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Plans for £80m new Design Museum unveiled

The Sheet — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:25:07 +0000

London museum's 2014 move to Commonwealth Institute aims to make it 'the world's leading museum of contemporary design and architecture'

Plans for a new Design Museum were unveiled at a press conference today in the Odeon Kensington across the road from the long-abandoned Commonwealth Institute. Jonathan Ive, the much-feted British-born designer of the iPod, iPad, iPhone and other Apple gizmos appeared, larger than life, on the screen. "Thank," he said at the end of his two-minute message of congratulations. Before he could add "you", the screen froze and the limits of nascent digital technology and design left poor Ive's face stuck in a ginormous gurn.

Happily, though, the new £80m Design Museum, scheduled to open in 2014 and housed in the early-60s architectural splendour of the Commonwealth Institute, will be a showcase of three-dimensional objects as well as digital wizardry. Britain can and will make it was the message from Terence Conran, who took to the rostrum below the cinema screen. The famous designer and entrepreneur charted the history of the Design Museum from its first home, which opened in 1981 in a former boilerhouse in the basement of the Victoria & Albert Museum. He called for design to be part of the DNA of this country – as it is in Scandinavia.

Deyan Sudjic, the museum's director, described how he had long seen the Commonwealth Institute as "the most exciting, utopian building in London", going on to highlight its future role as "the world's leading museum of contemporary design and architecture", an "active museum where new things and new ideas can happen, where research can flourish".

The Grade II* building, designed originally by Robert Matthew of Johnson-Marshall architects and crowned by a copper-clad hyperbolic paraboloid roof (realised without computers), is to be tuned up by the Dutch architects OMA with Arup as structural engineers. The interiors will be transformed by John Pawson, whose designs – whether for private houses, Calvin Klein stores, art galleries or contemporary monasteries – are never less than luminously beautiful.

The museum is on the move from its home in a former banana warehouse at Butler's Wharf, which was considered a no-go area for property development until it (and an eagerly greeted slew of Conran restaurants) arrived here from 1989.

The soaring interior of the Commonwealth Institute offers the museum three times the space it enjoyed at Butler's Wharf. It hopes for half a million visitors a year and is confident that its presence, on the southern fringe of Holland Park (close to both the Royal College of Art, where many of Britain's best designers have trained, and the world-famous South Kensington museums) will transform "High Street Ken" itself. For many years, this has been one of London's least design-conscious high streets.

With bright new galleries for temporary exhibitions as well as permanent displays, a handsome library and research centre funded by the Sackler Foundation, and the kind of atrium-like interior you expect to find in the latest shopping malls, the new Design Museum should prove to be a magnet not just for the design-conscious but curious passers-by.

None of its plans would have been possible without the help of local property development. Just as the old Design Museum was a part of Conran's redevelopment of the Victorian Butler's Wharf, so the new Design Museum will be at the core of a new residential development led by Stuart Lipton, chairman of Chelsfield Partners. Lipton has commissioned a block of flats by OMA that will flank the refurbished Commonwealth Institute. Plans for the flats were discreetly absent at the unveiling, with the new museum looking as if it will stand in splendid isolation. It won't.

"If I was a student leaving the RCA today", said Conran, who is putting up £17m for the museum through the Conran Foundation, "I'd try to team up with an engineer from Imperial College and an entrepreneur with a bit of money to makes things of quality and originality."

This is a glimpse of the future, and the big hope is that the new Design Museum will help root intelligent design – along with a new wave of manufacturing – into Britain's curiously design-resistant DNA.

Jonathan Glancey

Leaning tower of Big Ben worries MPs

The Sheet — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:23:28 +0000

House of Commons commission meets to discuss what can be done to shore up crumbling Palace of Westminster

Once again, the splits and misalignments are beginning to show in the mother of all parliaments.

This time, though, it is not a bickering coalition or a cabinet riven with discord that is causing concern but rather the state of the Palace of Westminster itself.

A committee of MPs will meet on Monday to see what can be done to stop the tower that houses Big Ben leaning any further and to shore up Pugin and Barry's neo-gothic edifice.

Subsidence has led to cracks appearing in walls around the Houses of Commons and Lords, with Big Ben's bell tower leaning 46cm (18in) at its peak.

