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With another Wimbledon over, plus the Euros football, sports fans and the wider public have now turned to the excitement of the Olympics in Paris. It’s the excitement, in terms of our relationship with time and distance, that I want to contemplate here. Let’s start with time.  

I’ll never forget my astonishment when a past client of mine, an avid sports fan, told me he would not be watching the Wimbledon final. Instead, as was his normal practice, Elias would record the televised match while tending the lawns and shrubs of his beautiful Hampstead garden. Once it was over, he would rush inside to find out who had won, and then watch the recording – only by knowing the outcome in advance could he contain his excitement to levels that were, for him, bearable. 

By contrast, back in my student days, a ‘housemate’ would go to great pains to ensure that he saw no news and that no-one told him the results of each Saturday’s football, so that his excitement when watching ‘Match of the Day’ in the evening would be heightened by his ignorance of the result. Advance knowledge of the outcome would have rendered watching, and listening to match analysis, pointless.

Despite the preferences shown by Elias and Ian, witnessing sporting events unfold live is in my opinion far more exciting than watching a recording after the event. Even if you don’t know the result, the fact is that the outcome has been determined, and the celebrations are over. Nothing will change the result, even if you don’t yet know it. That knowledge, for me at least, substantially diminishes any excitement that would otherwise prevail. 

In 2011, while in Moscow, I followed the Wales versus France rugby semi-final being played in New Zealand, courtesy of word text commentary as issued by the BBC. Far away, not even connected by radio, I was spellbound awaiting each new update despite it being transmitted some 30 seconds behind play. For me, the process was immediate enough to render the event ‘live’ in my mind. Any substantially later issue of those commentary texts would have been meaningless in terms of excitement.

And that is why Wimbledon’s Henman Hill – now renamed Murray’s Mound, has become so special. It combines the benefits of ‘same time’ with (almost) ‘same place’. However, it raises the question as to why anyone would travel across London, or from further afield, merely to sit outside the Centre Court? Yes, there’s a video link, but you can watch a match far better on your TV at home. The reason is, of course, that sense of being there – those hill-bound fans may not be able to see the match other than by video, but they can hear it. They can sense its proximity. And, unlike Elias tending his roses, they can experience it with friends, and as part of a wider audience assembled at the same place

Likewise, fans again gathered to watch this year’s Wimbledon live in public places around the world – Federation Square in Melbourne, and under the Brooklyn Bridge at The Hill in New York to mention but two such venues. In these situations, it is of course a same-time involvement, but not same-place.

This is interesting because, courtesy of broadcasting which has done so much to undermine the importance of being there, there is now a growing interest in being nearly there (Murray’s Mound), because modern IT has effectively turned Wimbledon’s Centre Court inside out: the match can be seen by Mound fans via a huge screen on the external wall of Centre Court. 

More remote viewing examples: tickets are sold for seats in Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium that enable fans to watch the Wesh Rugby team play away from home. Likewise at American Airlines Centre in Dallas (a venue, not an airport),  basketball and ice-hockey fans can watch (courtesy of videos inside the arena or on the concourse outside) the Mavericks and the Stars when playing away. Everywhere becomes anywhere.

It’s not just being with friends that draws people from their homes to watch these great events– it’s also the identification of belonging together through a place with which they identify some kind of ownership. Supporters therefore talk of their stadium or ground, even though they rarely have any real share of either land or buildings.

Indeed, it is the very building that so often heightens the experience and the excitement. Witness the Kop at Anfield, where the most ardent Liverpool soccer fans sit. And buildings become the context for collective memory, one of the finest examples being the old Wembley football stadium in London, the context for the only time England have won the World Cup, beating Germany 4-2 in 1966. 

For some sporting fanatics, the importance of memories even transcended death as they arranged for their ashes to be spread behind the home goal. Alas, so common had that become that most clubs have stopped the practice, instead offering Gardens of Remembrance for the same purpose. You can find out your club’s policy here: 

Most laudable among the clubs in their efforts to respect fans and sympathise with the bereaved are the Queen’s Park Rangers football team at their Loftus Road ground. Here is their policy:

‘When the day arrives, you bring about a coffee-jar’s worth of the ashes to Reception on South Africa Road where you will be welcomed by the chaplain.  You will be taken to the players’ dressing room where you can look around and take photographs.  You will be led down the tunnel and taken pitch-side (walking on the pitch itself is not permitted). The chaplain will lead you round to the goalposts at the Loftus Road end, where he will get you to lay the ashes on a small tray in the vicinity of the goal line, which he will have prepared.  

‘Over the next few minutes, he will encourage you and any others to recall together one or two stories and memories, perhaps linked to of your loved one’s keenness for QPR.  This is followed by a couple of short prayers, ending with a moment’s quiet. You then return to the tunnel, stopping for photographs in the dugout, then through to Reception where the chaplain will say goodbye.

