Junk Urban Landscape: the Walkie Talkie, the Cheesgrater and the Gherkin are waiting for The Kettle

Postmodern urban landscape design

The words and image (from City as landscape p. 6) were published in 1996. Sadly, I forgot that most designers look at books only for their pictures. Nor did I imagine that London’s designers would see my cartoon as the latest hot trend in urban design. Tragically, as you can see from the 2013 photograph the City of London (above, top), they are hell bent on building the cartoon. But I WAS JOKING. It was not a design proposal. I did not want it to be built. I regret that it is being built. I APOLOGISE TO LONDONERS AND TO LONDON’S URBAN LANDSCAPE. I should have listened to my grandfather: “Take care with whom you joke”.
Regarding the design of the Big Three newbies in the above photo, I think people are right to use simple domestic analogies when GIVING them NAMES. I have no particular dislike, or love, for the buildings. But why on earth didn’t their designers cooperate to compose a harmonious skyline? And why didn’t the town planners make any useful suggestions? And what did the Landscape Institute say about skyline policy? And what happened to form following function? And why are the cladding materials non-functional? They do not generate energy; they make no contribution to surface water management; they are unvegetated; there have no roof gardens; they do nothing for biodiversity. They probably won’t have any bike parking.
Environmentally, the Walkie Talkie may be the best of the three sisters. I can imagine a new urban quarter looking more like mushrooms than matchboxes. The Walkie Talkie’s power supply will come from a natural gas fuel cell. The ‘cap’ of the fungus has both an indoor garden and an outdoor viewing terrace. Best of all, the south-facing curved facade concentrates the sunlight so that pedestrians can fry eggs on the pavement.
Richard Rogers’ Cheese Grater was so-named by the City of London’s chief planner. He recounts that ‘When I first saw a model of the building, I told Richard Rogers I could imagine his wife, Ruthie, using it to grate parmesan. I don’t think he was too happy, but it stuck.’ The developers did not want their building  to be wedge-shaped. It cost them a lot in floorspace and was done to lessen obstruction to views of St Paul’s Cathedral. To me, the views of St Paul’s which matter are those from the Thames – so I think this was an insufficient reason for a cheesy design. Pun intended: cheesy also means ‘Trying too hard, unsubtle, and inauthentic’. And why worry so much the relatively modern cathedral when the Walkie Talkie has such an unfortunate impact on a building of much more historical, architectural and landscape significance: the Tower of London? (see below)

The Walkie Talkie towers over the Tower of London

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British people care about skylines but the official debate is mostly about the more limited topic of ‘high buildings’. Height is important but it is only one aspect of scenic composition. Wiki has this  article on Composition and About.com has a list of The 8 Elements of Composition in Art:
Unity: Do all the parts of the composition feel as if they belong together, or does something feel stuck on, awkwardly out of place?
Balance: Having a symmetrical arrangement adds a sense of calm, whereas an asymmetrical arrangement creates a sense of unease, imbalance. (See example)
Movement: There many ways to give a sense of movement in a painting, such as the arrangement of objects, the position of figures, the flow of a river. (See example
Rhythm: In much the same way music does, a piece of art can have a rhythm or underlying beat that leads and paces the eye as you look at it. Look for the large underlying shapes (squares, triangles, etc.) and repeated color. (See example)
Focus (or Emphasis): The viewer’s eye ultimately wants to rest of the “most important” thing or focal point in the painting, otherwise the eye feels lost, wandering around in space. (See example)
Contrast: Strong differences between light and dark, or minimal, such as Whistler did in his Nocturne series. (See example)
Pattern: An underlying structure, the basic lines and shapes in the composition.
Proportion: How things fit together, big and small, nearby and distant.

I would like to see these principles applied in the composition of skylines but they relate only to aesthetic matters. In accordance with Vitruvius, we should be think about Commodity and Firmness, as well as Delight.
Here is a selection of links to pdf documents dealing with High Buildings and Skyline Policy in the UK. Most of them concentrate on the narrow issue of high buildings:

• Greater London Authority GLA 2001 Interim strategic planning guidance on tall buildings, strategic views and the skyline in London [This report was issued by Ken Livingston. It was based on the 1998 London Planning Advisory Committee LPAC High Buildings and Strategic Views in London but watered down. Ken was soft on high buildings]
• House of Commons report on Tall Buildings (2001-2) has a very good history of high buildings policy in the UK and much expert opinion on the subject
• Chapter 4 of Boris Johnson’s London Plan 2008 dealt with Tall and Large Scale Buildings.  I am unsure whether this also forms part of the 2011 London Plan.  Boris is said to be much softer than Ken on high buildings.
• The  City of Edinburgh Skyline Study ( Colvin & Moggridge, Landscape Consultants, 2010) exemplifies  the type of skyline study London should have. But conservation is not enough. We need imaginative contingency plans for the changes which MAY affect to London’s urban scenery and skylines.