The House of Commons commission – which is responsible for the upkeep of the parliamentary estate – will discuss a surveyor's report that suggests options for dealing with the problems, including repairs which may lead to peers and MPs temporarily moving out.

However, experts have dismissed suggestions that the palace could be reclaimed by the Thames.

According to Prof John Burland of Imperial College London, who designed the five-storey car park underneath the Palace of Westminster, the clock tower's tilt is nothing new.

"[It's] been there for years," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "When I first started work on the car park it was obvious that it was leaning.

"We made measurements on it. It was leaning at one in 250 to the vertical, which is just about visible. That's the break point between looking vertical and looking like a slight lean."

Burland said the lean had probably developed early on as there was no cracking in the cladding.

"We think it probably leant while they were building it and before they put the cladding on," he said. "That was a long time ago and buildings do lean a little bit."

Burland added that the cracking, which he said was not caused by the tube's Jubilee line or the car park, was actually good for the palace.

"They're beneficial because the building moves thermally more than is caused by the Jubilee line and the movements concentrated around the cracks and, if they didn't, there would be cracking elsewhere," he told Today.

He also said the clock tower's lean was visible to the naked eye: "If you stand in Parliament Square and look towards it, you can just see that it moves very slightly to the left – but I wouldn't put any political slant on that."

Sam Jones

Seville’s Unesco status threatened by 600ft Pelli tower

The Sheet — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:55:49 +0000

Spanish city could lose world heritage status over plans to build 40-storey skyscraper amid cluster of 13th-century buildings

Seville faces being added to a Unesco blacklist as building work on a 40-storey skyscraper begins to change the southern Spanish city's skyline.

The half-built Pelli tower is casting a growing shadow across one of the country's most-visited cities and over a cluster of 13th-century buildings which have been designated a world heritage site by Unesco.

In a report leaked to local newspapers, Unesco experts denounced the "substantial" impact on several historic buildings. "It is surrounded by historic conservation areas," it said. "There is an excessive and undoubtedly negative impact."

Among the buildings affected are the cathedral, the Alcázar, the Giralda minaretand the Archive of the Indies, which together make up the world heritage site.

"They form a remarkable monumental complex in the heart of Seville," Unesco said. "The Giralda minaret is the masterpiece of Almohad architecture. This will end the Giralda tower's unrivalled pre-eminence in the urban landscape."

At a meeting in June Unesco must decide what to do about the city's refusal to halt construction. Among the options is to place it on the "in danger" list, or to strike Seville off the list of world heritage sites.

The "in danger" list includes sites such as Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan and the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam in Iran.

The Pelli tower is being built on the site of the 1992 Expo across Guadalquivir river from Seville's historic city centre.

The 12th-century riverside Tower of Gold is another monument that will be dwarfed by the 178-metre (580ft) Pelli building.

Unesco has asked local authorities to at least reduce the height of the building, but pleas made over the past four years have been ignored. The organisation said it had asked the city "to halt the construction works and reconsider the current high-rise project".

"Attempts are made to offer help to places so that they can solve problems," one expert on world heritage sites said. "But there comes a time when there is no hope for that."

That time appears to have come for Seville, where the Pelli tower has already reached 12 storeys. "They are meant to be adding another floor each week," said the expert.

El País newspaper said the report had been leaked by city hall authorities, which it read as a sign that the new city council, which was elected last year, might try to lower the height of the building.

Giles Tremlett

A high water mark: artists moor holiday houseboat on London roof

The Sheet — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:03:40 +0000

Vessel installed on top of Queen Elizabeth Hall on South Bank is open to the public for overnight stays

There are just a few things missing to complete the scene. Savage dogs, rusting engines from white vans plundered for parts, seagulls squabbling over landfill, scuffed barges laden with gravel and a backdrop peppered with indifferent high-rise housing. Add a slight scent of sewage and the 27-tonne Le Roi des Belges (King of the Belgians) might be berthed on some wind scythed stretch of the Thames Estuary far east of Tower Bridge.

