Studio Esinam, in collaboration with London-based photographer Rory Gardiner, has released Utopia, a photo series that captures and pays tribute to London’s Brutalist architecture. The series aims to “highlight the subtle beauties hidden beneath the hard surface of some of London’s brutalist buildings.”
Photographed during the early spring of 2016, the project captures some of the city’s best examples of Brutalism: the Barbican Estate, Royal National Theatre, Hayward Gallery, Trellick Tower, and the Robin Hood Gardens.
Each photograph strives to highlight the architectural and sculptural qualities of the buildings, in the hopes that they will inspire viewers to explore the style further.
“Contrary to how many people perceive brutalism today, it was once the architecture of utopian visions and ambitions of making peoples’ lives better through architecture. Brutalism, although deriving from the French term béton brut, meaning raw concrete, was about much more than just that. These projects were based on ideas about the value of human relationships and interactions on a will to democratize architecture and the city, to make it open for everyone—ambitions few projects have today.”
From the architect. Two buildings are set into the naturally-sloping site. The first building, to the south, accommodates the pre/post-school childcare unit and the nursery, while to the north, the second building houses the crèche. Access is from the ruelle du collège, via sloping paths that run along the length of the site, allowing easy pushchair access to the different buildings. The spaces between the buildings are reorganised into a yard for the different groups of children: to the south is an area for the pre/post-school childcare unit, the central area is for the crèche, with a public space to the north. To the east of the site, off the rue du moulin, there is a drop-off point for users arriving by car.
The ground floor of building a contains the cafeteria, kitchen and cloakroom for the pre/post-school childcare unit, with activity, motor skills and reading areas on the first floor. The nursery, which has lift access and a covered terrace, is on the second floor. Building b is devoted entirely to the nursery, “le nid”. Above the cafeteria, kitchen, cloakrooms and co-ordinator’s office are the two areas for the children. each of these occupies one floor, and is organised in a similar manner. A heated underground passage allows easy movement between the two buildings.
The buildings are organised over 3 storeys. The cafeteria areas on the ground floor connect directly with the outdoor spaces. the buildings’ internal space is free of intermediate structures, to make it as flexible as possible. This principle is reinforced by integrating the storage areas into the façade walls. The main areas therefore run right through the building, providing plenty of light and varied relationships with the exterior.
The playful arrangement of the windows offers various options for adapting the spaces and adds dynamism to the façades. The position of the windows means they can be made into usable, child-scale recesses.
Looming over the small Bavarian town of Hohenschwangau are the turrets and towers of one of the world’s most famous “fairytale” castles. Schloß Neuschwanstein, or “New Swan Stone Castle,” was the fantastical creation of King Ludwig II – a monarch who dreamed of creating for himself an ideal medieval palace, nestled in the Alps. Though designed to represent a 13th-century Romanesque castle[1], Neuschwanstein was a thoroughly 19th-century project, constructed using industrial methods and filled with modern comforts and conveniences; indeed, without the technological advancements of the time, Ludwig could never have escaped into his medieval fantasy.[2]
Courtesy of Flickr user Vladyslav Artyukhov
The seeds of Ludwig’s dream were sown during his childhood. The young Prince spent his summers in the nearby castle of Hohenschwangau, itself a reconstruction built by his father Maximilian II in the 1830s. Built over medieval ruins discovered by Maximilian during a hunting trip, Hohenschwangau was one of the first Romantic revival castles built in what would eventually become Germany; its combination of English Gothic styling with contemporary conveniences would serve as a formative influence for Ludwig’s own castle just across the valley.[3]
Courtesy of Shutterstock user Oleg Lopatkin
Ludwig was also enamored by mythology and folklore, especially as portrayed through opera. Within a year of taking the Bavarian throne in 1864, the King summoned and became a patron to composer Richard Wagner. Under Ludwig’s reign, music flourished in Bavaria’s capital of Munich.[4] As the new King faced mounting criticism and opposition in Munich, he began to withdraw from the city into the mountains (to Hohenschwangau) and into the legends illustrated so vividly by Wagner’s operas. There, in the fantasies of the past, Ludwig could escape the strife that was his present.[5]
Courtesy of United States Library of Congress
The final straw came in 1866, when a military defeat against Prussia led to the restriction of Ludwig’s powers as king. No longer a sovereign ruler, Ludwig compensated by building himself a series of palaces in which, from 1867 onwards, he could play autocratic monarch. Like his father, he chose the site of two ruined castles as the base for his own new palace. Unlike his father, however, he was dedicated to creating a castle that hewed more closely to the style of its forebears than Hohenschwangau had. Inspired by Wagner, Hohenschwangau, and the castles of medieval Germany, Ludwig commissioned scenic painter Christian Jank and architect Eduard Riedel to begin construction of “New Hohenschwangau” – what would eventually come to be known as Neuschwanstein.[6]
