For several years I have been working on a poem which began as a relatively short piece on the Gherkin, Norman Foster's iconic architectural design. But it slowly began to expand into a longer and more ambitious work on London, with the Gherkin as a talismanic centrepiece.
One of things that fascinates me is how quickly, silently and completely the Gherkin has become accepted as a loved and definitive London landmark. It was officially opened in 2004, but it seems to have been there far longer. One explanation which occurred to me as soon as I began to think about it was that the unique shape of the building seems to find its place so easily because it is a hybrid between the two dominant shapes of London's skyline - the dome of St Paul's cathedral and the standard oblong skyscraper. If you instruct a computer design programme to begin with the dome of St Paul, and then "elongate" it upwards towards the height of a skyscraper, you would arrive at a shape very like the Gherkin.
Not long afterwards I saw Foster being interviewed on television about the Gherkin, and the interviewer, a well-known architectural critic, made exactly this point - that the building was in part at least a witty intermediate shape between St Paul's and a skyscraper. Foster evinced genuine surprise. He said the thought had not occurred to him until then - though he admitted that he quite liked the idea once he had heard it! The chief reasons for the Gherkin's shape, Foster continued, were ergonomic and environmental. Its curved and rounded form had much more to do with creating benign wind effects in the relatively confined space in which it was situated, and with regulating the building's internal temperature in an energy-efficient manner.
Whether or not the fact that the shape wittily and slyly reflects the shape of St Paul's played any conscious or unconscious part in its design process, I still suspect that is one of the chief reasons why it sits so gracefully on the London skyline, almost as though it has always existed there. Personally, I don't much care how Foster arrived at its shape; the fact is that he did. In an environment in which much modern architecture - particularly where the design is so bold and unusual - is treated with suspicion, if not hostility, the Gherkin is one of the most universally admired and loved modern buildings in the world, and every time I see it I am grateful for it.
Meanwhile, I hope the poem entertains you.
One of things that fascinates me is how quickly, silently and completely the Gherkin has become accepted as a loved and definitive London landmark. It was officially opened in 2004, but it seems to have been there far longer. One explanation which occurred to me as soon as I began to think about it was that the unique shape of the building seems to find its place so easily because it is a hybrid between the two dominant shapes of London's skyline - the dome of St Paul's cathedral and the standard oblong skyscraper. If you instruct a computer design programme to begin with the dome of St Paul, and then "elongate" it upwards towards the height of a skyscraper, you would arrive at a shape very like the Gherkin.
Not long afterwards I saw Foster being interviewed on television about the Gherkin, and the interviewer, a well-known architectural critic, made exactly this point - that the building was in part at least a witty intermediate shape between St Paul's and a skyscraper. Foster evinced genuine surprise. He said the thought had not occurred to him until then - though he admitted that he quite liked the idea once he had heard it! The chief reasons for the Gherkin's shape, Foster continued, were ergonomic and environmental. Its curved and rounded form had much more to do with creating benign wind effects in the relatively confined space in which it was situated, and with regulating the building's internal temperature in an energy-efficient manner.
Whether or not the fact that the shape wittily and slyly reflects the shape of St Paul's played any conscious or unconscious part in its design process, I still suspect that is one of the chief reasons why it sits so gracefully on the London skyline, almost as though it has always existed there. Personally, I don't much care how Foster arrived at its shape; the fact is that he did. In an environment in which much modern architecture - particularly where the design is so bold and unusual - is treated with suspicion, if not hostility, the Gherkin is one of the most universally admired and loved modern buildings in the world, and every time I see it I am grateful for it.
Meanwhile, I hope the poem entertains you.
No comments:
Post a Comment