Sticks and Stones

Jean Nouvel, the bold French architect known for his innovative works such as the Torre Agbar tower in Barcelona, a precursor to London’s very similar 30 St. Mary’s Axe, has received architecture’s top honour, the Pritzker Prize. Informally known as the ‘Nobel prize for architecture’, a jury chosen by the Hyatt Foundation awarded the $100,000 grant and bronze medallion today. Previous winners include Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid and the first winner in 1979, Philip Johnson.

Critical and commercial success in architecture is increasingly coming from architects who do not have a ‘house-style’ and Jean Nouvel is no exception. Like David Chipperfield, the British architect who won the RIBA Sterling Prize 2007 for his Museum of Modern Literature in Germany, Nouvel believes the surrounding environment essentially dictates the design of a building. “The story, the climate, the culture of the place,” he said. “The references of the buildings around, what the people in the city love. The wind, the colour of the sky, the trees around - the building is not done only to be the most beautiful,” he said. “It’s done to give advantage to the surroundings. It’s a dialogue.” However, he does not design buildings simply to echo their surroundings. “Generally, when you say context, people think you want to copy the buildings around, but often context is contrast,” he said.

Nouvel’s projects are diverse; from designing luxury homes for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to building the Concert Hall Lucerne in Switzerland, his work has challenged the way in which architects approach architecture. He claims anything from the monumental and the civic, to the residential and vernacular can be realised successfully by an architect with an appreciation of the surrounding environment. The jury said of Nouvel’s industrial Guthrie Theater, which has a cantilevered bridge overlooking the Mississippi River, “the theatre both merges and contrasts with its surroundings.” It added, “It is responsive to the city and the nearby Mississippi River, and yet, it is also an expression of theatricality and the magical world of performance.”

I recently visited Madrid and stayed at Hotel Puerta America, a conceptual hotel where each floor is designed by a high profile designer. Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Arota Ishozaki and Jean Nouvel are just a few who have experimented with hotel design as the operators, Silken, claimed the project ‘had no budget’. Nouvel’s floor, the top one, is perhaps the most impressive. It is wildly romantic; stunning Japanese influences and a heady sense of artistic involvement, the design is a world away from the environment, a dusty residential area of a metropolitan Madrid. Forgiving the experimental nature of the project, it seems Nouvel has stuck to the ‘context is contrast’ mantra very strictly. Where other designers who have a ‘house style’ merely put their signature curves and deconstructive lines (in the case of Zaha Hadid) on their floor, architects such as Foster and Chipperfield, who are driven wholly by an environmental and social sensitivity to architecture, and no house style, chose to echo their surroundings. In the case of Foster, the palette of Spanish artist and friend Chilleda was employed; the dusty sienna brown worktops working symbiotically with the yellow ochre leather of the furnishings. It seems both Nouvel and Foster have gained success differently by echoing and contrasting the environment to provide feelings of excitement and familiarity respectively.

This year’s Pritzker Prize winner is yet another example of a successful architect who is very different to his contemporaries. Not restricted by an ‘ism’, not a disciple of a school, just a servant to society and its needs. I feel excited and privileged to be living in a time where architecture really is becoming all about social concern.

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Today was a momentous day for British aviation and the airline industry, as Heathrow’s long awaited, and desperately needed Terminal 5 opened for commercial flights.

Whilst the day is a great accolade for the Terminal’s sole occupant, British Airways, it is a triumph for airport owner BAA. The project was delivered on time and on budget. Further more, all the UK taxpayers out there will be glad to know that it was funded entirely out of private money. Compare that to the Millenium Domes and Wembley Stadiums that used other people’s money to deliver something over-budged and late. Of course 2012 will be the real Doomsday for UK tax-payers when the Olympics, a purely prestige project for Ken Livingtone’s (and his others cronies) ego takes place.

So from today, millions of Brisith travellers, and international visitors to Britain will be able to enjoy their holiday or their business trip just a little bit more thanks to the new terminal. Even those not using it directly will benefit from the increased capacity in the other Heathrow terminals as airlines move around. (Though the teething problems associated with this move may be problematic).