Though Riedel initially planned to build up Neuschwanstein from the ruins on the site, it soon became clear that Ludwig’s vision would necessitate demolishing them to clear the way for something of a grander scale. The alpine ridge proved to be an incredibly challenging construction site; a road had to be built to ascend 200 meters to the summit of the mountain, which had to be laboriously flattened into two adjacent plateaus in order to serve as safe foundations for the castle. Subsequent construction made use of one of Germany’s first large steam-powered cranes, which became a highly visible anachronism next to the medieval castle that took form beside it. Industrial techniques would continue to serve the architects and builders as construction proceeded; innovation the only way for them to keep up with Ludwig’s impatient deadlines.[7]
Plans of the first, fourth, and fifth floors. Image Courtesy of Kienberged GmbH
Neuschwanstein, as envisioned by Ludwig and illustrated by Jank, was an idealized Gothic castle. Ludwig’s visit to a contemporary reconstruction of the Wartburg Palace, however, saw the concept shift to a larger Romanesque castle with multiple structures leading to a five-story royal residential building, or palas.[8] When the first foundation stones were laid in September of 1869, Ludwig fully expected to be living in his completed castle within three years. However, it would be four years before he could move into the gatehouse, which was, at that point, the only space ready for habitation.[9] The palas was topped out another seven years later in 1880; Ludwig finally moved into his intended apartments in 1884.[10]
Once the gatehouse and palas were ‘topped off,’ work could proceed on the accessory structures and the lavish interior of the palas itself. The complex, as designed, featured the following spatial elements: a gatehouse, two courtyards, the palas, a Keep with an ornate chapel, a Knights’ House, a Ladies’ House (or “bower”), and a square tower. The structure was to be composed primarily of brick, sitting atop a cement foundation and clad in limestone.[11] The bower and square tower would not be completed until after the King’s death in 1886, and even then only in a simplified form; the 90-meter tall Keep, which would have featured a Gothic chapel at its base to form the heart of the castle, was never realised.[12]
Courtesy of United States Library of Congress
While much of the interior of the palas was never finished, the few rooms that were completed form a vivid image of Ludwig’s ultimate dream for Neuschwanstein. The King’s apartments on the third floor feature an ornately decorated Gothic bedroom, an artificial grotto inspired by a Wagnerian opera, and a winter garden whose panoramic view of the Alps surrounding the castle are sealed in by what were, at three meters tall, the largest window panes ever made at the time.[13]
These windows, which would have been impossible to craft during the medieval period, were not the only contemporary features of the palas: the entire building was equipped with central heating and running water, with the King’s lavatory even featuring an automatic flushing mechanism. An electric bell system allowed Ludwig to summon servants from elsewhere in the castle, while a pair of lifts allowed them to reach him without climbing any stairs. Perhaps the most egregious anachronism, however, was the pair of telephones fitted into the third and fourth floors.[14]
Courtesy of Flickr user Janis
While industrial technologies were primarily employed for ease of construction or as a concession to human comfort, there was one case in which it was necessary for the very structure of the castle. Rising from the third into the fourth floor, the lavishly gilded Byzantine throne room was to be the chief showcase of Ludwig’s divine right as King of Bavaria; every detail, from its profusion of Christian mosaics to its crown-shaped chandelier, was meant to proclaim his role as the intermediary between heaven and Earth.[15]
Courtesy of United States Library of Congress
Although it is not immediately apparent from within the space, the throne room is actually supported by a framework of steel members. Girders form a structural lattice above, supporting the ceiling and the arched apse above the dais, and even the dais itself rests upon iron supports.[16] It is almost poetic that the throne—the element that would have most directly represented Ludwig’s idealized medieval kingship—would have secretly been supported by features of a period in time he had come to despise: his own. The throne room carries an added symbolism, however, in that it was never fitted with the item that would have given it its purpose: the throne itself.[17]
Ludwig’s increasingly tenuous financial and mental state led his government to depose him on the grounds of insanity on June 10, 1886. He was removed from his home at Neuschwanstein two days later to a mental hospital at Berg Castle. The following evening, he and his psychiatrist were both found dead at the shore of Lake Starnberg.[18]
Seven weeks later, the Bavarian government opened Neuschwanstein to the public, turning the late King’s private recluse into a tourist destination which is today visited by 1.4 million people every year.[19] Neuschwanstein has become world-renowned as an icon of the ideal Romantic castle, both in itself and as the main inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.[20] While Ludwig II was ultimately unable to escape his troubles, his greatest fantasy—his beloved Neuschwanstein—endures.