The illusion, conjured on a grey and blustery January morning is not so very whimsical. Le Roi des Belges just happens to be moored on top of the brutalist Queen Elizabeth Hall between the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre. This, though, is no weather beaten Thames trader; it is, rather, an artwork – houseboat, too, which the public can stay in. It was designed by architect David Kohn and artist Fiona Banner, with Artangel for Living Architecture, an organisation set up by the philosopher Alain de Botton to build innovative holiday homes around the shores of Britain.

The shock, having ridden a slow and brutally utilitarian lift up through a jagged concrete interstice between the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery, is to find the houseboat anchored to the vast concrete roof of the 1960s concert hall, a terrain as bleak, and as compelling, as any found downriver from Tower Bridge.

Artist and architect say they were inspired by Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, set on the Thames and the River Congo, and by Conrad's tales of how he steamed up the Congo in a boat of the same name in 1889. But, where Conrad experienced the all but unspeakable horror of the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State by King Leopold II, what you see spread out before you as you board the artworld Roi des Belges, also known as A Room for London, is the most compelling, and gloriously wide-angled, panorama of central London, framed by the Palace of Westminster on the port side and St Paul's to starboard.

"The idea is that where once ships sailed out from imperial London to the rest of the world, today the world has come willingly to London," explained de Botton. "The boat is here to provoke, stimulate and adjust how people feel about London."

Two people can stay here for a single night during the course of this year. Snuggled into their cabin – complete with neat galley, dining a pair of room, bunks that can be slid together, a shower with a view of the dome of St Paul's and a library. Those stowing their jib aboard this happily unexpected houseboat, are offered shelves stacked with books on London, peerless views and the strangest sense of being marooned alone in the heart, not of darkness, but of a neon, fluorescent and sodium-lit city and with the sound of Thames water lapping the South Bank shore overlain with the noise of night buses and emergency service sirens.

A Room for London is a year-long arts venue. A programme of visiting writers includes Swedish author and cultural historian Sven Lindqvist and novelist Jeanette Winterson. Among the musicians staying on board will be Andrew Bird, the Chicago multi-instrumentalist, German composer Heiner Goebbels and Laurie Anderson. Video and installation artist, Jeremy Deller, and Talking Heads' David Byrne will also be part of the crew. Somewhere between July and December you might want to book yourself on board, too, before, Le Roi des Belges is lifted off the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall and packed off to her next port of cultural call.

Le Roi des Belges is the sixth of the adventurous new rental houses commissioned by Living Architecture. These include the Balancing Barn on the Suffolk coast between Aldeburgh and Walberswick by Dutch architects, MVRDV, the Shingle House on the extreme south-easterly point of England at Dungeness, by the Glaswegian team NORD Architecture, and the Dune House on the fringe of Thorpeness,Suffolk, by Norway's Jarmund/Vigsnaes architects. All are moored by the sea, yet none is as literal in form as the shipshape Roi des Belges.

• This article was amended on 17 January 2012. The original referred to atrocities committed in the Congo Free State by King Alphonso II. This has been corrected.

Jonathan Glancey

Rome’s Colosseum restoration sparks inquiries into contract

The Sheet — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:06:05 +0000

Shoe firm Tod's had struck a €25m deal to fund restoration, but this is being investigated

Italy's most visited monument, the Roman Colosseum, is suffering from "about 3,000 lesions", a government minister said last year. Sometimes, bits fall off, as did a chunk dislodged by a pigeon on Christmas Eve.

But the chances of the aged patient receiving emergency surgery receded on Wednesday when it emerged that Rome prosecutors and the Italian audit court had each launched inquiries into the award of a contract for the funding of restoration. In January 2011, the luxury shoe firm Tod's announced it had struck a deal under which it would put up €25m (£21m) for the cleaning and strengthening of the arena where gladiators once grappled with wild animals – and each other.

Tod's obtained the right to use the image of the Colosseum until two years after completion of the work. But the company's founder, Diego Della Valle, promised not to exploit his sponsorship for commercial purposes, saying he was happy just to give something back to his country.

The agreement has nevertheless been a subject of controversy ever since. And, on Monday, Italy's competition authority was reported to have condemned the procedures used.

According to a consumer group that lodged the original complaint with the authority, an inquiry found that Tod's should have been made to organise, and not just fund, the project; that it had been granted sponsorship rights for too long; and that rival bidders had not been given enough time to top its offer.

