that lived around Wembley felt about the stadium, with the project costing just under one billion pounds.  I felt like it would be a very awkward relationship between the residents of Wembley and the gross display of wealth that is the stadium.  However, their neighborhood will benefit greatly from the new stadium because the government is actually revamping the surrounding area which will no doubt give a boost to the economy of the neighborhood.  

            Construction is already underway on luxury shops, apartments, and a new arena around the stadium.  The roads, railways, and tube stations in Wembley have all undergone a 70 million pound renovation to make the stadium as accessible as possible.  (Literally, all the roads will lead to Wembley Stadium)  Yet the new buildings, being led by Quintain Estates and Developers, are quite different than the current neighborhood, with their streamlined, modern glass exteriors.  In fact, the welcoming line on the new Wembley City website is “A brand new Wembley is emerging!�  I bet that if I were to go back in ten years, the neighborhood and its residents will have completely changed.  

            I’ll be traveling back to Wembley next week to see how the area transforms on the day of an event.  Being an exhibition football game of Chelsea and Manchester United, it will no doubt bring a huge, diverse crowd.  I am curious to see how the residents will handle such an influx of people and what visitors’ reactions are to the neighborhood, whether they spend anytime in Wembley or just head straight for the stadium.  My impressions on Wembley could be vastly altered in the next assignment.  I will also detail much more on the stadium itself, as (hopefully) I will have seen the interior as well.

The London Zoo is a neighborhood in its own right—even a lot like a gated community. To begin by looking at the special layout of the area, there are three types of land use: residential, commercial, and civic. The residential space is where the animals reside and this space is comprised of buildings, outdoor exhibits, and walk through indoor/outdoor spaces. These are like the apartments or town homes in another neighborhood:

This is a picture of the giraffe habitat, which is an example of the residential-like space in the zoo. The giraffes live both outside of this building and inside stalls inside the older looking, dark, brick building.

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It is difficult to discuss the Laban Centre for Contemporary Dance without some notice of its neighborhood context. Located on the eastern edge of Deptford in the borough of Lewisham, south of the Thames opposite Canary Wharf, and off the edge of most London maps, every article published in the London Times surrounding the Centre’s opening in 2003 made some reference to the area’s “inner city decay,� the “dark, deserted and creepy� streets surrounding the site, and the “landscape of bleak neglect� that serves as a background to this beautiful building. However, for now I’ll leave it with just those initial impressions of the Deptford area and talk about the Centre itself.

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