Culture secretary Chris Smith, visiting the seventh Venice Biennale of Architecture last week, called the British pavilion a 鈥渢remendous demonstration of British imagination and excellence in the arts鈥�. He applauded the 鈥渇lourishing creativity鈥� and international success of the four exhibitors 鈥� Zaha Hadid, Alsop & St枚rmer, Branson Coates and David Chipperfield Architects, adding 鈥減lease, the rest of the world, give us more work鈥�.
For at least two out of the four practices, however, the exhortation was missing the point. Zaha Hadid and David Chipperfield have won major international projects in the past year 鈥� Hadid is designing the Contemporary Arts Centre in Rome and Salerno ferry terminal, and Chipperfield is busy with the Salerno Law Courts, the 鈥淐ity of Cultures鈥� ethnographic museum complex in a former munitions works in Milan and an extension to Venice鈥檚 15th-century San Michele island cemetery 鈥� but major commissions in Britain continue to elude them. Meanwhile, Alsop & St枚rmer and Branson Coates have only completed major UK projects in the past three years: North Greenwich Station and Peckham Library for Alsop & St枚rmer, and Sheffield鈥檚 National Centre for Popular Music and the Geffrye Museum redevelopment for Branson Coates.
These four practices are highly individual. What unites them more than anything else is the struggle to crack a British market dominated for decades by the hi-tec architecture of Lords Foster and Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw and Sir Michael Hopkins. Brett Roger, deputy director of the British Council鈥檚 visual arts department, which asked the four architects to represent Britain in the exhibition, says it picked them because they are 鈥渟o different from the previous generation in so many ways鈥�.
Chipperfield believes that the major difference is that they are working in a less hostile climate of public opinion. 鈥淔oster, Rogers, Grimshaw and Hopkins were all concerned with trying to prove that architecture was, I won鈥檛 say commercial, but reliable. They had to get work at a time when architects were seen to be unreliable. Our generation is more interested in playing with ideas. It is more innovative, more free, more exploratory, the others even more so than me. I鈥檓 the more conservative.鈥�
It seems that the confidence and adventurousness of this generation of architects has not been shared by UK clients, which have often shortlisted these practices but have rarely chosen them for major projects.
Christophe Egret, partner in Alsop & St枚rmer, says it took time to persuade clients that it could take on large-scale schemes: 鈥淭hrough persistence and hard work, we have slowly got the message across that we are not a wild card. Strangely, when we did the government headquarters in Marseilles, it still did not register with people in the UK that we could do large buildings.鈥�
Hadid had completed just one major scheme by 1998, a fire station in Weil-am-Rhine, Germany. Having since won a clutch of major public commissions worldwide, including the Cincinnati Arts Centre and the Wolfsburg Science Centre, she also feels that things are changing: 鈥淭hey have realised that people enjoy different kinds of stuff, that the idea that people would be scared of these things is nonsense. The effect of the Guggenheim in Bilbao changed a lot of things.鈥� She also believes that increased press interest in modern art and architecture has helped.
She says: 鈥淲hen people were shown an architectural design and asked, 鈥楧o you like it?鈥� they might say 鈥楴o鈥� because they are too embarrassed to say they don鈥檛 understand it. I wouldn鈥檛 understand a chemistry diagram 鈥� I would need time to work it out. But now that there is more discussion on television and in the press about modern architecture, this makes it more available to people.鈥�
Chipperfield, who says he gets 鈥渢hree or four calls a week about commissions, but none from England鈥� despite having won a clutch of awards in 1998 for his River and Rowing Museum in Henley, suspects that this is because British clients are preoccupied with the process rather than the product.
鈥淲hen I present to a client, I still start with ideas. English clients are frightened by that.
They are much more interested in project management speak. They don鈥檛 want to hear ideas 鈥� they want to hear that it is going to be on time, on price, delivered a certain way. They don鈥檛 want to take any risks. The previous generation started with the way they are going to build the building, the efficiency of the structure, the management of the project. Our generation thinks 鈥榃ell, you do all that anyway, so let鈥檚 focus on the ideas鈥�.鈥�
So what ideas are influencing the way these four design? They are so diverse that common themes are hard to identify. Hadid continues to test ideas of the symbiotic relationships between architecture and 鈥渢opography, landscape, land formation and geology鈥�. She says: 鈥淭he one thing that is interesting for us is to provide useable civic space 鈥� not generic space but what a particular situation requires.鈥�
Chipperfield says he keeps it simple: 鈥淚 think I have a more cautious attitude to what architecture can be and what it can do. I establish very simple principal ideas and build out from that. I make architecture that does not have a heavy hand. I don鈥檛 think a building should allow us to enjoy ourselves and do all that we do. It should be the stage on which we live, but the building should not occupy that stage, it should form that stage.鈥�
A guiding principle for Alsop & St枚rmer is involving the local community in the architecture of new civic spaces. 鈥淲e have discovered that through workshops, consultations with the local population, raising proper budgets for big buildings 鈥� typified by Peckham Library and our work with C/plex, we can create landmark buildings that have a sense of ownership for the people who use them, and act as a catalyst to regeneration in deprived areas.鈥� In the international pavilion, Will Alsop proposed to apply this design strategy to large urban areas, such as Rotterdam where he is designing a 拢800m masterplan. He calls this idea 鈥渁rchitecture as geography鈥� or 鈥漨asterplanning as big architecture鈥�.
All four architects acknowledge the impact of IT and the Internet, both on the design process and the environments and activities they are designing for. Branson Coates partner Nigel Coates says: 鈥淭he effect of computer-generated forms is just beginning. The fact that we have a technology to create previously unimaginable shapes has affected lots of architects. It affected the way we did the body in the Millennium Dome, for example. We couldn鈥檛 have built that without the computer build-up.鈥� Alsop and St枚rmer鈥檚 Egret stresses that the impact of IT is limited to form, not content. 鈥淭hat is still down to the individual.鈥�
All are experimenting in structural and materials technology, but in a less overt way than their hi-tec predecessors. 鈥淲e are always looking for new technology, whether in materials, design or the construction process, but our aim is to make use of technology, but not to glorify it,鈥� says Egret.
All that is left, then, for the new generation to do after the Biennale is over, is to beat the
hi-tec old guard to more work at home. Hadid herself picks up on Smith鈥檚 remark: 鈥淭he rest of the world should give us more work, but what about Britain?鈥�
