The City as Sculpture: From Skyline to Plinth, 2002

WHERE ARE THE ‘ROOMS’ AND SPACES FOR SCULPTURE WITHIN THE DYNAMIC CITY?

NOISY AND MOVING
Space is in here as well as out there. Space is a continuum between inside and outside, both physically and mentally. Light is the basic material of space – it defines inside and outside, surface texture and colour. To complement light, sound defines another layer of space together with structure and its proportion.

Art, like our beloved Ministry of Culture, is for most people, including politicians, a luxury to be indulged after we have completed the necessities of living. This distinction between necessity and luxury is reflected in the way we spend our time. In broad terms, there is committed time and uncommitted time. The latter offers us the chance to be at leisure.

Presumably there should be places where necessity is not the raison d’être of the place. Today, in this consumer society, it is difficult to convince developers, highway engineers and others of the social value of places and spaces that are not recognised as an intrinsic necessity to the consumer way of life. For many architects, designing in a consumer market is difficult:

In the present society the quantative and qualitative criteria for judging design can be summed up as: does it attract the consumer?
Designers have always had more noble standards of appreciating their creations, but in practice the question of functionality, as in doing the job set out for it, of originality of design, of cultural sensitivity or of environmental impact are in this society predicated on the ultimate determining factors – does it in a direct or indirect manner generate financial wealth and/or serve to perpetuate the political and economic status quo? (Pippo Lionni, Up Against A Well Designed Wall, Paris 1993)

This reference makes the point that design is, for the most part in our consumer society, a useful tool to enhance ‘sales’.

We are currently designing an urban environment of 17 hectares at White City – Shepherd’s Bush. Its raison d’être is shopping, which for many is now a leisure activity. As such, it has entered the uncommitted time world where most art seems to reside. The development also includes affordable housing, offices, a library, a nature reserve, two tube stations, a railway station and a bus station. At its centre is a covered space the size of a football pitch.

I have written on and discussed the subject of architectural space with our client some time ago. I quote from a short essay sent to Chelsfield:

What is our position with regard to the spaces we are creating?
How do we synthesise and reconcile the different spatial perceptions between Ian Ritchie Architects, our client, Chelsfield, and other consultants including our client’s retail/investment advisors, interior designers for shops, politicians, and the general public.
Architecture is synthesis, not separation – the synthesis of ideas, people, materials and ultimately the synthesis of the man-made with nature. We have to make the spatial synthesis of Whitecity exciting.

We, as architects, have to imagine and create, through our design methodology, solutions that can be seen to respond positively to the above, but also to go beyond that produced as a by-product of functional commercial planning and ‘surfaces that sell’. We must invest in our thinking and design skills in order to generate an urban sense of place that engages with the scale of London and this part of the city, and with sensuality that people can appreciate and get excited about. Through the senses, we reach memory as well as excite the mind with new ideas. Too many spaces deprive us of quality sensory experience, or have sensory overload by confusing the visual, audible and the tactile.

We have sought and secured the political and planning support for the landscape transformation of Shepherd’s Bush Green, underpinned by the idea of a permanent urban art gallery for transient work that can both engage the world of international art and the local community.