‘Once you have left, the chaplain will gather the open tray of ashes and look after them until the pitch is dug up and re-seeded at the end of the season – in late May.  They are scattered carefully and respectfully, together with other ashes which have been looked after during the season. Again, please note that we can only accept about a coffee-jar’s worth of the ashes. There is no charge made by the club or chaplain for this service.’

A sense of affinity with a space or building can hardly be stronger in life than through the wish, in death, of having your ashes spread there. That may not be a testimony to the power of architecture, but it is certainly testimony to the power of place.

I cannot imagine what James Brindley would have made of Tom Weston.

Brindley was of course one of the great pioneers of the English canal system. Gutsy and determined he was a civil engineer of extraordinary talent. Innovation in pursuit of problem solving was his stock in trade. He was creative and imaginative. And a fine businessman. He worked on the building of the Bridgewater Canal regarded as Britain’s first modern canal which triggered ‘an explosion of canal building’. Thereafter his work on the Trent and Mersey Canal set the template for the narrow canal system through his decision to build narrow locks. 

Weston is a tribute artist. He has a band which offers concerts that portray the six decades of the music of the great Elton John…everything from Rocket Man to I’m Still Standing, and Bennie and the Jets to Crocodile Rock and Candle in the Wind. 

But beyond his incredulity at the extraordinary costumes and headgear that Tom Weston adorns himself with, Brindley would have been astonished at the setting in which Weston performed last Saturday night to a packed marquee of revelling party makers at the 2024 Crick Annual Boat show – now in its twenty fourth year; that setting being Crick Marina on the Grand Union Canal just north of the 1528 yard long tunnel built by James Barnes and Benjamin Bevan in 1814.

And beyond that, Brindley would have been astonished that a canal system, for which he had been one of the greatest pioneers, would have been transformed so successfully into a national leisure system – especially as the concept of leisure for the masses did not even exist in his day.

The story of Britain’s navigable waterways is of course as fascinating as it is heroic. The following image shows, within the black shaded area, those parts of England, Wales and Scotland that were beyond fifteen miles from the sea or the 700 mile or so of navigable rivers during Elizabethan times – that is circa 1600. That ’15 miles’ being the maximum distance over which land transport was cost effective. 

Critical to the competitiveness of industry was the ability to get fuel, that is coal, raw materials in and products away. That is why canals became so critical: they offered the opportunity to greatly extend the navigable river system, and therefore the moving heavy loads efficiently and, in those days, swiftly deep into the heart of the country.

The impact that civil engineering had had in terms of extending the navigable river system can be seen by the reduced extent of the black shaded area in the image below. It represents the situation at circa 1760 by which time some 1,300 miles of navigable rivers was available for the transport of raw materials and finished products to and from factories and the coastal ports. Opening up the area within the red line around the area south of Manchester would provide the main impetus for the drive to build a national network of canals to which James Brindley’s contribution would of course be invaluable.

In terms of projects Brindley’s legacy was extraordinary and also included the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal, the Coventry Canal, the Oxford Canal, the Barto Aqueduct and the 3,000 yard long Harecastle Tunnel. And it must be remembered that these projects were delivered without modern equipment such as the JCB, without computers or satellite equipment for determining levels and the optimum routing of canals….and without modern project management – there was no room for those without either the knowledge or skill to contribute.

Economics drove it all: was it better to follow the contours and take the long route or cut through the hillside courtesy of a thousand navvies? Was it cheaper to tunnel or, through multiple locks, go over? The sheer scale of the ambition and enterprise was amazing, and goes far beyond the locks and tunnels…..there were reservoirs, weirs, and water management provisions that often extended miles either side of a lock.

The dimensional disciplines of these pioneering works were again critical to economy in terms of both capital and operating costs: everything paired back to the inch: narrow boats 6 foot 10 inches wide fitting single or double into locks with barely inches to spare. Likewise, tunnels, bridges over the canals, towpaths, and magnificent aqueducts across valleys. Some of this precision is captured in the images below showing a brick bridge and lock steps on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, and the narrowboat entering one of the locks of the Bratch Staircase on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.

And, of course, rich cultures emerged within the working communities that would operate these boats, which frequently carried wives and children, as shown below.                              

Above all, the canals had been created as a working system to aid industry and trade and there had never been any concept of pleasure boats or holidays. So the arrival of the railways, whose speed of delivery allowed the manufacturers to reach market and thus recover their investment with profit more quickly, saw the sombre death knell for canals and by the latter part of the nineteenth century the system had begun to languish in seemingly eternal decline. 

Until that is the navigable waterways came into public ownership through the National Transport Act of 1948. Nobody of course had the faintest idea what to do with such an obviously useless and apparently redundant system. Until, that is, Eric de Maré and his pioneering effort to bring to the public’s attention the potential of the canals. 

