Carlisle Pier – the Aftermath.

A great post, which I think needs to be reiterated here on the board.

The Carlisle Pier competition is a DEVELOPMENT competition as opposed to a purely architectural one. The winning scheme will have to be financially viable while giving an income stream to the harbour authority as well as keeping the public happy – I exclude Richard Boyd Barrett and his mates from ‘the public’ as they wont be happy unless a shrine to marxist ideology is placed on the pier.

Here are a few issues worthy of debate above and beyond the aesthetic ping-pong that this board loves indulging in…

1.
the SOM scheme appears to be twice as dense as the others. Do the supporters of this scheme want to write a blank cheque to the developers? We might get a funky rooftop walkway but it looks like the developers get about 300 apartments which would likely retail for half a mil each – you do the math…

2.
has anyone noticed that the Liebeskind scheme extends way beyond the development ‘red line’ and is nearly twice as wide as the other schemes? Remember, the reason for the baths debacle was as a result of the winning scheme ignoring the site boundary hence allowing the losing shemes to threaten legal actions. Also, is it a coincidence that this is the only scheme without a contractor on board? Landmarks are great except when you have to pay for them (Scottish Parliament for eg) and the harbour company need to be really really sure that the scheme can be built for the budget proposed. Finally, can anyone see a ‘diaspora museum’ attracting sufficient numbers to be self financing? Again the harbour company want a viable cultural attraction, not an albatross around their necks.

3.
The STW scheme is indeed boring but you can bet your last euro that its eminently ‘buildable’. The development mix seems appropriate also.

4.
The HP scheme also has a sensible development mix and is a more attractive building than the STW scheme although i think the design needs some more development. I like the permeability of the scheme – its the only one that allows the pier to remain a pier.

just to re-iterate, the Liebeskind and SOM schemes (and to a lesser extent HP’s design) will no doubt appeal visually to the people visiting the exhibition but he decision is not going to be based principally on design. The current public consultation is potentially cosmetic to a large extent as the assessors will be making a decision based on commercial considerations in the main. If Im right its a straight decision between the STW and HP schemes and if all other things are equal the HP design will win out cos its more attractive.

The real world is a harsh place…..

This article deals with the ‘Bilbao cause and effect’. It is very important to distinguish between these two.

The unveiling of Frank Gehry’s design for the Art Gallery of Ontario last week in Toronto provoked a rash of feature stories on the “Bilbao effect.” Mr. Gehry stunned the world with his sculptured dream of a museum in Spain seven years ago, and drew enormous attention and resources to the place as a consequence. Was this latest unveiling in Toronto just another knock-off in the attention-grabbing game of third-rank cities hanging their hopes on a Hail Mary pass called splashy architecture thrown by international design gurus?

This ‘Bilbao effect’ was argued for
by Diaspora here:

With this competition it must be remembered that the design competition forms only one part of a comprehensive urban renewal strategy. The vision behind the Dunlaoirghe stategy was to use the Southern French model based upon seafront development. An attempt to harness the leisure potential of the sea as catalyst for ancilliary development.

In this context I think both Liebskind and Skidmore have designed very good submissions. As they are both cutting edge modern while keeping an overall maritime theme. The setting is traditional maritime and to design anything less striking would fail to give the building a landmark status.

As opposed to the ‘Bilbao Cause.’

We should be talking about the “Bilbao Cause” much more than the Bilbao Effect. We should be talking about architecture itself, as an aspiration and experience, as a human art, and leave external “effects” to a distinctly secondary level.

This post of my own, might put the big named entries into some kind of perspective too. The big names aren’t as stupid as Pragmatist or Ocean33 would like to make out either – they run a very lucrative business out of poaching these design commisions all over the globe and I am sure have done just as many calculations as STW have done their viability sums too.

The ‘big named’ designer is a card played by all of these practices and has won them work all over the world. The likes of Calatrava, Gehry, Koolhaas, Meier, Kahn, Le Corbusier…. super star architectural reputations. Like in Formula One racing, you have the BMWs, the Ferraris and McClaren. The Jordans and other mid field racers and the Minardis too down at the bottom no doubt.

what I think, is that the likes of Gehry, Libeskind, Koolhaas and other ‘big named architects’ having created a very recogniseable form of expression – have basically had to go and trawl about the globe looking for nice old urban settings into which to place there designed objects.