All that remains now is for approval for Heathrow’s third terminal to be given, so that the UK economy will see a viable future, with a key part of its infrastructures expanding to meet demand.

UPDATE 18:31 GMT - I mentioned that teething problems may be problematic, but did not envisage this sort of trouble. The BA Operations Director has just announced that fligts out of T5 today will be hand-baggage only. He apologises (as he should) but does not say who is to blame.  Given the supposed extensive testing of the new terminal, with images of thousands of bags circulating the T5 system being shown on the news only weeks ago, one has to wonder how successful these tests were. A way to have avoided all this fuss if BAA and BA weren’t too keen on extensive testing would have been to make all outgoing flights from T5 today free, so that no-one has a major ground to complain if they are public volunteers. The cost of that may have been in the region of £10m, but given the £4.6bn terminal, it seems a small price to pay.

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For the last thirty years one of the loudest way to demonstrate wealth was by building a McMansion. These ostentatious homes could be built on a budget while retaining a grand appearance. Building with pre-fabricated materials, not hiring an architect, and skimping on design by only having the face built in stone - or even out of composite that looked like stone, cut costs dramatically, allowing people to build houses that looked more expensive than they were.

The result was ugly, disproportionate homes. They had glamorous faces but sides built with plywood and very few windows. These homes had large heating and cooling bills. They loomed over their diminutive lawns. They were unoriginal; that cost-cutting decision to not have an architect meant many houses looked alike.

What few people predicted was another format growing around the same time: prefab modular houses, would later rise from its roots as trailer-park centerpieces to the sort of thing Silicon Valley billionaires like Phillipe Kahn want to live in. The difference is of course a dramatic change in style and building quality; but two things remain the same: affordability and convenience.

I was drawn to Marmol Radzinger’s designs for a totally different reason. It seems odd to say these homes are beautiful - they are designed to be purely fuctional and completely ignore aesthetics  - but in their drive to lower costs and reduce the amount of energy needed, the designs bear a striking resemblance to the work of the Internationalist architects of the 1930s - 1970s. The homes are not adorned with pediments and columns, they are purely functional, which ironically forms a style of their own.

Firms like Resolution: 4, Marmol Radzinger, and Jeriko House have designed striking model homes. These can be up to 5,000 square feet and include pools, second floors, and garages. These three firms in particular, along with LivingHomes and Michelle Kaufmann design beautiful modern homes for six, sometimes seven figures. Those on a much tighter budget can also build their own brand new, green, modern homes from Rocio Romero, whose LV homes can be bought, built, and completed for $80,000.

Some of the particularly appealing aspects are the modular designs, which allows for easy extendability and customisation: if you choose to add a library, it’s fairly simple to do so, and that library can be built exactly to your specification. Another recent draw is green technology. Marmol Radzinger offers the option of installing solar panels, and all firms use materials and building techniques which limit the impact on the environment. Most firms build to LEED certification.

In these ways, the firms have turned a cheap, efficient, and highly customisable medium into a luxury good. They come with 20 year warranties, are built to a truly impressive standard with high-grade materials, and by being easily customised are usually unique. The only downside is that as a relatively new phenomenon; you can’t just go and buy one on the street. While appealing because you can build exactly what you want, in densely packed, highly urbanised cities and suburbs, the cost of tearing down an existing house is included. Nevertheless, the impressive qualities outweigh these costs, which is why this option is growing in popularity so rapidly.

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We’ve had major surprises in the past few weeks. Politically, the Eliot Spitzer revelation and resignation caught everyone totally unaware. Socially, some of us witnessed a gory geek-led attack on Sarah Lacy for soft-balling an interview with Facebook’s notoriously-shy Mark Zuckerberg. Culturally, France’s foreign minister suggested an EU boycott of the Olympic opening ceremony as a result of China’s repression of Tibet.

But economically, the-tip-of-an-island blew the world into searing chaos. The three firms most heavily involved in the sub-prime mortgage crisis; Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch all teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. While so far only one has collapsed, the other two remain balanced, delicately, on the whims of Wall Street traders.