In the summer of 1948, he loaded a caravan onto an ex-army pontoon powered by paddle wheels and, with his wife, set off on a round tour from Hampton Court up to Llangollen and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in North Wales, then back again through the Midlands. That is pretty well the entire length of the canal system. Most of his photographs, some of which are shown herein, and the account of his ‘revelatory and fascinating’ journey, were incorporated into an expanded version of the Architectural Review in July 1949, later to be incorporated into a book which the Architectural Press would publish in 1950.

Within its final chapter, Maré contemplated what could be done with the canals and herein he suggested that they might have ‘other uses (including) holidays and pleasure’. I quote from his delightful albeit now antiquated prose:

‘…..This is important to certain Imponderables, such as health and happiness, which cannot be measured in financial terms. But even here the commercial mind can take heart for, if properly organized to do so, the waterways could bring considerable profits from pleasure boating alone, both from those who prefer uncongested holiday resorts and from foreign visitors who wish to see the country from a new and exceptionally attractive angle. The ‘extraordinary success of the Norfolk broads for pleasure boating provide a precedent.’                 

Within his book, which was republished in 1987, are two delightful images (reproduced below) by Gordon Cullen who would later write a seminal text on urban design, The Concise Townscape, and who would go on to provide beautiful imagery for the LDDC in which he envisioned back in the early ‘80s the transformations that could take place in London’s docklands. 

The first image offers a suggestion of how to treat an urban canal ‘where the local pub steps down to a waterside terrace’, the second ‘the way a canal in the country might be treated’. The innovative transformation and inspirational qualities of this thinking and these images, produced during the dismal austerity in the immediate aftermath of World War II, cannot be overstated. Canals then usually ran through rather risky parts of town and, as I remember, were dank and dangerous zones. Cullen set a vision which would guide the transformation not only of the canals and towpaths, but also of a thousand regeneration schemes for which Urban Splash and Tom Bloxham would become pioneers.

In contrast to the Elton John extravaganza offered by John Weston, I also attended a talk by Dean Davies entitled ‘The Challenges of Maintaining a 200-year-old Waterway’. Davies is an incredible man, passionate about the waterways, and a natural engineer who would have been at home as Brindley’s Chief Officer. A senior member of the Canal and River Trust’s team, he talked for 45 minutes to slides, without notes, but with a fluency and passion that was infectious. We heard about the maintenance programmes for reservoirs, dredging, and lock-gates, and about minimising ‘stoppages’, maintaining towpaths, emergency works, and the annual programming of projects. 

All in all a brilliant talk but through it a sobering message: this wonderful leisure heritage, enjoyed by cyclists, fisherman and walkers who use the towpaths; and by holidaymakers and those who live on boats, has a combined value of £6.1 billion including, apparently, cost savings to the NHS of £1.1 billion consequent on the active use of towpaths for exercise. All leveraged off a £52.6 million annual grant from the government. But austerity has struck, and that grant is to be cut by 10% each year for the next five years which will take it down to £25 million – or in real terms circa £15 million allowing for inflation.

But here is the rub: the system of around 2,700 miles of navigable waterways was built on the back of industry. Redundant, it was effectively gifted to the nation through nationalisation, and thereafter regenerated through the vision of the likes of Eric de Maré and the promotion of visionary Architectural Review editors and editorial board members such as James Maude Richards and Nikolaus Pevsner. And thereafter it has been maintained by the likes of Dean Davies and his colleagues. But it is again in danger for without adequate investment it will rot beyond viable repair.

I am sure that from entirely different perspectives both James Brindley and Tom Weston would agree that to lose such a national treasure would surely be a madness.

The wonderfully acerbic and erudite Francis Golding, sadly no longer with us, once said during a design review for a proposal in close proximity to St Paul’s Cathedral ‘Norman, why would you put one of your worst next to one of Wren’s best?’ 

One of Foster’s ‘worst’ can, of course, be assumed to have been pretty dammed good anyway, and I have no reports of the response, but is a credit to both Sir Norman and his partners that, throughout the life of the practice, there has been a policy of rigorous reviews at multiple stages during the design development of all projects. To my delight, I was exposed to the process during a collaboration that my firm was once privileged to undertake with the Foster organisation. Would that more offices had such commitment and courage in utilising design reviews, especially those involving external critics! 

But the quote can be equally directed, albeit in modified form, towards those responsible for the recent installations that have so savagely violated Stansted Airport’s main terminal building. It is only fitting that they should be asked:

‘Why would you put your worst into one of Foster’s best?’

Needless to say, that makes the rather dubious assumption that the Stansted intervention does indeed represent their ‘worst….’