I.e. That the big named architects really do subsist upon that nice prime corner site, on a grand old river, in an historic old urban context, somewhere in Europe or elsewhere, to really become the most fitting ‘mantlepiece’ for one of their cool looking hand made presentation models. We as cities around Europe and elsewhere have facilitated these architects with very nice ‘mature sites’ to build these objects on. You will find a lot less going in the opposite direction, (Europe to America) except perhaps Zaha Hadid attempting to build in Cinncinati city centre or something.

Which is really a ‘second prize’ for someone who is quite a good architect, but has to travel around the ‘hinterlands’ and remote outposts of the architectural world in search of things/places to build. Not discounting that Cinncinati were glad to get a profiled public figure such as Hadid to build in their city – I compare the situation in modern architecture at the moment, to when ‘gladiators’ were banned in Rome – in the film after that same name.

Architects like Zaha Hadid in that sense have become the ‘Russel Crowe Maximus’ characters of the empire – striped of their former ranks and busy fighting scraps in the remote colonies of civilisation just to stay alive, without a fitting stage for their talents. I am thinking here in terms of the Cardiff competition etc, etc, etc. If that had been built, would the world of architecture now be a very different place?

Command and Conquer.

The Dun Laoghaire Carlisle Pier competition is really a battle between two opposite extremes.

STW and H/P have decided to make their schemes as ‘less show-y’ as possible, in order avoid their weaknesses – comparative lack of designer time and resources, and lever their biggest strength – knowledge of the local scene here in this country, to attract the ‘buildability’ vote. Something like a pin stripe suit.

While SOM and Libeskind have gone all out on the other extreme to try and throw everything at this project, and to sell the ‘Bilbao factor’ to Dun Laoghaire and its folk. Something like a nice ball gown.

For my own mind, I think it would have been nice perhaps, if the foreign entries had alot less ‘WOW’ factor, and our own native offerings a little bit more.

But having said that, both foreign and native entries like two wise and battle hardy generals squaring up against one another, just chose the best sites they possibly could upon which to wage their assaults.

Jesus man, thats seven posts in reply to yourself in 24 hours. Over three and a hlaf thousand words!! How do you do it?

Writing things has never been one of my problems, drawing has never been one of my problems either, except when it came to architectural drawings. 🙁

Doesn’t an architectural thesis demand a bit of scribbling? I dunno, never done one. But text-analysing something this size is probably not bad practice anyhow. Read any thesis reports ever? You should give my above scribbling a chance though and read it through whenever you have a spare evening. Promise you it will be worth the effort.

Originally posted by Diaspora
Brian,

You have discussed the presentations and presentation styles in detail. Which do you think would translate best from presentation to reality?

Right, the Libeskind entry could grow into something really good I think, dunno exactly why – but I sort of trust the guy or something, in ways I don’t just trust any of the others at the moment. The fact, he chose to keep to 1:500 scale was like saying, “look guys, I am flexible.” Whereas the 1:200 SOM entry is definitely coming from the Piano in Amsterdam route.

I think the Amsterdam location of Piano’s project, is vastly different from here, being beside Amsterdam’s grand central station practically. I mean, I went into Amsterdam’s grand central station, while over there, and it wasn’t like walking into Heuston where you see Galway, Cork and Waterford – instead you saw Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Moscow – etc, all from one station in Amsterdam – ya’ know like?

That straight away puts the Dun Laoghaire site, into a different catagory to the Amsterdam one for Piano’s structure. Like the fact, that Dun Laoghaire has a number something bus to take you back into Merrion Square, and a DART which presently doesn’t work at the weekends…. is not quite like Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Moscow etc. 🙂

But to be honest, I don’t even attempt to ask the question which one I prefer, before I have at least two weeks to think about the exhibition, and absorb the pages worth of info contained above, to gain some perspective on this whole thing. I mean, most of what is above, was recorded using a portable pocket PC out in Dun Laoghaire last Sunday. So it has the advantage of being a kind of tangible, on the spot recording of my impressions. Having spoken to many architects and members of the general population while out their too.