But the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, warned: "If, with €25m of private cash available, we don't get work under way now, we cannot then complain if parts of the Colosseum collapse."

John Hooper

Olympic companies call for end to ban on promoting work on games

The Sheet — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:20:42 +0000

Architects, engineers and technology companies speak out against protocol enforced by London 2012 organising committee

David Cameron is facing calls to end a ban on companies involved in the London Olympics from publicising their work on the games and has been warned that the gagging order is undermining job creation and economic growth.

Architects, engineers and technology companies have spoken out against a protocol, enforced by the London 2012 organising committee, which has prevented firms from entering projects for awards, publishing photos of completed arenas and even submitting work to exhibitions.

Olympic organisers said the rules were intended to protect the rights of major sponsors, but many suppliers say they clash with ministerial statements that the Olympics will provide British business with an economic boost.

On Monday, Cameron said "all credit" was due "to the people involved in providing these venues, getting them ready on time and on budget".

Ken Shuttleworth, the designer of the handball arena, said his firm has had a tussle with Locog over whether it could feature the venue in his company's own annual report, while Locog shut down attempts by a non-commercial trust to stage an exhibition about the London 2012 venues and suppliers.

Zaha Hadid, the architect of the aquatics centre and Sir Michael Hopkins, the architect of the velodrome, are among those covered by the no marketing rights protocol, but it is the dozens of smaller, less high-profile suppliers who are most concerned.

They have said they are being constrained when pitching for work on events such as the football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in Brazil 2016.

"There is a contradiction between what different sides of government are saying," Roger Hawkins, whose firm's £110m redesign of Stratford station was prevented by the Olympic Delivery Authority from being entered for a Civic Trust award, said.

"We would love to promote our work on this complex technical project because we have developed skills that we would like to market into other opportunities. We are not allowed to do that, and there is a level of frustration in the design team about that."

Deborah Saunt, whose DSDHA firm designed the tallest tower in the athletes' village, said the rules "run contrary to common sense".

"We feel we have produced a new model of social housing, but we can't go out and promote it," she said. "Normally we would be publishing this globally, but here we have to wait until we are asked to talk about it. This is a missed opportunity."

STL Communications, an Oxfordshire telecoms firm that won the contract to provide hundreds of phones to be used by organisers to co-ordinate the opening and closing ceremonies, has written to Cameron demanding a rethink.

The firm told the prime minister the gag means it may have to forego 20% business growth.

"It is hard to understand how somebody providing tiles or doors is going to ambush Adidas or BMW by marketing their involvement in the games," Jim Heverin, a partner at Zaha Hadid Architects, which designed the aquatics centre, said.

Locog said a large proportion of the funding for the staging of the games comes from sponsorship by companies purchasing exclusive rights to promote their association with the games.

"Without these sponsors the games simply wouldn't happen, so we require suppliers not to advertise their involvement in order to protect our sponsors' associations with the London 2012," a spokesman said.

"Contractors are able to factually refer to the work they have done on the games when pitching for new business or refer to it on their websites alongside other examples of their work."

Peter Murray, a trustee of the Building Centre Trust, which was refused permission to stage a London 2012 exhibition, urged Locog to "ease up".

He said: "It is in the national interest that we make the best of the Olympics over the next nine months. I can see no problem in people using it from a branding point of view. As long as people do it in a responsible way, it can only enhance the economy."

Robert Booth

London’s Shard: a ‘tower of power and riches’ looking down on poverty

The Sheet — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:04:08 +0000

Renzo Piano's skyscraper, which will be Europe's tallest building, may provide a shot in the arm for London – or be merely a symbol of Qatari financial muscle

Slicing through the air above the dank and dripping Victorian tunnels by London Bridge is a new symbol of extraordinary confidence.

The glinting Shard of Glass has become the tallest building in Europe, rising higher than Canary Wharf's main tower, Frankfurt's Commerzbank and the Ostankino television tower in Moscow.

The 310-metre-high (1,017ft) building is scheduled to open in June, in what is forecast to be a continuing economic slump. But, experienced from the highest apartment on the 66th floor, thoughts of Britain's stagnation are obliterated by the mind-boggling views.