Courtesy of Flickr user Julian Knutzen
References
[1] “Neuschwanstein Castle.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/1VaVZqC [2] “Interior and modern technology.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/1oEkmyT [3] Knapp, Gottfried. Neuschwanstein. London: Edition Axel Menges, 1999. p7. [4] “King Ludwig II of Bavaria.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/YgrMoJ [5] Gottfried, p9. [6] “Idea and History.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/15731Tw [7] Gottfried, p11. [8] “Neuschwanstein Castle – an example of Historicism.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/1VaVXyW [9] Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “Neuschwanstein Castle”, accessed March 29, 2016, http://ift.tt/1oEkjDg. [10] “Idea and History.” [11] “Building History.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/1VaVXyY [12] Desing, Julius. The Royal Castle of Neuschwanstein. Lechbruck: Kienberged GmbH, 1998. p9. [13] Gottfried, p15-17. [14] “Interior and modern technology.” [15] Desing, p16-21. [16] Gottfried, p15. [17] Desing, p16. [18] Cowan, Henry J., and Trevor Howells. A Guide to the World’s Greatest Buildings: Masterpieces of Architecture & Engineering. San Francisco: Fog City Press, 2000. p79. [19] “Neuschwanstein Today.” Bavarian Palace Department. Accessed March 26, 2016. http://ift.tt/XkzY83 [20] Cowan and Howells, p79.
Photographs: Courtesy of Shutterstock user Naumenko Aleksandr, Courtesy of Flickr user Julian Knutzen, Courtesy of Flickr user Janis, Courtesy of United States Library of Congress, Courtesy of Flickr user Vladyslav Artyukhov, Courtesy of Flickr user Stefan Jurca, Courtesy of Kienberged GmbH, Johannes Bernard, Courtesy of Wikimedia user Ingersoll, Courtesy of Shutterstock user Oleg Lopatkin
Architect In Charge: Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham
Design Team: Prof. Sir Peter Cook, Gavin Robotham, Jenna Al-Ali
Area: 170.0 sqm
Project Year: 2016
Other Consultant Teams: AKT II, P3r engineers, PT projects, HED
Main Contractor: Morgan Sindall
Site Area: 1755 m2
From the architect. A belief in the power of Drawing and its central role in artistic creativity is vociferously shared by Stuart Bartholomew, the Vice Chancellor and Head of Arts University Bournemouth and its architect alumnus, Sir Peter Cook. In 2014 Bartholomew invited Cook to design this building, which is dedicated to that pursuit. Cook’s office CRAB (the Cook-Robotham Architecture Bureau) with Jenna Al-Ali as Project Architect have then developed an instrument that is to be used by the students of all of its 17 departments. These range from painting, sculpture and Illustration, through to architecture, costume, drama, and model-making with the result becoming the first such dedicated Drawing Studio as a stand-alone structure to be built in a British art college for more than 100 years.
The Studio celebrates – and designed around – the phenomenon of natural light. Taking the form of a large room of 140 square metres . Thus it has a 30 square metre oval north-light window as main illumination, with a ‘booster’ light for the rear of the room from a clerestory window of 10 square metres. On the east side there is a further natural light source in the form of a low window located under a long bench that emanates a mysterious glow and finally, a gradated wash of natural light passes through the glass entry door and along the curved wall beyond.
Ground Floor plan
The outside of the building is a totality – uniformly painted blue and serves as a ‘marker’ element for the north end of the AUB Campus. The interior is uniformly white – and thus acts as a foil to the drawing activity. Such uniformity serves to concentrate the eye upon the form and undulations of both exterior and interior.
This single entity unfolds towards a small ‘porte clochere’ that protects the actual entry door : and inspires a formally related wing for the emergency exit. Small internal zones – the toilets, service room and drawing store room are provided on the southern flank of the Studio room but are encompassed by the major sculptural form.
Sketch
The external skin is a steel-sheet monocoque construction of 17 steel panels – prefabricated in the factory, transported to site and bolted as a kit of parts and then welded to form a smooth, waterproof enclosure. The internal skin has been developed through a technique of GRG (glass reinforced gypsum) that enables the exterior profile to be directly echoed within, whilst at the same time creating a useful servicing and insulation cavity.
From a very early stage, the design team of CRAB studio (architects), AKT II (structural engineers), steel shell fabricator CIG and main contractor Morgan Sindall all collaborated very closely and discussed a sequenced operation on a very small site.