I won’t describe Foster’s ‘original’ design for Stansted, in all its rich and refined glory, here – most of you will know it. However, the extracts below, showing a typical section, and one of the ‘trees’ which, at circa 36 metre centres, provided the principal organisational component of the design, and which established its essential aesthetic character, will act as a reminder of the breathtaking clarity of the basic ‘diagram’ together with the beauty of the ordered and elegant high-tech language of the interior.

If you want a fuller ‘refresher’ just look up Colin Davies’s brilliant ‘How it was built’ study in the May 1991 issue of Architectural Review. We could never, in our wildest dreams, have imagined what was to come……

The following images, all taken by me during recent years, speak for themselves in terms of the wanton and appalling damage that has been visited upon this once great building. They represent nothing short of vandalism. Note the crudeness of the interventions, for example the dreadful junctions of cheap partitions with the structural trees that once also acted as information hubs (flight information, time etc), but today merely support the elegant roof the underside of which is now extensively sealed from view. 

Consider the retail zone. As would be expected its meandering form maximises shop frontages and sales space, but only at the severe cost of disorientating passengers. It has rendered Foster’s once clear planning all but illegible to the traveller and extended the walking distance from security clearance to the departure/beverage area from around 70 metres to a ‘gauntlet’ of nigh on half a kilometre in length. Notably, so irrelevant are they to their new context, Foster’s ‘trees’ do not even feature on the wayfinding diagram as illustrated below.

Aside from the destruction of the spatial ‘legibility’ that hitherto assisted way finding, calmed travellers, and so enriched their experience, I also mourn the blocking of external views ‘plane side’ that had heightened the anticipation and wonder of the excitement ahead and reinforced the sense of purpose and pleasure in travel from the very outset of the journey.

It should be remembered that the Stansted offering had followed in the immediate aftermath of the delivery of the grim and dreadful Terminal 4 at Heathrow. In timely fashion, Foster had stepped into the field of aviation to demonstrate at once the value of architecture and the possibilities that can be released against worthy ambition. 

In the infamous words of Lord Palumbo, Stansted, as originally conceived, served to ‘lift the spirit’ of all who would use the building and all who would work there. It was in every sense a national gateway to be proud of as we left this land, and something to hint at the best of what Britain can offer to all who arrived into our country. 

Revealed within the photos below are just some of the most vulgar and more absurd elements of this dreadful violation of what is, after all, one of the most public of public spaces – a fact that serves only to heighten the travesty. 

    From the security / departures hall:

The retail zone from above:

     Exiting the meandering mall:

The food and beverage area:

          And…………….

     Escape gateside….

Finally, arrivals…

How has this all been allowed to happen? In part, the answer lies in privatisation. Stansted came under the control of the British Airports Authority in 1966. The iconic new terminal was opened by the Queen in 1991 but, alas, following BAA’s 1986 privatisation the rot had set in and in no short time a profusion of advertising banners and the like was beginning to adulterate the interior. But the real wrecking ball arrived with the forced sale of the airport to MAG (Manchester Airports Group) consequent on the 2009 decision of the (then) Competition Commission that there was a ‘lack of competition between London’s three main airports all owned by the same company’.

Only outside can we now witness the true glory of the original work…

To their eternal credit, the Foster team’s efforts had reawakened the aspirations of the great railway station architecture of the 19th century which had been all but lost in most transport buildings of the 20th century. (Rare exceptions include BDP’s bus station in Preston.)

Against that background it is particularly galling that the British Airports Authority, under whom the wanton damage to Stansted started, and the Manchester Airport Authority, whose tenure has served only to intensify the brutalization, have done their worst at a time when Stansted promised such renewed hope for better patronage and a better architecture for these most public of buildings genres. 

Those involved in this desecration should be utterly ashamed of themselves. Woe upon, them and all who have served them, in this ghastly assault on our senses. Or to be kinder, perhaps, in another modified quotation ‘Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they have done!’ 

                    Image from 2017 Nov/Dec Time magazine

Clearing out a cupboard the other day, I perchance found a Time magazine featuring ‘The 25 best inventions of 2017’ amongst which was a Tesla Model 3. That year Tesla manufactured 100,757 cars. Production thereafter was exponential until 2024:

Indeed, Tesla once enjoyed the lion’s share of the UK electric car industry which, as the table below shows, continues to grow very quickly.    

         (Key – BEV: battery electric vehicle; PHEV: plug-in electric vehicle.)

But, as we all know, after peaking some ten weeks ago, Tesla shares lost more than 50% of their value wiping out some $800 million in market capitalization. This is, of course, entirely consequent on the widespread global rejection of Elon Musks’s engagement with right wing politics. 

Musk is of course not the first car manufacturing magnate to so dally: Ferdinand Porsche joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and, ultimately, the SS where he held the rank of Oberführer. His support for Nazi ideology and goals no doubt led to him being commissioned to develop the prototype for the “Volkswagen”. 