From the cavernous double-height living room more than 200 metres up in the air, the city of eight million people looks like a toy town. The London Eye becomes a fairground attraction and HMS Belfast a model boat. The twin stadiums – Olympic and Wembley – feel within touching distance. Trains inch along like millipedes into London Bridge station, while to the east the Thames curves out to the sea.

In certain weather all this is above the cloud deck. The spectacular views will next year go on sale to the highest bidder when apartments could fetch tens of millions of pounds each.

In all, there will be 27 floors of offices, three floors of fine dining restaurants, an 18-floor, five-star Shangri-La hotel with a spa, and 10 palatial apartments, each on average seven times bigger than a semi-detached home. A four-storey public viewing area is being built starting on the 68th floor which is likely to cost around £20 to access. The developer is even considering renting out the very highest room on the 78th floor for high powered conferences and political talks – summits at the summit.

"We could send Europe's top politicians up there and not let them down until they solve the euro crisis," said Irvine Sellar, the building's developer.

The architect, Renzo Piano, has mooted an alternative use as a meditation suite and is said to be keen the space should not become a playground only for the super-rich and powerful.

But how does all this, rising beside some of the poorest wards in the country, add up in Britain's listing economy? It is notable that so far no office tenants have signed up, although the developers say they are in talks with several and are being selective. The answer may lie in its ownership - the Shard owes its existence to a power play by a gas-rich kingdom more than 4,000 miles away.

From spring 2009, when construction began, Qatari wealth poured into the project. As the global economic crisis forced builders to down tools on sites across the UK, around £1.5bn – mostly from the Gulf – bankrolled the Shard.

Two of the apartments span two entire floors each and are expected to become London homes for members of the Qatari royal family. The Shard – 80% owned through the country's central bank – is now the jewel in the crown of the emirate's growing London estate, which also includes Harrods, the American embassy building in Grosvenor Square, and Chelsea Barracks.

The Qataris insist they are simply diversifying their investment holdings. But observers of Gulf politics believe there is a diplomatic purpose and regional one-upmanship at play. For example, some Kuwaitis and Emiratis are said to be jealous that Harrods, their favourite London shop, is owned by Qatar.

It was not meant to be like this. In 2000, when the Shard's silhouette was first sketched on the back of a Berlin restaurant menu by Piano, the project was wholly in the hands of Sellar, a former Carnaby Street trader, and his business partners. London's skyline was rising on a tide of easy credit and buoyant property prices. Lord Foster's gherkin-shaped tower for Swiss Re was about to be built in the City and plans for a cluster of taller towers – the "cheesegrater", the "walkie talkie", the "helterskelter" – were being drafted.

A planning inquiry followed the unveiling of Piano's design, which he charmingly said was inspired by the spires of London's old churches, and John Prescott, then deputy prime minister, gave his approval in 2003. But when it came to erecting the building, Sellar and his partners could not raise the construction finance because of the global financial crisis.

Qatari investors bought 80% of the project in January 2008, when it was valued at £2bn.

"The UK is a dear country to us," said the Qatar ambassador to London, Khalid bin Rashid bin Salim al-Hamoudi al-Mansouri. "We have been investing in this country before and after the crash. Our investment is a long-term investment. We don't need cash money now. This comes from a strategy of diversifying our economy over 10, 20, 30 years. We think the UK is the right place to put our investment. The UK is a strategic partner with our country."

The governor of Qatar's central bank, Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani, has been more explicit about the diplomatic potential of the acquisition. He said he was confident the Shard would become "a symbol of the close ties between Qatar and the UK".

Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert in the politics of the Gulf at Durham University, said the Shard played a part in Qatar's programme of "soft diplomacy" with countries such as the UK and US that provide it with security guarantees.

"The invasion of Kuwait is still fresh in the memory of rulers in the Gulf and being invaded for your petrochemical wealth remains a nightmare," he said. "Qatar is in a tight spot between Saudi Arabia and Iran and its very survival rests on the west's guarantee. The thinking goes that if someone invades a country that has the highest skyscraper in London, then surely the UK should come to the rescue."

For Davidson, the Shard is in the same category as Abu Dhabi's purchase of Manchester City Football Club. "It is high-profile and won't necessarily turn a profit, but the benefits are non-pecuniary," he said.