From the architect. The approach to the project was defined by steep terrain and by the magnificent views that the site offered. The design follows those two main characteristics first positioning and second by opening of the living quarters towards the south (views towards the mountains) with large glass walls (windows) and with exits on both sides of the house. These smaller more secluded exterior spaces can be used accordingly depending on the hour of the day, the season, wind…etc.
The adaptation to the terrain was achieved with a simple composition of two similar volumes and the space in between that together form the whole and still maintain the small scale of surrounding objects. Both objects are clad with raw wooden façade (larch) from three sides always leaving one side open (façade clad in dark aluminium). In the bigger object (living quarters) this façade – facing the mountains – is a large dark aluminium glass wall. In the smaller object (storage, garage) this façade is also from dark aluminium (large automatic garage doors) and faces in the other direction, towards the courtyard.
Programe wise this is a second home for a family of five. This alpine village resort (Kranjska Gora) is just an hour drive away from the capital of Slovenia. The house has three bedrooms with the master bedroom on the top floor facing the view towards the mountains. The ground floor is designed as a single space connecting the house together in all directions. The main feature of this space is the large 7m long glass wall with the heated wooden bench in front.
Plan 1
The bench helps to frame the view towards the mountains by cutting the roofs of surrounding buildings from the view. The support structure (reinforced concrete beam) above this long glass wall is hidden above the celling of this flor. This is done in order not to cut away the top of the peaks from the view (framed view) when entering the central interior space of the house.
From the architect. Located within a new residential development in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, the house is threatened by frequent flooding due to poor storm drain system. Consequently, the client requested the floors to be raised as high from the ground as possible without exceeding the allowable height limit. We propose to suspend the entire volume on 4 concrete pilotis and beams, thereby creating a multipurpose outdoor space beneath the house.
On a regular basis, this space can be used for recreational activities such as exercising, karaoke, and informal gathering. When necessary, this space can combine with the terrace on the first floor, forming an even larger area for family get-together and parties.
Diagram
The remaining program is staggered on each floor to make room for private gardens and terraces. In the center, a circulation shaft consisting of terraces and stairways keeps the house naturally ventilated. Supported by a grid of circular steel columns, the roof generates a buffer zone between the sun and the attic to mitigate the tropical heat of Vietnam.
Floating House is designed as three distinct elements: foundation, inhabited volume, and roof; yet they are all connected together by the four pilotis to “float” effortlessly in the air.
It is a steeled house with shop consisted of “1 core”, “2 volumes”, and “3 stories”.
Miyagino, located 1.5 km east of Sendai station, is the active area packed with sports facilities such as a baseball stadium and general athletic park. The site has a frontage of 8 m and a depth of 11 m. There used to be a two-story wooden house as a Tofu shop owned by a client’s grandfather, so the clients were living in this house and running a cafe. Because the house became old and the clients expected new family members, they requested a rebuilding of two-family dwelling combined with a cafe shop.
The surrounding area used to be a shopping street, so a row of narrow buildings remains as the trace of the old days. If we piled up the requested floor space from clients while setting the height at 9 m to relax the legal limitation, the house would be a huge volume and out of accord with its surroundings. Therefore, we divided it into two long narrow volumes to achieve harmony with the surrounding. The east side of the volume is 2.7 m cantilevered to secure a parking space. Thick exterior wall designed with a Tofu motif is finished by an elastic plastering. The thickness of the wall can conceal facility equipment in it, and avoid direct sunlight and rainwater instead of eaves.
The interior is a skip-floor structure combining high-ceiled 2 floors and low-ceiled 3 floors. Whereas cafe and dining where people stay for a long time face the south so that those spaces become expansive and bright, bedroom and water section are calm and quiet with the low-ceiling. That difference modulates the space of the house.
Section
The core connecting 2 volumes has multiple functions, such as the flow continuing from the entrance to the terrace, the path of wind and daylight for the whole house, and the structure supporting a cantilever. While securing the independence of each room, connection of the core to each room gently expands the living spaces sequentially. We hopefully could actualize here a breezy and multidimensional living way like a horizontal house hollowed on mountains.
From the architect. This house is located in a spontaneous residential area (5x17m), where is also very mess and surrounding environment is relatively lack of greenery in Vietnam.
Model
When architects and young couple met in a story about feelings, the future and their children, we want to give them a secret, a secret that only the children and who they love are known.
The secret of the orchard, a secret about that every morning the children will rejoice because of the newly blooming flowers, the scent of ripe fruit on the branches or joy about her mother’s vegetable garden have added a new leaf color. The garden is a gift, the gift from dad to his daughter.