The original Carlisle pier message board thread, gave me a different perspective too, which I read after seeing the exhibition, rather than before, and I managed to extract, Pragmatist’s and Ocean33’s posts from it as being very important to think about. Basically the reward for studying this competition at all, is to do away with some of my own naivety in relation to projects on this scale. A process that colleges of architectural should engage much more actively in doing with their students, instead of emphasising the construction document side of it too much altogether. But as you have said, how do you get students chatting about anything even remotely design related – answer, impossible.

I think that both the foreign entries and the native ones, could both be viewed as cynical attempts at drumming up some business in their own ways. Without actually worrying about what would be good for Dun Laoghaire at all. Most of them, just entail developer’s putting forward a bright shiny new PR stunt, at making us all believe that loads more private new apartments for Carlisle Pier will be a good thing. It certainly will, if you are a Sandyford based computer programmer working for MicroSoft on €100k per annum. But I guess, things like that nice new sliver block on Clanbrassil Street, near St. Pat’s by Gerry Cahill does prove how nice a space that new apartments can potential make too.

The most important conclusion, that I made, was that things like Helix etc, should in fact be put on sites like this – that sites like this should actually be ear-marked for major cultural projects like that. Then Frank also makes the point about the Abbey moving to O’Connell St, Carlton site, that big theatres can actually be quite dead inanimate things during most of the time. Frank also mentioned how Roche’s in Henry Street has actually changed that street totally – he actually does have a point.

But Henry Street in Dublin does get the crowds, that SOM renders etc, would make you believe Dun Laoghaire’s new pier development would get – it will not. I do take the point, you have made about, perhaps ten years ago, there would be no competition, things would just be built like Bachelor’s walk etc, etc. I certainly don’t remember any exhibitions for Bachelor’s walk or any of the Quay’s in Dublin re-development. I do remember being at the 1993 Wood Quay completition competition exhibition, but that was only done, because of all the protest marches. I guess Frank’s article on open space has a point – we now have some kind of proper spatial strategies like local area masterplans, like Smithfield, Harp, O’Connell St, rather than 2-dimensional broadstroke zoning plans etc of yesteryear.

I guess we are finally learning in this country to slow down a bit, and relax, think about something rather than just ploughing ahead with concrete blocks, wellington boots and large cranes. Making some very expensive mistakes in the process.

Carlisle Pier and Paddy-come-lately.

I take that point, on board entirely, whichever scheme they might choose is a vast improvement on the old stw POS on the web site. I think Frank Mc is good, because he is the only one who is likely to really measure how much progress we are making in a short period of time. The issue that will not go away ever though, in public’s and architect’s minds alike, is what I know was potentially an even more crucial site to get right, than even Carlisle Pier is. That is the corner site, where they have built that flat shopping, car parking building with gated apartment community on top.

I certainly would have like to have seen what H/P, SOM and Libeskind might have produced if that site had been put up to competition. Not that stw, didn’t do a very business-like piece of architecture on that site – I just worry if the site was ever explored properly at all. In a way, like the second Wood Quay competition, this Carlisle Pier thing is like ‘closing the gate once the horse has bolted’ concellation prize for all the poor smuck Dun Laoghaire natives, who might have liked to have had a say in that other project.

I think DunLaoire will survive the pavillions episode which I’m not down on.

Perhaps have a look at something like Stirling gallery in Stuttgart again? It would have been nice to venture down that road, a little bit for the park site. I think the park and the building they put on it, should have been all brought up to speed together. I mean, as it is you have this totally separate new building ignoring the park altogether beside it.

Same in Wood Quay, STW, had not got a clue how to integrate park open space and pedestrian movement together – a big sunken theatre? Yeah, right. Fine for two sunny days in a year, for for people in offices to look out on for the rest. DLR council should have put the whole park out to a kind of ideas competition or something. If STW win this, they will be calling themselves the fathers of new Dun Laoire. They are already the fathers of Wood Quay, very poor ones at that. If they win Carlisle Pier, the prestige will be so much for them, their heads will surely explode.