Such talk about hidden agendas for the building makes Piano uncomfortable.

"This is not about money," he said. "It is about surprise and joy. This is about the way cities should go. They should stop and we should not go beyond the green belt. If you do this by going vertical that sends a message about conserving land. The building is not about arrogance and power but about increasing the intensity of city life."

He compared the project to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, which he designed with Richard Rogers in the mid-1970s. It turned the model of the fine art gallery inside out, placing the building's innards – its ducts, pipes and structure – on the facade.

"Architecture is not neutral, it celebrates something," he said. "When we built the Pompidou Centre it celebrated rebellion against the idea that culture should be intimidating. The Shard will celebrate community, the sense of the city, the sense of exchange. I think the building will become loved in London because it is not arrogant. Normally towers are not loved because they shut down at 6pm and you have a black glass block. This is not about money or power. It is about surprise and joy."

While many Londoners have already taken the building to their hearts, some locals are puzzled by their new neighbour and are struggling to understand its economic rationale.

"None of it hangs together and to me it seems commercially absurd," said Russell Gray, owner of the Tanneries, a small business complex created from restored Victorian warehouses close by. "But that doesn't matter if what you are after is a latter-day pyramid celebrating the arrival of the Qataris on the world stage."

Sellar couldn't disagree more and believes the building is the kind of counter-cyclical investment the UK economy needs. "If we want to get out of this malaise then this is the sort of project that should be done," he said. "We think it is a great image. It says, 'This is London, this is the Shard and we can kick sand in the face of the Eiffel Tower.'"

More than 2,000 16- to 24-year-olds in Southwark not only have no work, but are also not in education or training. The council is hoping to use £4.4m obtained from the developer in the £15m planning gain agreement to transform this small army and others into "a supply of enthusiastic, job-ready, local young people and adult jobseekers".

There is hope that people could train at Southwark College as beauticians to work in the spa at the hotel, as fitness instructors for the gym, and as florists, shop assistants, security guards, secretaries and office managers, although council papers reveal that "there is no obligation on the tenants and businesses in the completed development to provide job opportunities".

So far the council can boast that "up to the end of September, the key output is 40 local people into jobs in the building".

"There has been a failure of imagination," said Nick Stanton, a Liberal Democrat and former leader of Southwark council. "There should be something in this building that the community uses on a daily basis instead of just walking around it. There should be something like a library in it … one of the frustrations I had as leader was the inability to link a big project like this to local outcomes."

Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, said it was a "tower of power and riches" in a poor borough. "It points to the paradoxical nature of property development in cities such as London. In order to bring about transformation it is necessary to accept gentrification. It is inevitable the arrival of a sharp piece of global capitalism is an odd incursion into a borough that is still authentic old Victorian London."

The appearance of the building has created what Travers calls a "new mental geography" of the capital. For example the presence of the Shard makes suddenly obvious what every London taxi driver already knew: that the quickest way from Westminster to the City is via the South Bank.

Lord Prescott, who approved the tower in the face of stern opposition from English Heritage, has watched it "growing all the time" from his flat in the Parliament View complex by Westminster bridge.

"It was a difficult decision that I was faced with about high-rise buildings along the Thames," said the former deputy PM. "I thought this one was interesting. The Shard was in a part of London on the South Bank that needed to be developed as well. From what I have seen of it, it will achieve that. I thought its design was very striking and significant and part of modern cities and on the South Bank, whereas before the thinking was that high-rise buildings would be in Canary Wharf. Were we simply going to locate them there or would there be a regeneration argument for locating them on the South Bank?"

Over the river in the City, the Corporation of London appears miffed by the Southwark upstart. It has urged the London mayor, Boris Johnson, to prevent the Shard being used as a precedent by other developers to disregard protected viewing corridors that restrict development around St Paul's, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

Piano is unperturbed by criticism it is too dominant on the horizon and says "the building disappears into the sky".

"This is the most important moment when you realise what the building will be like in the city," he said. "I think it is what I wanted. It is going to be sharp. It is not going to take away light. It is a building that will reflect the humour of the weather because the shards are not vertical, they are inclined. It will reflect the ever-changing process and colours of the sky."

Sellar, for his part, is sure the building will become a new icon. "People will feel proud," he said. "This is London. This is the Shard."