The children will grow up with the garden, along with orchard plants like grass growing up with his siblings. They will understand what the garden said and the garden will understand them. But all of them are secrets, the secret of emotions that only can feel like the way they open the window, eyes closed.
From the architect. Proyect description Pyeongchang-dong at the northern end of Jongro-gu, Pyeongchang was warehouse of Seonhyecheong, a government office which had managed receipt and disbursement of rice, cloth and coin used as means of tax payment in Joseon Dynasty, under the name of Daidongmi, Daidongpo and Daidongjeon each. As its name derived from Pyeongchang tells, this area had to build a ground up high with embarkment because of its high and slope topography as a village of power and wealth. At the end of the road, we can meet an interesting alley leading to a house of Pyeongchang-dong along the winding ridge of mountain Bukhansan edge which shows the views one by one.
Huge rockwall of this house ‘The piano was drinking, not me’ introduced on this magazine in Aug. 2009, is assimilating with nature while accumulating time with rain and wind as if it has been located there originally. Window and wall sloped obliquely stagger zigzag as they are drunk on nature like tipsy voice and lyrics of Tom Waits’ song, ‘The piano has been drinking, not me’. Whole space was embraced by metaphorical expression whether the wall is sloped or I am sloped. The designer created underground space of this house newly over the years.
Rocky mountain in the middle of Jongno-gu, heart of Seoul. Mountain is nothing but mountain in the distance. However, it becomes an object of faith when it spreads in front of people. The mountain Bukhansan formed by granites adapting to the times may be one of mountains which have such an energy. Bukhansan is the highest mountain in the suburbs of Seoul, has magnificent geographical features, has been guardian mountain of Seoul from old times, and also was called Sambongsan and Samgaksan because it consists of three peaks. (Sam means three, bong means peak, and gak means angle in Korean) As it says ‘celebrated temples are situated in celebrated mountain’, Bukhansan houses considerable places sacred to Buddha here and there.
Floor Plan
I wanted to attach the much greater importance to the energy of rocky mountain than the region of Pyeongchang-dong. Unpolished beauty felt from pine trees and rocks of Bukhansan which have endured long-suffering has different feeling from the pretty and tender nature in the heart of city. In a sense, borrowing nature may feel disrespectful. Huge rocky mountain Bukhansan embraces Pyeongchang-dong and pine trees rooted in the rock has endured rain and wind. Compared to their scale, I only hope that artificial nature becomes to assimilate with nature through the times.
Dayang Sanghoi was planned as exhibition hall at first, but it is created as private lounge through several changes of plan to office, company training institute, studio, restaurant and cafe for some years. Dayang Sanghoi is a space for client’s leisure and party with acquaintances. It also has a stage on mezzanine for performance. Literally, it is a space which can hold every events diversely and keeps the natural feeling as it is. Therefore, it is named Dayang Sanghoi. (Dayang means diversity in Korean) It can be said that Dayang Shanghoi is an episode of previous project. While I expressed artificial concrete motivated by natural rook at the previous project, dense pine trees in the rocky mountain are the motif of this project. I wanted to show the natural raw materials such as stone and tree as they are. Artificial nature is doubtedly an imitation. I admitted it is an imitation and wanted it to look like an imitation. Therefore, I aim at fundamental meeting of natural stuff and artificial stuff by showing the processed material property. I placed furnitures unintentionally just like the nature formed without any intentional plan.
I recreated annual rings of pine trees as layers of plywood. A hanging pine tree was also calculated to express a gnarl more directly. Secret room is finished with mirror box and supported by pine tree trimmed roughly. Underground space was very humid because it has been empty for years. I enclosed its wall with metal angles, filled it up with charcoals and stones to circulate humid air, and equipped soundproofing. I placed rock on the floor intuitively while plastering work, and inner rock and outer rock of waterfront play a role to demolish the border between inside and outside.
Elevation B
I have proceeded the project ‘The piano was drinking, not me’ only through shop drawing without any master plan about for a year. Underground space has been empty for 4 years after being introduced on this magazine. Meanwhile, the unfinished ‘The piano was drinking, not me’ has been a burden in my mind, but now I seem to take it off.
The Western Australia Government has commissioned OMA and Hassell to design the new WA Museum in Perth. The team was chosen over three shortlisted consortia for the reputation of “creating dynamic architecture” and “international reputation,” according to WA Culture and the Arts Minister John Day. A schematic design is expected to be released this summer. The museum plans to open by 2020.
Sig Nordal 