On a side note, here is an example of computer generated images being used very inappropriately to make something hideous look good: Architecture and gastric problems:

http://www.cgarchitect.com/gallery/image_spotlight.asp?galleryID=17802

I wonder when will it burst? I am open minded about use of technology in architectural presentation, but sometimes you just have to blow the damn whistle, referee!

Well it is like what I have refered to in many of my posts here: That it starts in education of architects at the youngest level – putting them on the right track. Courses like Geography never seem to have lost track of one crucial truth: that the environment we interact with in our daily lives is a product of nature, or urbanism and human beings – that human beings have the ability and do transform the places where we live in.

Other the other hand, architectural education would have you believe, that an architects primary function is to precide over the physical construction of a building – beyond that his/her duty is not important. I only passed out that ‘pedestrian way’ through the Wood Quay civic offices, which ‘might’ have provided a pedestrian route coming from temple bar along essex street, and I have noticed that Dublin corporation have blocked it and used that pedestrian way as a parking area for their vans! It is like how we provided a predestrian street in Grafton Street, and they have allowed flower sellers to shut off whole exit routes from Grafton Street, by using a combination of Hi-Aces, and flower pots.

This crucial gap, between architects preciding just over the construction of buildings and what happens afterwards, is evident all around the place. You do not have to search very hard. A famous minimalist architect speaking here in Dublin a few years ago, summed it up saying, that he goes to all this trouble of creating a nice stone floor and minimalist space. He says, that the user could just throw a dirty big carpet over that stone floor, and most of the architecture has gone. But that he has to have some faith in his clients, not to do that. We as a profession when designing public space, need to have more faith in our clients who use it, and just hope that they eventually ‘get the picture’ as we might see it. Apart from that, we are powerless I am afraid.

Another thought I had was: the competition for the Bibliotheque in Paris is interesting in the context of this Carlisle pier issue too I think. I mean, the entries by Stirling, Meier are the only ones that I have seen in books, but I would like to visit the scheme they eventually built. Take a good look at that project by Meier, the Paris Canal Plus headquarters, a building which pre-dates the building of the Wood Quay STW building. Where Meier just had the vision and foresight to actually make a brand new urban space, as part of that scheme – he did not just ignore the park he made – the building and park work in harmony together. Meier is an architect who has consistently demonstrated enormous faith in his public, to respect his architecture. The public in turn have normally reciprocated. Perhaps some of our practices here in this country need to show a bit more faith, in the ability of the public to make spaces work.

The Liffey Board walk, would appear to be a right step in that direction I think, and of course they are others. O’Connell St etc. Personally the canal banks here in Dublin, might have deserved some of that attention too. Lastly, another poster in the original Carlisle Pier thread did describe this area of Dun Laoghaire ‘as a s*** hole’ only a couple of years ago, so I commend all the work that has been done cleaning it up – hope it continues.

I cannot end up this speech of mine now though, without damning the hell out of the AAI and their use of what I can only call: Architectural Poetic propaganda. They have sucessfully propagated this myth amongst both themselves, and as tutors in colleges here in Dublin, that in order to create good architecture, that you are in some way ‘a poetic genius’ or something. In so promoting this ‘architectural poetry propaganda’, they have relieved many ordinary decent architects, of striving to make better architecture – since only ‘poets of light and pure space’ can ever hope to achieve that dizzy height of creative ability.

They have kind of monopolised total rights over the appreciation of people like Rem Koolhaas, FOA, Thom Mayne and whatever new guy comes up on the block. I don’t want to dismiss the great work done by the AAI, but this continues to be one of their lasting legacies here in architectural schools – the cult of architectural poetry of light and space. LOL! I just watched a BBC documentary last night where Michael Portillo, a British politician gave one of the most illuminating insights into ‘El Greco’ that I have ever heard. Proving the point, that you don’t need Calvin Klein spectacles, a dodgy hair-do and a copy of SMLXL under your arm to have a ‘good grasp’ of poetry and art.