Louis Renault’s engagement with fascism was more complex: yes, his factories did cooperate with the Vichy government in producing some 34,232 vehicles for the Nazis, but he claimed his collaboration was forced, despite his visit to meet Hitler in 1938.

Andre Citroen died in 1935 but, in stark contrast to Renault, the Citroen company’s wartime president, Pierre-Jules Boulanger, was involved in multiple acts of resistance which included hiding the concept drawings for project VGD (forerunner of the extraordinarily futurist DS19) until after the war.

Three images showing the evolution of Flaminio Bertonis’ designs from project VGD to the DS19 just prior to production  

One of his best-known acts of sabotage was as ingenious as it was simple: Every new T45 military truck sent to the German army carried a special dipstick on which the notches misrepresented the engine oil’s true level. Thus, German mechanics, deceived when servicing the trucks, failed to top up the oil causing engines to seize with grim regularity, leaving troops and supplies stranded.

                                       Citroen T45 military truck and ‘dipstick’ sabotage.

Over in the USA Henry Ford’s engagement with the Nazis, unlike that of Renault, was entirely voluntary. In 1918, he acquired his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and began publishing antisemitic articles (91 in total) through which he claimed that a vast Jewish conspiracy was ‘infecting America’. Incorporated into four volumes, some half a million copies were distributed through his widespread network of dealerships and subscribers. As American historian Hasia Diner has pointed out, Ford effectively legitimized ideas that otherwise may have been given little authority:

‘Henry Ford’s ability to gain a national audience with his words made him a very dangerous person.’

Amongst those influenced by Ford was Hitler who was so impressed that, according to author Brad Hart, he sought to help ‘Heinrich Ford become the leader ….of the American fascist movement’. Timothy Rybach’s fascinating book ‘Hitler’s Private Library: Books that Shaped his Life’ reveals that, while in prison following the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler’s reading of Ford’s book ‘The International Jew’ had considerable influence on his draft for ‘Mein Kampf’. Ford’s acceptance, in 1938, of the ‘Grand Cross of the German Eagle’ is further evidence of the mutual respect and considerable empathy that had developed between Ford and the Fuhrer. 

Back in England, William Morris, founder of Morris Motors Ltd. and later Lord Nuffield, was also heavily involved in supporting the fascists, despite his reputation as a philanthropist and major benefactor of healthcare, medical research and education: he gave Oswald Moseley £35,000 to help fund his pro fascist and antisemitic newspaper called Action and £50,000 to fund his party – respectively some £3.3 and £4.7 million today! 

Hitler’s rejection of modern art and architecture in favour of classical styling was of course well known, and, whilst not wishing to suggest any fascist leaning on the part of President Trump, it is notable that he too has recently issued a directive in favour of classical architecture.

In a rambling 2,537 word order which, surprisingly, contains references to Robert Adam, John Soane and Sir Christopher Wren (you can see it here: https://search.app/LjX6zeVuSNCNoCAc8) the incoming president has instructed, at sub-section 2(a) that: ‘….In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings….’

There is clearly a conflict between the common favouring, on the part of car manufacturing barons, towards political causes that routinely advocate classical traditions in both art and design with their own, essentially optimistic, commitment to inventive design and innovative design language.

Clues to this reside in the architectures that these magnates have both chosen and commissioned.

Lord Nuffield was involved in many disputes over the architectural language of  his projects. In 1939 he threatened withdraw funding Nuffield College project unless the design which he described as ‘un-English and out of keeping with the best tradition of Oxford architecture’ was revised. The hapless architect, Austen Harrison, attempted to satisfy Nuffield’s desire for ‘something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture’ with a second scheme, only to receive harsh criticism from his peers which included comments such as ‘Oxford’s biggest monument to barren reaction’, the ‘most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s’ and ‘a missed opportunity to show that Oxford did not live only in the past’. Simon Jenkins more recently quipped that ‘vegetation was its best hope’.  

Left: The Tower variously described as exciting, mighty, ungainly clumsy and grotesque. Right: one of the   quadrangles.

Henry Ford, who more so even than Morris, committed his life to the ruthless pursuit of efficiency and cost cutting in every stage and aspect of production, was also a major philanthropist giving away some 33% of his life’s income….the average for his tax bracket was 5%.

Two of his projects are of particular interest in terms of their respective architectures: the Henry Ford Museum designed by architect Robert O. Derrick, its main façade borrowing heavily from the Georgian style of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and the Henry Ford Hospital opened in 1915 and designed by a consortium of architects led by Albert Kahn. (Oft referred to as the ‘architect of Detroit’ having designed some 900 buildings in the city – Kahn would work extensively for Ford building plants and offices for his company as far afield as Copenhagen.)

                                                                     Henry Ford Hospital – Detroit

So, if Elon Musk follows hard in the traditions of Morris and Ford with respect to his ruthless commitment to manufacturing efficiencies, his engagement with right wing politics, and his contempt for organised labour, what, if anything do we know of his architectural preferences?

