Fall In Love With The Beauty Of Not Belonging
For the 2010 Autumn/Winter print issue ‘The Intoxication Issue’, the guest editor Richard Milward explores how cities are never still. They breathe, they grow, they reinvent themselves. Yet every time a bold new building rises among older streets, it is met with suspicion, or even outrage. Too modern, too strange, too different. And yet, history shows us that what once seemed out of place often becomes the symbol of an era. Discover how Jonathan Fisher explores the idea of architectural ‘misfits’, buildings that refuse to blend in, and argues that these are not mistakes, but the very force that keeps our cities alive, here in The Beauty Of Not Belonging : Fall In Love With Misfit.
Misfit Architecture
“While pals were kicking footballs, or clunking about on computer games, I’d spend an hour each school night locked away, trying to knock out a novella. This behavior was bound to make me a bit of a misfit. Then again, sack the status quo. Some of my favorite modern architecture seems to clash with its neighbors, like finding a shard of glass in a bag of toffee bonbons. Often, obscure architecture only sees the light of day through funded competitions.” – Jonathan Fisher
Urban Contrast
Architectural Changes
Aren’t all buildings out of place with their environment Especially in London there’s certainly no consister recognizable style, unlike Paris, for example. Even the architecture that now dominates central Paris was onc out of place; the result of a massive slur clearance programme designed less to improve the lot of the struggling poor than to defend the aristocracy from as agitated mob. And the buildings that first touched virgin soil in the heart of Paris must have seemed peculiar against the lush green fields that were once there. But when people needed shelters, places to work, places to play, to eat, to sleep, they just got on with building them. This is how cities grow. As more demands are put on them, as more people arrive, cities have to change. They simply cannot stand still. No matter how beautiful and perfect a city may appear there will always be pressures on it to change. Canute-like resistance to these pressures is doomed.
London Architectural Diversity
I live in south east London, work in west London and generally play in east London. This triangular journey between Peckham, St James’s and Shoredith is extremely architecturally rich and diverse. There is the Tower of London from the 11th century, Southwark Cathedral dating from the 13th century, numerous Tudor leftovers tucked behind great glass and step. skyscrapers in the City, Georgian townhouses, Victoria railway stations and 20th century icons such as the Swiss Re. Building. I love the fact that London is ic this. Places like Paris, Rome, Florence, even Bath and Edinburgh can seem trapped in a place in time. They are beautiful, no doubt about it, but, in my opinion they are less architecturally stimulating than London has contrast and is constantly changing, this is what makes it so thrilling to live and work in.
London Skyline
Urban Design
Most of London’s big civic monuments, its Parliament building and town halls, the great sweep of Regent Street, are the result of architectural competitions, whereas the mass of London, the terraced town houses, the street layouts, the factories and shops have all sprung up through private enterprise. The appearance of a city, the way it is laid out, affects everyone directly and there are two distinctive driving forces behind London’s appearance and, arguably, the appearance of most cities in the western world: those of civic pride and those of private enterprise. I believe those driven by the state are, more often than not, the result of an effort to outwardly demonstrate that the state is progressive, fair, open, creative, responsible and that it can contribute positively to everyone’s life. Private enterprise creates architecture that responds to an immediate need; a need for housing, a need for a factory and, of course, a need for profit. The bulking therefore look quite different.
Town Hall Neoclassic
19th Century Britain
Our town halls up and down the country are magnificent buildings, brilliant shows of power, authority, dignity, sority and wealth. They nearly all reference Greek or Roman classical architecture in some form; making a direct connection with the power of by-gone empires. Our wealth and power was comparable to Roman wealth and power, the message was very clear: we were like them. This style came to define us, came to define what our cities looked like, but it wasn’t contextual or even unique. It was a style copied from thousands of years ago and as such was a complete misfit in 18th and 19th century London.
Modernism Birth
Around the turn of the century, things began to change. As our power and wealth began to fade and America began to look like real competition, old ideas began to be challenged. Architecturally, this gradually manifested itself in ideas of what became known as modernism, or the international style. Movements in art and sculpture, such as art nouveau and art deco, started to influence architecture. Architecture started to influence the arts, elements of machines and cars and trains started to appear on buildings; eventually no one wanted to be associated with the Empire of old.
Modernism building
Progress vs Preservation
Whatever was new was in. America built new and exciting buildings as it became wealthier and more powerful, Britain doggedly resisted, determined to not to change. But change was impossible to resist, ‘you can’t stop progress’, as Muriel’s revolting father preaches in the film Muriel’s Wedding. Well you can’t stop it, that’s true, but you can slow it down.
