The Broadgate story embraces issues of large scale urban change, architectural politics (a battle between modernist traditions and post-modernist sentiments), and a common ground probably unacknowledged by either of the main protagonists. The narrative begins with No.1 Finsbury Avenue, on Wilson Street, one of the first developments to be targeted at a specific market (financial trading), designed by Arup Associates and their first adventure designing speculative office buildings. Finished in 1984, No. 1 was the ‘foundation stone’ of a scheme put together by two of London’s then most prominent developers (Lipton and Bradman) and British Rail. In brief, the master plan demolished a small station and amalgamated its services into an adjacent one (Liverpool Street), in the process unlocking the potential to develop a large tract of land on the edge of the City of London.
The master plan was put together by Arup Associates under Peter Foggo, but only the first half of the building programme was designed by them. The developer laid down stringent requirements and told his professionals how they were to design the buildings. Foggo reached a point where design constraints and the pace of development imposed upon him prompted a resignation and he left to set up his own practice (tragically dying of a brain tumour not long afterwards, in 1993). Meanwhile, in stepped SOM (Skidmore Owings and Merrill), an American firm simultaneously working on the Canary Wharf development in Docklands. Whilst Foggo was a part of that tradition concerned with honesty of construction, design integrity and those kinds of design values reaching back through the Arts and Crafts movement to Morris, Ruskin and Pugin in the last century, SOM’s loyalties were to the historically-oriented eclecticism of an architectural Post-Modernism born in the USA in the 1970’s.
The designs of these two firms demonstrate a disparity of values guaranteed to cause one another
severe discomfort. The common denominator was the developer, Stuart Lipton, who imposed his own standards upon the design and construction teams, insisting the buildings were clad in granite and that the interiors – whatever the external styling – conformed to a well – researched set of ideas concerning the modern office building of the mid-1980’s. However, whilst Arup used the granite as a self-evident form of decoration, with open joints indicating that the stone is in no way load-bearing and getting rid of it as soon as possible (reverting to a picturesque skyline of aluminium cladding), SOM attempt to make the granite appear load-bearing, as it might have been used 100
Top: view to Exchange House – surprisingly, this is a design that withstands changing fashions possibly better than other buildings at Broadgate.
Above: view up Bishopsgate toward Liverpool Street Station. The Foster development (see p.36) is opposite, within Spitalfields.
Adjacent top: view down the Bishopsgate colonnade.
Centre right: the mix of old and new in Liverpool Street Station (by the now defunk British Rail Architects department).
Bottom right: the Botera sculpture.
The art at Broadgate includes work from Richard Serra, Fernando Botero, George Segal, Bary Flanagan, Jim Dine, Xavier Cobero, Stephen Cox, Bruce McLean and Jaques Lipchitz — all of which dares the late Phillip Johnson’s condemnation of ‘turds in the plaza’ (an unlikely criticism from such a man!). The Canary Wharf curators argue the Broadgate policy is old hat i. e. not into art as PostModern entertainment churn (ephemeral rather than permanent).
years ago.
Arup’s masterplan is rooted in the tradition of the West End squares of the later C18. There are three of them. The first – where we find No. 1 Finsbury Ave. – was originally characteristically British in character, moody and informally planted, with moss growing between the dank cobblestones (which the management periodically attempted to eradicate with doses of chemical). But it was all recently changed when an underground facility (gallery? restaurant?) was constructed. Now the square is rather bland. The buildings around this square are all by Arup, although the entirely brown ones on two sides are technically a part of the earlier development and do not have the ubiquitous granite overlay (they are part of the No1. Finsbury Avenue development, also by Arup).
The last square constructed is formal and axial, deriving inspiration from the beaux arts traditions in which American practice has its roots (and to which Post-Modernism returned, turning its back on the Bauhaus influences of the immediate post-war period).
The detailing is ‘big’ and redolent of the Chicago from where it emanated, although there are distinct hints of H. H. Richardson’s work in the rusticated sandstone of the landscaping. Broadgate Exchange – the building flanking the northern boundary – has to straddle the rail tracks and is made up of deep floor-plates carried by four huge parabolic arches, two of which plough through the centre building, whilst the other two articulate the exterior.
Between these two squares sits a third, the Arena, designed by Arup but with an American influence (Rockefeller Center). Like Exchange Square, it offers lunch-time events to entertain the Broadgate workers. In winter it becomes an outdoor ice-skating rink, complete with brightly attired kids and thumping music. However, underlying this C20 reference are other, historical inspirations. This is — or rather was — a columnated Roman ruin, the kind of ivy-covered, banked amphitheatre architects such as Palladio, Piranesi, Gibbs and many others would visit in order to draw inspiration from the Ancients and to rekindle what we always interpret as lost knowledge and remote origins. This is the ruins of monasteries destroyed in the Reformation, now overgrown and profoundly romantic. From this perspective, Arup and SOM meet together, even if they do come from entirely different directions. But the owners have seen the Arena as an opportunity to provide the additional retail space so obviously missing from the original scheme, and so Fogo’s romantic dream has been somewhat buried beneath an over-building serving boozy traders. Such additions were needed, but one regrets the loss of a more profound cultural content. In between these poles sits the design of the redeveloped Liverpool Street Station, by the former British Rail Architects Group. It is at once old and new, old rebuilt to be new and new dressed up to appear old. The entrance on Bishopsgate is a selfconscious attempt to recreate Guimard’s Metro entrances in Paris, now with cast-steel joints and glass covering. The old roof of the station has been extended in the manner of the original construction. Old-looking brick towers are new concrete ones clad in stick-on brick. Part of the old hotel (now a McDonald’s) looks too new to be true; in fact, it was taken apart and rebuilt brick by brick. The forecourt is styled with four large light fittings straight out of the then- influential public works in Barcelona. It’s a well executed, if heady mix of values.
Broadgate can be compared with Spitalfields, Canary Wharf, Merrill Lynch, Minster Court, Paddington Basin,
Kings Cross, Regent’s Place and More London, together with a host of smaller developments re-writing the urban landscape of London. 39
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The sleek London home of the largest bank in the universe (Deutsche Bank) is a well-respected speculative office building designed by the American firm Swanke Hayden Connell and fitted out by Pringle Brandon, offering the tenants accommodation that includes three open floor plates of 4600 sq. m., each with 650 people (described as ‘a dealing factory’). On London Wall it streams along the street as a huge, gentle wave with delicately detailed aluminium windows that curve around the corner and punctuate the wall of Lussac limestone cladding. On entry into the grand lobby and between deals the building users can gaze upon expensive art work (including work by Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread and James Rosenquist, etc.) that, no doubt, reassures them they are far from being Philistines, even in the workplace. The building is not weathering well, but remains a good example of the type (have a look around the rear). |
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This confident 22,000 sq. m. speculative office building is of interest because it was one of the first significant buildings built after the early 1990’s recession and because it helped to define re-established Modernist fashions. It also manifests current enthusiasms for glass as well as a concern with energy conservation and the control of solar gain as a functional basis for architectural articulation. For example, some facades are triple glazed, incorporating a 900 mm gap with aluminium louvres and acting as a thermal flue that can be opened at the top in summer and closed in winter. The plan has four service cores on the perimeter, whilst floor spaces are arranged around a central atrium beginning at level three, above a retail element at the lower levels. It was fresh at the time as a post Post-Modern and post-recession exercise indicative of values that have persisted to this day. |