Well, in terms of charitable architectural philanthropy, next to nothing for the simple reason that, as confirmed by Alan Cantor (a frequent contributor to the Chronicle of Philanthropy and Philanthropy Daily), Musk’s charitable impact has been (little) ‘more than negligible’ so not much guidance available there. A better picture emerges through investigation of the homes that he has purchased. Albeit developed by others, these indicate that his architectural tastes are both cautious and traditional. 

But surprise, surprise, look below at the house that Musk recently had designed in the Dolomite Mountains:

                    Elon Musk’s proposed villa in Trentino-Alto Adige

In November 2023 he apparently (through an intermediary) selected BlueArch architects from Bolzano in Italy as his architect. A brief look at another of its luxury mountain house projects is indicative of that practice’s bold commitment to, and fascination with, architectures of tomorrow on the part of founders Allessandro Costanza and Alberto Montesi. That project can be found here: https://search.app/HTkNr2Vc1CKE5pY46. Musk clearly chose his architect carefully!

Although it has been shelved Constanza claimed that ‘Musk liked the project’ adding ‘since the news about Elon, it’s like a bomb has exploded: everyone is looking for us.’

What a surprise – I hope they got their fees while Musk still had money!

In this view from the UK, Paul Hyett reflects on the world, the US Presidential election and the architect’s duties.

European Movements

The light of western democracy may not yet have dimmed but it is certainly flickering, and the closing quarter of 2024 will have profound impact on its political, social and economic direction for decades. 

Social unease in Europe over recent years has prompted drifts, sometimes even lurches, towards the radical right across the continent. In Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and Italy, nationalist right-wing governments have gained power, whilst intense pressure from the right is also manifest in France, Holland, Belgium and Austria.

Germany, since World War II an exemplar of social democracy, is seeing growing support for the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany party) which, until recently, was under police surveillance for its extremist views and occasional expression of neo-Nazi sympathies. 

Similarly, pressures from the right have been growing in Estonia, Latvia and Poland, though 2023 saw the latter country break trend and reject its governing right-wing Law and Justice Party. 

Even the UK, normally a bastion of political stability, has seen a rightwards drift across all its mainstream parties with new neo-liberal and reactionary groups emerging to undermine the “social contract” and challenge the hitherto longstanding political status quo.  

The USA Choice, Its Implications, and Antecedents

But as I write, all eyes move back to the USA and November 2024, to a spectacle “the likes of which we have never seen before”, to quote one of its participants. No presidential election in that still great democracy has ever offered such a stark choice and contrast: a self-identifying black woman against a white man; a professionally educated lawyer against a freewheeling businessman; a one-time public prosecutor against a many-times-convicted felon. You just couldn’t write such a script!

The outcome of these struggles will have profound implications for architecture and its duty, not only to serve the public interest, but also in fulfilling its most basic role: the provision of safe shelter. All of which takes me again to Neville Chamberlain of “peace in our time” consequent upon his efforts to broker an accord with Hitler. 

Prior to becoming UK Prime Minister Chamberlain had, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, recognised the inter-relationship of housing, health and employment in serving social needs. Whilst he advocated national policies to safeguard public interests in each, he recognised the ongoing adoption of mechanised production in agriculture and industry would lessen demands for labour, skilled and unskilled, within developed economies. More social democrat than conservative, he thus called for government to recognise the need for new ways of financially sustaining and meaningfully occupying the growing proportion of the population for which work, and wages, would simply no longer be available.   

Building on President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts in the aftermath of World War I, the Roosevelt/Cordell policy of promoting developing countries as bona fide trading partners served only to intensify the problems Chamberlain had identified so early. Add population growth within developed countries (the UK and US populations have respectively doubled and tripled since 1930) and we see the complex scenario against which our modern socioeconomic and political systems struggle, only to be found wanting. Too many people, too little work, more wealth than ever before, but hopelessly uneven in its spread across countries, rich and poor, and within societies, developed and developing. 

Divisions

It is this division of wealth and opportunity that generates the angst that underpins the unrest and fuels the political turmoil now so prevalent. In short, in the minds of so many, politics, as hitherto known, is simply not working. Its failures are seen in the high levels of unemployment amongst those whose jobs have “migrated”, leaving families in despair, resigned either to accepting robots at home, or cheap unregulated labour abroad. As Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel wrote in The Tyranny of Merit, it’s not just the right to work and earn that has been ‘stolen’…it’s the right to contribute with dignity that has been eroded, especially amongst those who have traditionally offered their services in the form of skilled and unskilled labour.  

The consequences of all this now find expression in new forms of planning and architecture.  Witness the rapid installations of security fences and gates to our suburban gardens; the new elite “private” housing estates with controlled entry and patrolled grounds; and, ultimately, the emerging gated townships (really no more than “forts”) with their own shops, schools and leisure facilities one of which, located in the USA, is described thus:

“…this area is considered one of the most secure neighborhoods … and is behind a second gate only accessible to residents. 