Rebuilding After 1945
Two world wars and the carpet-bombing of British and German cities meant there was no alternative to rebuilding in 1945. The big question was what would our new cities look like? Should they look like they did before? Should they be completely new? Should we repair? Should we experiment? The world seemed hopeful in 1945, and new ideas could be tested. The time was ripe for new things. Europe has been going through a period of architectural experimentation since 1945. There is no architectural panacea, despite what the modernists say, or the classicists, or the green lobby, or the socialists or the capitalists. Everybody has a different idea of what is the answer. The only way to get past this noisy rabble is through our democratic system.
Ever since the end of the Second World War we have been building and repairing and constantly questioning: What is appropriate? What is in context? What should it look like? Who answers these questions and how can they be democratically accountable? This drive for accountable decision-making has led to ever more public scrutiny over what is built. Competition has become the defining mantra for our age. If there is no competition then it cannot be scrutinized; it will not be fair.
Architectural Competitions
Competitions existed before the Second World War, but they were mainly for the wealthy and fashionable; who could build this aristocrat a country residence? Who could build this new city town hall? Who could build the Empire a new parliament? But now competition is everywhere. Everything is subject to rule by majority and competition, even our pop stars. At the heart of all these competitions remains the inevitable question: what makes this building right, right for now, right for this area and right for these people? And as these are questions that are not easily answered, we have buildings that have responded in a multitude of different ways.
The competition process can produces timid responses and it can produce the opposite. The reasons why are too many to go into right now, but the interesting point is everyone’s idea of what is right for that particular site is different. And so it should be. Imagine how bland it would be if everyone’s response to an architectural problem was get out their textbooks of classical architecture and apply generously. I recently read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, a novel about a young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic vision.
Living cities
I don’t agree with all her philosophical points, but she paints a brilliant picture of a world where architectural debate is stifled by the idea that there is only one answer to any problem. It is a world that is bland and stuffy, patriarchal, controlled; in a word, dull. London is peppered with misfits. It has wholly embraced the idea of open debate and democracy and competition. From the Royal Festival Hall, on the south side of the Thames, to the various new schools and academies, to the aquatics centre, velodrome and stadium in the Olympic Park, to the housing blocks and hospitals. Most are the result of a competition of some sort. Some formal competitions, others just competition for work. They can all be considered misfits, because there is no universal guiding stylistic idea and none look like the London of charming Dickensian squalor.
Pompidou Paris
Paris threw its arms in the air in horror in 1977 when British architect Richard Rogers won the competition for the Pompidou Centre. But this was one man’s idea of what was right for this part of Paris. It wasn’t just the architecture that won, it was the idea; the idea that Paris shouldn’t be wrapped in cotton wool and be a city that only houses yellow sandstone seven story tenement buildings. Paris should be new, and modern. Paris was then and still is a living, working, breathing city. It is not forever trapped in the Belle Epoque.
Pompidou Center
Time Passing
At the time when Rogers won it was the 1970s, everyone was wearing flares and talking about Serge Gainsbourg’s latest exploits, (I imagine, I don’t know I wasn’t there), but the point is, nobody was pretending that everyone was still walking around in crinoline dresses discussing the latest scandal surrounding Toulouse-Lautree. Rogers firmly believed that architecture should reflect what was going on there and then. It is an art form, an outward expression of contemporary ideas. The ideas of the past were good ideas, they got us this far, but they weren’t? definitive. We didn’t resolve everything. There’s sill a lot to be done.
Bilbao Architecture
Similarly, the Guggenheim in Bilbao is totally at odds with its architectural surrounding, it is a colossal, titanium-clad ground-scraper of a building amongst nineteenth century industry and tenements, but it is completely in tune with current ideas. It is out there boldly saying something new. Gehry, the architect, won not only the competition to build it, but won the argument about what is right for that part of Spain at this point in time. People love it! They can’t get enough of it. Go to Bilbao and it utterly dominates the place. It was so popular, despite its misfit nature, that Gehry himself copied it in LA with the Disney Concert Hall.
Guggenheim Museum
Landmarks Buildings
No longer was this style or idea a misfit; in the space of a few years it had become establishment. City governors the world over were glamouring for the Gehry effect, building all kinds of shiny, pointy, curvy buildings in an attempt to demonstrate how new and modern and interesting they were.
Architectural Revolution
No one knows what will come next, that’s the exciting part but, thankfully, someone will challenge this idea with something new. It will definitely be challenged again by old ideas. Sometimes the new ideas will win and sometimes the old ideas will win. Our cities will constantly change and be full of variety and interest. Our cities will become so full of misfits that being a misfit will become the norm and where will that leave us?
Cities are not meant to stand still. They evolve, argue, experiment and contradict themselves. Today’s architectural misfit may become tomorrow’s icon. What truly threatens a city is not bold change, but the fear of it. In the end, it is the misfits that keep our cities alive.
Find out more about misplaced architecture here
Jonathan Fisher is a freelance architect. Paddy Mills c/o synergyart.co.uk
If you enjoyed The Beauty Of Not Belonging : Fall In Love with Misfit, you might also read 10 Skylines That Are Shaping The World
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