Draft policy statement on skyline landscapes and tall buildings (also called high buildings or skyscrpers)

The excellent PPS.org website has a list of the World’s Best and Worst Public Parks. There are 24 parks on the list and I have visited only 15 of them. One could have a long discussion about which is THE BEST so I have added the word INFLUENTIAL to the title of this post. With this qualification, there can only be one answer: St James’s Park in London. My argument is presented in the above video: St James’s Park influenced the planning of greenspace park open space systems for Adelaide, Paris, New York, Boston, London, Moscow and a host of other cities. With regard to ‘linkage’, London’s open space system was influenced by Le Notre’s north-west projection of the axis of the Tuileries Gardens. So my vote might have gone to the Tuileries – but it is the ‘Tuileries Garden‘. And, as the video makes abundantly clear, the pelicans agree with me. Who can argue with a pelican? After all, ‘What do a vulture, a pelican and a taxman have in common? Big bills!’
The PPS.org comment on St James’s Park is as follows: This wonderful park is a spiritual place, and far and away the best park in the heart of London… It sits between Buckingham Palace and Whitehall with great views to either side. It is spiritual place, and far and away the best park in the heart of London. Its only real rival is Queen Mary’s Gardens, which has many similar qualities, but is buried deep in Regent’s Park. Personally, I do not see Queen Mary’s Gardens as being either the same type of space or half as good as St James’s Park. But we could do with a reliable assessment system for the quality of Public Open Space POS.

Take care with whom you joke

“Take care with whom you joke” was my grandfather’s advice AND I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO HIM. I published the above b&w drawing, in a 1998 book City as landscape: a post-Postmodern view of design and planning. The more exciting designs on my diagram were inspired by a TV set and a kettle (and the trees should have been smaller). In 1998, Postmodern architecture was going out of fashion. Every architect wanted to know what the Next Big Thing was going to be. Obviously, this was it. POST-Postmodern was what the architectural world needed. New skylines take a while to plan, design and build. My diagram is now taking shape, beyond the Tower of London, with help from Rogers and Foster. We’ll have to wait a bit for the kettle but the kitchen metaphor has proved highly influential. Rogers’ wife is, of course, a cook. And when I used to walk to work beside one of his first houses (in Wimbledon) I used to watch his parents cleaning their teeth in the office-style uncurtained bathroom window. My photo of the City of London’s emerging skyline shows: the Walkie-Talkie (Rafael Viñoly), the Cheesegrater (Richard Rogers) and the Gherkin (Norman Foster).
The Gherkin was OK when it stood alone. But I do not look foward to The Pepperpot, The Toaster and the Wooden Spoon jostling for attention on London’s waterfront. Are the designs inspired by envy at the way bankers cook their books so brilliantly? Simon Jenkins asks Who let this Gulf on Thames scar London’s Southbank? Mayor Boris and recalled the raw greed evinced at the RIBA: Talking towers with London architects is like talking disarmament with the National Rifle Association. A skyscraper seems every builder’s dream. At a Royal Institute of British Architects seminar on the subject last April, I faced an audience almost entirely of architects who treated any criticism of tall buildings as nothing to do with aesthetics or urban culture but to do with denying them money. They played the man, not the ball, accusing critics of being elitist, reactionary, heritage-obsessed and enemies of architecture.
To the people of the London I can only say that I am ‘Sorry, very, very Sorry’. I should have kept my diagram in a sealed cabinet.

Note: architects have made London’s skyline what it is, for good and ill. My criticism is that they are reluctant to work together for the public good. In design, it is every man and woman for himself or herself. It is not, primarily, a matter of ‘preserving’ the old skyline, except in certain places, and Rem Koolhaas speaks with wisdom on this point: London has always changed dramatically and it is still not a dramatic city… Drama is not what architecture is about but on the other hand I do not see it has dangers for London.