Security is tight, and the surveillance system features facial recognition technology and license plate readers that can detect suspicious activity or unfamiliar cars entering the property…”

Outside and beyond, along the sidewalks of the once great cities of San Francisco and Detroit, and in the no go areas of Dallas and New York, the “undeserving” poor live and sleep, in ever growing numbers, in their tents and makeshift shelters, seemingly evermore helpless and evermore hopeless. 

Ultimately, only democratic political processes, in wholly recalibrated forms, can offer answers to all this, but that is proving difficult as we drift into this post-truth age where basic trust in politics and politicians is at such a low ebb.

And that is precisely why the rigorous process of consequential questioning is so important. As Tara Setmayer, former Republican Party Communications Director has asked: “Is (this) the kind of country we want?”   

The bottom line is this: In a democracy we can only ultimately succeed through an educated, properly and morally informed electorate making the right decisions. That is why TRUTH matters so much: It is essential to informing the answers to our consequential questioning.

The Architect’s Duties

As architects, our duty is to visualise alternative futures and offer them for informed interrogation. Do we really want the antithesis of Jane Jacob’s sophisticated vision for city life? When all the barricades are finally in place protecting walled and policed havens from the anarchy and violence without, will the protected be able to tolerate the suffering that surrounds them? Will consequential questioning reveal the true character of the built reality that would prevail? Or can we forestall this process and find an alternate fairer way forward in terms of tomorrow’s planning?

And here’s the biggest challenge of all: The need to build sustainably, in particular, to service our buildings in ecologically responsible ways; the need to pursue net zero carbon design solutions at this nanosecond to midnight for avoiding ecological disaster.

Evangelism’s Impact

This is where I turn the focus to the American Evangelicals, for in no other developed country does any religious group have so much influence on the outcomes of elections. Some sources suggest as many as 80% of Evangelicals support the Republican cause, a situation decades in the making (https://www.oah.org/tah/november-5/evangelicalism-and-politics/). Others suggest the influence is markedly less but there is universal agreement that it substantially favours the GOP, and this is why it is both fair and necessary to challenge the evangelical position in the context of the eco-agenda and architecture’s duty to deliver that net zero building programme.

The AIA has facilitated major advances in this area, and prominent architects (Ed Mazria and his various initiatives such as the China Accord and the 2030 Districts Movement, and William McDonough author of Cradle to Cradle to name just two) have offered brilliant thought leadership at the international scale, but any such progress is quickly upended by blind belief in such frightening policies as “Drill, baby, drill”. 

The irony of the Evangelical’s support in this respect is extraordinary.  This is the pro-life party simply failing to press home the consequential questioning so evidently required. All scientific evidence points to disaster if carbon emissions are not severely and rapidly reduced. Architecture cannot function at the simplest level of providing shelter if the host environment is too hostile for survival. 

Consequential questioning has never had such a critical role in our safe survival. 

What kind of world do we want?

Profound Hope

To end on a note of profound hope, let us consider corporate giant Toyota’s latest initiative. Their Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima has just announced their prototype water engine which will run on pure water. It achieves this by using a process of advanced electrolysis to convert water into its constituent parts of hydrogen and oxygen to make chemical energy that produces power to drive the engine with only water vapour emissions. 

(Read about it here: https://youtu.be/FIxT6rK02lk?si=fxS5pQPlqleTmCHd). 

No vested corporate, institutional or theological interests should be allowed to obstruct such progress, and every pressure should be mounted upon political parties to facilitate the rapid development of such initiatives. Consequential questioning dictates there is no other way – not even for the Evangelicals. 

The old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is often thought to be an ancient Chinese proverb attributable to that most veritable of philosophers Confucius, but it seems that the phrase is of much more recent origin, and its credit to Confucius not only unfounded but also mischievous. Jack Trout, author of the much-acclaimed book on marketing called ‘In Search of the Obvious’, has suggested that the true translation of the Confucius phrase is ‘A picture is worth a thousand pieces of gold’ which, in English at least, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it!

It is more likely that the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ originated in the USA in the early part of the 20^th century, when the expression ‘Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words’ appeared in a 1911 newspaper article discussing journalism and publicity.

Other similar phrases popped up regularly in the 1920’s, but it is probable that the modern use of the term stems from an article in that infamous and widely read trade journal Printers’ Ink, wherein Fred R. Barnard (namesake of the English illustrator, caricaturist and genre painter noted for his work on the novels of Charles Dickens) promoted the use of picture images in advertising with the line ‘One Look is Worth a Thousand Words’. Adverts of the day, as any study of early newspapers will reveal, were as long on persuasive text as they were short on images!

