Two Recent Urban Places in the Same City

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TWO RECENT URBAN PLACES IN THE SAME CITY

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photo by zupermaus.

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The first project is four-year-old Paternoster Square.

Masterplan: Whitfield Partners

Various buildings by various architects:

MacCormac Jamieson Prichard
Eric Parry Architects
Rolfe Judd
Allies & Morrison
Whitfield Partners / Sidell Gibson
Whitfield Partners / Sheppard Robson


The second project is called Richmond Riverside and dates from the late Eighties. Here all buildings are by one architect: Driehaus Prize winner, Quinlan Terry --generally thought to be the world’s premier classical architect.

Both projects are esteemed by the public and loathed by the architectural establishment --as is Poundbury.

Can you guess why?

Both these projects adhere to the unvarying principles of true urbanism. This makes them look traditional and compatible, where modernism calls for them to exhibit revolutionary (“of their time”) zeal. Such ideological insistence guarantees disruption of the urban fabric; the only question is: is the disruption sufficiently interesting to compensate? (Swiss Re, yes; Ariel perhaps not).

Richmond Riverside is in pre-modern architectural style, while Patermoster Square utilizes compatible stylistic components of modernism in an urban design that would warm the heart of Camillo Sitte. Neither design is stylistically aggressive enough to suit a Norman Foster, while both suit the public just fine.

Gap between establishment architects and public. The real antiestablishmentarian rebels these days are Quinlan Terry, the various architects of Paternoster Square, and --dare one say?-- the public itself.

[czsz]

It would be nice to know what existed on these sites prior to their respective transformations before passing judgement on how "contextual" or "non-disruptive" they are. The Richmond development, for example, not only seems to evoke a more articulated, aristocratic architecture than the rest of the town center, but presents a public space along the riverfront that's dramatically inconsistent with previous urban public spaces in England and along the Thames in particular. Can this not be termed a disruption?

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^ By those standards, Eiffel Tower's a disruption.

Some disruptions are welcome. Examples: Columbia University campus, Rockefeller Center, Christian Science Center, Piazza San Marco, Atlantic Yards, Swiss Re.

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[czsz]

My point was that you created a distinction between "disruptions" on the one hand and "true urbanism" on the other, the latter of which the aforepictured developments were supposed to depict. If you agree they are disruptions, you can't necessarily claim they are universally beloved (or that "true urbanism" is). Disruptions of any architectural pedigree will always be loci of disagreement, and inspire the most spirited of public arguments over urban design. See Boston City Hall, which, for example, which is not uncontroversially hideous. Taking your examples: Jane Jacobs detested the Columbia campus, many (or most?) in Brooklyn despise Atlantic Yards, etc. And compared to the architects who authored these developments, Eiffel was practically the Will Alsop of his day. Indeed, many Parisians went to their graves waiting for the equivalent of a Richmond Riverside to replace his wild and superfluously whimsical tower.

[Luca]

It would be nice to know what existed on these sites prior to their respective transformation

In the case of the spectacular Paternoster Square, it was an utterly vile brutalist 1950s mega-block development that loomed broodingly next to St. Paul’s.


The Richmond development, for example, not only seems to evoke a more articulated, aristocratic architecture than the rest of the town center,

If by town center you mean the surprisingly ratty high street, then true (although improvement is never a problem in my mind) BUT if you compare it with Richmond’s beautiful row houses/composition on the Green then no, it’s a perfect accompaniment.


presents a public space along the riverfront that's dramatically inconsistent with previous urban public spaces in England and along the Thames in particular.

I don’t think contextual means “identical to the past” from a programmatic standpoint, since people in the pat didn’t spend half their lifetime in leisure. Those who did, the nobility, did build river vistas, only they were private

Paternoster Square revived a pre-existing street pattern that had been erased by the mega block atrocity. Interestingly, though it makes perfect sense from a connectivity/access standpoint, the larger scale of the buildings, relative to the medieval layout, makes at least two of the re-recreated side-streets a bit canyony/so-so. The square and most buildings around it are great. The fact that they brought back Ludgate from its sylvan exile is fantastic.

Frankly, were it not for the odd development like P.N. I’d have long ago stopped to care for architecture/construction in general.

THANK YOU ABLARC.

[ablarc]

The square and most buildings around it are great... Frankly, were it not for the odd development like P.N. I’d have long ago stopped to care for
architecture/construction in general.
These quietly appropriate projects have legs. They'll be well regarded for hundreds of years till they're replaced.

Even architects will like them after a while.