Robert Booth

Summits at the summit: the Shard could host talks for world leaders

The Sheet — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:48:50 +0000

Europe's tallest building could include exclusive space on 78th floor for top-level meetings, says building's developer

It would be the summit at the summit. The top floor of the Shard, Europe's tallest skyscraper, could be made available for high powered conferences and political talks, the building's developer has told the Guardian.

Irvine Sellar said he is considering making the 78th floor, which is so elevated it is sometimes above the clouds, an exclusive meeting space which would allow political leaders to hold talks with an unrivalled bird's eye view above London Bridge.

"We could send Europe's top politicians up there and not let them down until they solve the Euro crisis," he said

The highest room anywhere in Europe has space for up to 60 people and would be accessed by a dedicator elevator off the public viewing galleries.

The plan is being debated by Sellar and his architect, Renzo Piano. Already a four-storey public viewing area is being built starting on the 68th floor which is likely to cost around £20 to access.

But the developer, keen to recoup investment of around £2bn in the building, is aware of the revenue-generating potential for the even-higher space.

Piano, who said he believes the building "celebrates life and in some measure, poetry", has mooted an alternative use as a meditation suite and is said to be keen the space should not become a playground only for the super-rich and powerful.

At the Shard's upper levels, helicopters and planes coming into land at City airport fly along at eye level and on a clear day the view stretches 40 miles. Construction workers said it sometimes snows at the top while it is raining at ground level.

The idea has echoes of the Pyramid of Peace in Kazakhstan's capital Astana. That Norman-Foster-designed building has a 200-seat chamber at the apex for meetings of the leaders of the world's religions.

The 310m-tall Shard is due to be fully built next June and looks likely to open in the depths of Britain's economic slump. So far no tenants have signed up for the 27 floors of office space, although the developers said they are in talks with several and are being selective. It is 80% owned by the Gulf emirate of Qatar and has been described by critics as "a sharp piece of global capitalism" and "a latter-day pyramid celebrating the arrival of the Qataris on the world stage". But many Londoners have taken the building to their hearts.

Piano insisted that the building was not an out-of-date monument to "arrogance and power", and pointed out it could help save the countryside from sprawl. "This is not about money," he said. "It is about surprise and joy. This is about the way cities should go. They should stop and we should not go beyond the green belt. If you do this by going vertical that sends a message about conserving land. The building is not about arrogance and power but about increasing the intensity of city life."

Works have begun on fitting out an 18-storey five-star Shangri-La hotel within the Shard and ten huge apartments at its top, which are likely to sell for tens of millions of pounds each.

Sellar, whose company owns 20% of the tower, insisted the building was not out of sync with the era of austerity.

"If we want to get out of this malaise then this is the sort of project that should be done," he said. "We think it is a great image. It says, 'This is London, this is the Shard and we can kick sand in the face of the Eiffel Tower.'"

Unesco will next year consider whether to downgrade or even remove the World Heritage status of the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey in part because of the Shard's looming silhouette.

This month inspectors from the United Nations world heritage committee paid a four day visit to London to consider the effectiveness of measures to protect the World Heritage status of the sites.

"We are concerned that the sites might lose their outstanding universal value by being dwarfed by inappropriate development," said Patricia Alberth, programme specialist for the Europe area at Unesco in Paris. "They could decide to remove their status or decide whether they should be placed on a list of danger which means they could be delisted."

Robert Booth

Lloyd’s building joins Grade I elite at tender age of 25

The Sheet — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:05:57 +0000

Heritage minister's decision puts Richard Rogers's hi-tech design in the top 2.5% of all listed buildings

Richard Rogers's hi-tech, postmodern Lloyd's building, with its pipes, lifts and toilets presented on the outside, has become one of only a few modern buildings to be given Grade I listed status.

The decision, by the heritage minister, John Penrose, puts the building in the top 2.5% of all listed buildings. It now has the sort of protection given to St Paul's Cathedral and Windsor Castle.

The listing was recommended by English Heritage. Its designation director, Roger Bowdler, said it was "fitting recognition of the sheer splendour of Richard Rogers's heroic design. Its dramatic scale and visual dazzle, housing a hyper-efficient commercial complex, is universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch."