Some years later another piece by Barnard appeared in a March 1927 issue of Printers’ Ink under the heading ‘One Picture is Worth Ten Thousand Words’, a phrase that he claimed to have been a Chinese Proverb. But Barnard was later quoted as saying that he had only called it a Chinese proverb ‘so that people would take it seriously’. 

That they certainly did, for it was soon thereafter credited to Confucius who would surely have turned in his grave at the thought. Fake news indeed!

Adopting that mantra, I offer below two pictures, worth together a thousand words, against which I pen an extra thousand or so words of comment. 

The second image above is an enlargement of a part of the first image showing the cheap and nasty rainwater pipes that serve the building they adorn in Bethnal Green. This of course is nothing unusual: similar miserable arrangements can be seen across London, and indeed throughout our entire country, as the processes of modern procurement, be they straight Design and Build or some other sort of Construction Management contracting, deliver upon us the worst in terms of poorly thought through and ill-coordinated detailing. First, they eradicated the craftsman. Next, they came for the designers….!

Design and Build is, as we well know, a misnomer, and the images above betray a complete absence of any design thought or coordination. The stormwater drainpipes, as shown, of course never appeared on any architect’s drawing: such information was no doubt completely absent from the concept information and left for the Trade Contractor responsible for ‘plastic guttering, downpipes, all hoppers, clips, brackets and fixings etc.’ You know the language!

So does any of this matter? After all the building that I illustrate is anyway wholly undistinguished….

The answer is a resounding yes, it does matter because something very precious is steadily being replaced with the banal. Wherever I walk around London, from the districts of Mayfair and Bloomsbury to those of Poplar or Acton, I find that older buildings never fail to delight in terms of the detailing, the craft, the skill, and the care with which they were originally designed and built. Against that, so much of the new disappoints in terms of the construction and the detailing, even when the design concept has merit. And much of that disappointment lies in the increasing absence of attention to design detail, and the absence craft in its execution, that hitherto gave delight. 

As a complete contrast take the Divinity School in Oxford and the drainage details there as evidenced in the pictures below:  

                              Divinity School, Oxford by William Orchard – built during 1480’s.

Commodity. Firmness. Delight?

Lest I be mistaken, I am not calling for a return to traditional forms of building and I fully recognise the need for modern, lightweight, components with ever greater strength to weight ratios; better thermal performance; and thinner envelope construction. But I am calling for greater coordination and care in the selection, arrangement and detailing of the components that we do use. Let us never forget that infamous metaphorical line by Mies van der Rohe: 

‘Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together’.

Louis Kahn of course famously suggested to his students that when stuck for inspiration they should have a conversation with their materials, asking ‘What does a brick want to be?’ In his book featuring Kahn’s wonderful Bangladesh National Parliament, William Hall reports such an imagined conversation wherein Kahn asked, ‘What do you want, brick?’.

‘I like an arch’ was the reply to which Kahn allegedly responded ‘Look, I want one too, but arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel…what do you think of that brick?’ But the brick remained firm: ‘I like an arch’.

Of course, whether lintel or arch it matters not, because in Kahn’s hands arch or lintel were both beautifully incorporated into the whole. That is the point, as is well illustrated in the images shown below:

                       Bangladesh National Parliament completed 1982 – Louis Kahn

            Salk Institute for Biological Studies completed 1965 – Louis Kahn 

But it is more than just the detailing and the beauty that is compromised through the crudeness of contractor led design and construction; it is also function and, critically, safety. Post the awful fire at Grenfell Tower back in June 2017 there has been an enormous rash of litigation claims following the investigations of facades to high-rise residential buildings which the government put in train. 

Thick and fast have come the dismayed reports of the findings: missing cavity barriers (both in design and construction) to compartmentation and around openings; combustible insulation extensively incorporated (both in design and construction) in contravention of ADB2 guidance; service extract ducts and flues discharging into cavities and cladding surfaces that breach spread of flame guidance. The list goes on and on; the affected buildings run into their thousands; the costs of remediation into the billions.

Architects are not free of criticism in all this, but one thing is for sure: the transformation in methods of building procurement that has taken place over the last four decades, with the tendency to split the construction process into trade packages, and to transfer substantial parts of the design and specification responsibility to ill-trained construction surveyors, Design and Build contractors, and so-called specialist sub-contractors, has brought with it a terrible price.

If such a process delivers drainage arrangements of the like shown on the outside of my Bethnal Green example, just think what the inside, hidden, construction looks like!

UK Design and Build of course started during the Thatcher era – the first Design and Build contract was published by the JCT in 1981, just two years after she came to office as Prime Minister. Perhaps it is no coincidence that she famously claimed that Oxford’s ‘monumental buildings impress ….by their size rather than their exquisite architecture*’. 

Maybe she just didn’t see the drainpipes at Divinity College the way I do.