The collapse of Bear Stearns was only surprising because it seemed Wall Street believed these firms could get away with their incredibly profitable but totally absurd subprime lending. The International Herald Tribune reported yesterday from within Bear Stearns, about the employees’ reaction. Many spoke of total shock, a feeling of betrayal, and ominously; none seemed aware that this sort of collapse was well within the realms of Bear Stearns operations.

Bear Stearns’ operations were so risky because they were bundling valueless loans with some good loans and then sold them to other institutions which were totally unaware of what they had bought (other than seeing the AAA rating on the bundles).

Surely a firm operating in this manner should go bankrupt. It had made risky financial maneuvers, assumed it would not get caught, and when it all fell apart - everyone was surprised. The story should have ended there. Bear Stearns would have collapsed into a smoking heap, other firms would peer at the wreckage and learn some valuable lessons. Although the following year would be fraught with panicking traders feeling insecure about deals, it would be the ultimate culmination of Milton Friedman’s pro-free-market ideals. Leave it to the market, we chanted.

But when the market fell apart because their brash deals collapsed, they called in the Federal Reserve. Although the Fed deserves blame for not reigning in Wall Street during Alan Greenspan’s boom years, it should not be paying for Bear Stearns collapse. Nevertheless, it floated $30 billion to grand old JP Morgan and Bear Stearns was snapped up on Monday for $236 million, massively down from the $3.54 billion it was worth on Friday.

Most impressively, JP Morgan has an option on Bear Stearns World Headquarters (photo above of the Kohn Pederson Fox-designed skyscraper built in 2001) so if Bear Stearns stakeholders vote down the JP Morgan bid, not only will they likely be bankrupt immediately, they could get evicted from their own headquarters; a building which is worth approximately 5 times what JP Morgan bid for the whole company.

Here in England when our government did something very similar: nationalising Northern Rock, our Senior Staff Writer wrote a sarcastic article labeling the Prime Minister a ‘dyed-in-the-wood Commie’. While joking, the point is that the nationalisation of Northern Rock was direct government intervention in the financial system after its collapse. Which is exactly what the Fed did for Bear Stearns. Headlines across the world trumpeted it as JP Morgan saving Bear Stearns, but this was funded by the Fed’s $30 billion.

Government intervention in this ways is like giving candy to the class bully. Bear Stearns was ruthless in its quest to make money from subprime mortgages. For this, Bear Stearns should not be nursed back to life, it should be allowed to collapse because it brought its downfall upon itself. Notice Goldman Sachs, another player in Wall Street, has $21 billion to hand out in bonuses; it was not necessary for Bear Stearns to operate in this way. It chose to, and for that error, it should fall. Saying it is too big to fail should only be a justification for propping up necessities like waterworks, electricity suppliers, and so on.

The blame remains at the feet of Alan Greenspan. Bear Stearns, Citicorp, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, and the rest should be free to operate and make vast profits. Their activities fuel economic growth and generate wealth across the world. However, regulation should have been in place to ensure those worthless loans were not ‘mislabeled’ AAA. These firms should be free to invest, invent, foster entrepreneurship, and make trillions of dollars; but not by swindling others.

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Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based international non-governmental organization which advocates freedom of the press, has today launched a one-day protest against Internet censorship in the nine worst offending nations. While they include obvious ones like China and Cuba, RSF also shines a light on the offenses of Turkmenistan and Eritrea, both nations which cripple Internet access as a means of controlling what the public knows, thinks, and understands of their government and global events.

The protests are very easy to join; you click on a country - perhaps the one that offends you most, or as I did, the one with the fewest protesters - and fill out 4 text fields; name, surname, city, and country. Then you pick the slogan you wish to hoist above your virtual head and join in with thousands of others who right now are protesting in virtual representations of famous plazas around the world, including the infamous Tienanmen Square in Beijing.

Join in (French)
Join in (English)

The graphic above, from the Wikimedia Foundation, is the Reporters Without Borders 2006 press freedom ranking map, showing from blue to red the severity of Internet restraints across the world.

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