Bowdler said its listing, which provides substantial protection but did not mean it is "pickled in aspic", had been enthusiastically supported. Penrose said the Lloyd's building "stands the test of time with its awe-inspiring futuristic design, which exemplifies the hi-tech style in Britain. It clearly merits the extra protection against unsuitable alteration or development that listing provides."

The Lloyd's building was opened in 1986, built after the success Rogers, with Renzo Piano, had with that other great inside-outside building, the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Providing a headquarters for Lloyd's of London, it manages to be both head-turningly futuristic and resolutely traditional. It includes the traditions and fabric of earlier Lloyd's buildings, not least the Adam Room, which was moved from Bowood House in Wiltshire, and the Lutine Bell, which was once rang to indicate an "overdue" ship but is these days is only used for ceremonial occasions.

It is one of only a handful of postwar buildings and structures to be given Grade I listing, joining Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral (listed in 1988) Norman Foster's Willis Corroon Building in Ipswich (listed in 1991) and the Severn Bridge (listed in 1998).

Lloyd's chief executive, Richard Ward, said: "The building remains modern, innovative and unique – it has really stood the test of time just like the market that sits within it. This listing decision will protect the building against unsuitable alteration or development while retaining its flexibility to adapt within the market's needs."

Lord Rogers's practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, said in a statement that the listing was an honour: "It is important to conserve buildings of architectural and historical significance, and the work of English Heritage is central to that. It is also of vital importance for buildings to remain flexible spaces which meet the changing needs of those who live or work in them. English Heritage has recognised this, ensuring the spirit of the original design is retained while the building remains adaptable in the future."

At the other end of the heritage timeline, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport also announced that the early Mesolithic settlement Star Carr, near Scarborough – which contains what may be the earliest building in Britain – is being made a scheduled monument because of its rarity and archeological importance. The status gives the site an extra layer of protection against unauthorised change.

Mark Brown

Viñoly brought in as Chelsea looks at move to Battersea power station

The Sheet — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:26:07 +0000

Architect behind latest failed redesign for London's Battersea power station hired as creative brain behind developer Mike Hussey's plan for stadium for Chelsea football club at the site

Rafael Viñoly, the architect who worked on the most recent failed redesign for Battersea power station in London, has been hired as the creative brain behind developer Mike Hussey's proposal to build a stadium for Chelsea football club at the site.

Viñoly worked on the £5.5bn revamp of the Grade II*-listed London landmark that won planning permission last year, but the plan collapsed a week ago when the power station was put into administration after its owner, the Irish property firm Real Estate Opportunities, failed to repay £324m to its lenders. The 16-hectare site in south-west London, valued at £500m in October, will be put up for sale by the administrators, Ernst & Young, with Chelsea's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich seen as a frontrunner to acquire it.

Viñoly is collaborating with the architects Kohn Pedersen Fox on the plan put forward by Hussey, a former Land Securities executive. Chelsea has not made a decision to leave its Stamford Bridge home but has appointed Hussey's Almacantar vehicle, along with KPF, to draw up plans for a 55,000-capacity stadium to be situated to the south-east of the power station.

New York-based Viñoly wants to retain as much of the power station as possible, keeping structural changes to a minimum. His new plan is thought to be less ambitious than REO's 750,000 sq metre development of 3,400 homes, as well as shops and offices. The power station's distinct four white chimneys were to be demolished and rebuilt, as they were deemed to be "beyond repair".

But Keith Garner, an architect and member of a local campaign group, said: "Jamming a large football stadium against Battersea power station is a bad idea." The Battersea Power Station Community Group wants the turbine hall turned into an exhibition centre – a showcase for British design and manufacturing – with offices and flats on the upper floors. Garner held up the successful revamp of the former Dean Clough Mills in Halifax, once the world's largest carpet factory, as an example. He has tried to get Google UK interested, which is based in nearby Victoria and needs more space.

REO's lenders, Lloyds Banking Group and Ireland's National Management Asset Agency, are keen to recoup their money. Nama is thought to prefer Chelsea, while other potential bidders for Battersea include the Malaysian property group SP Setia, UK developers including Berkeley, Development Securities and British Land, along with sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms such as Blackstone.

Julia Kollewe