Arkitek

NEW ARCHITECTURE OF THE SALFORD QUAYS

DANIEL LIBESKIND - IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH THE LOWRY CENTRE

ALLIES AND MORRISON

elephant and castle tower

SCHMIDT HAMMER LASSEN £196 million library

GARET HOSKINS making music in the shetlands

FOSTERS AND PARTNERS le defence tower

June 2009 £7 Issue 4

9 771476

753032

editors letter.

June 2009 As the months go by, the baby that is arkitek magazine is growing up. I remember the launch like it was yesterday... the start of the year was difficult, launching a high quality mid-priced magazine in the current economical climate was a huge risk. As we roll on to a landmark sixth issue (okay so its not really a landmark issue) the arkitek team have little or no regret. We discovered a void on the shelfs and gave readers and architecture boffins alike what they wanted. A well designed, stylish, and informative architecture and design magazine.With our escalating fame the arkitek team find themselves sitting at many a dinner table, conversing about design, architecture, and current affairs. And everyone's favourite topic of the moment... the recession.

The recession is hitting the architectural industry firmly in the unmentionables. The former architectural heaven that is even Dubai is being affected. Once a land where money was no object, where the sky was literally the limit and the lining of investor's pockets had no limit. But no need to be glum, chum... Gordon Brown says it's going to be o.k!

Seriously, all joking aside architectural firms are still plugging away and continue to construct stunning architecture. So for this issue we applaud a man and a team whose outrageously futuristic work inspires all across the planet.

Daniel Libeskind. And while we were running around the Imperial War Museum North in the Salford Quays area of Manchester (proving that there’s a whole country of architecture outside of London, for those of you that hadn’t noticed), and we found time to take some extraordinary snaps of the angular structure, amidst all the excitement of seeing guns and tanks. Enjoy.

contents.

04. News.

Information and events

06. Big Plans.

Allies and Morrison - Elephant and Castle tower Schmidt Hammer Lassen - ÂŁ196 Million Library Gareth Hoskins - making music in the Shetlands

18. Report.

New Architecture of the Salford Quays Daniel Liebeskind - The Shards of War The Lowry Centre

38. Blue Prints.

Foster and Partners - Le Defence tower

40. Report.

The Urbis building

44. Snap Shots.

Arkitek photography

50. Book Report.

Architek scowers the shelfs... so you don’t have to

54. Interview.

Zaha Hadid reveals inspriations

58. Flashback.

Modernism

62. Inside Industry.

Insights into aspects of the Architectural industry

Arkitek Magazine Fifth Floor Lowerdale Road London W1W 6EP, UK www.arkitekmag.co.uk info@arkitekmag.co.uk Publisher John Bowler Editor Aadil Mughal Deputy Editor Geoff Garraty Sub-Editor James Fletcher Art Direction Daniel Harding Aadil Mughal Emma Yuille Photography David Littlewood Copy Editor Alice Judge-Talbot Sales Director Andrew Creighton Commercial Director Marcus Ray Distribution Ben Walker Interns Craig Smith Kirsty Dare

N NEW

ARCHITECTURE RD OF THESSALFOR QUAYS

Q 18. Report

SALFORD QUAYS IN MANCHESTER IS THE SETTING FOR TWO VERY DISTINCTIVE AND REVOLUTIONARY EXAMPLES OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE, DIVIDED ONLY BY THE WATERS OF THE CANAL. THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH AND THE LOWRY CENTRE SIT OPPOSITE ONE ANOTHER AND ARE THE EPITOME OF BEAUTY IN THE AREA.

The Salford Quays is an area of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. Its location is near the end of the Manchester Shipping Canal. Once the site of the Salford Docks, it became one of the first redevelopment projects in the Britain following the closure of the dockyards in 1982. It is also home to a joint tourism initiative between Salford City Council and Trafford Borough Council, supported by private sector partnerships.

Salford Quays forms one part of the area known as The Quays, which also includes Trafford Wharf and Old Trafford, on the Manchester side of the shipping canal.

The Salford Quays is a serene place, its water stand still and early on a Saturday morning it seemed still, yet to awake. The sheer beauty of the of both the Lowry and the Imperial War Museum can only really be appreciated first hand, and we hoped we've captured the essence of the great architecture that the Salford Quays has to offer has to offer.

Early in the redevelopment plan for Salford Quays, the potential was recognised for the area to host a landmark arts venue.

Initially referred to as Salford Quays Centre for the Performing Arts in 1988, it became known as The Lowry Project in 1994 and had secured ÂŁ64 million in funding by February 1996. The Lowry today stands at the end of Pier 8, largely surrounded by the waters of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Designed by James Stirling and Michael Wilford, it was opened on 28 April 2000 and houses the 1730 seat Lyric theatre, the 466 seat Quays theatre, a range of studio spaces and 17,330 square feet of gallery space, with views over the water to Libeskind's Imperial War Museum North. As the name suggests, the centre is associated with L. S. Lowry, and displays a unique collection of his workings. Some of the pieces are on permanent display, whilst others are on loan and may appear in changing exhibitions where appropriate.

Libeskind's Imperial War museum opened on 5th July 2002 and came under the 28.5 million budget. The area is still being redeveloped with more investor such as the BBC taking an interest.

19.

DANIEL LIEBESKIND

IF THE GLOBE WAS SHATTERED INTO PIECES, AND THE THE SHARDS OF EARTH, WATER AND AIR WHERE COMBINED IT WOULD CREATE THE MA JESTIC IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH... THAT WAS THE VISION THAT DANIEL LIBESKIND SAW.

20. Report

Daniel Libeskind's creation, an adjunct to the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, is situated beside the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford. When opened this was a perfect 'stealth' affair.

While the launch was crowded, very few of those present had ventured Northwards from London, a capital which seems, while it still deliberates on the pros and cons of the superb 'Spiral' addition which Libeskind has designed for the Victoria and Albert Museum, wholly oblivious to the masterwork presented here by Libeskind to the clear approbation of War Museum curatorial staff. The structure was evidence that superb architecture existed outside the capital. The building stands opposite Michael Wilford's Lowry Centre, and of course the two could not be more different. However the Lowry was awash with National Lottery funds, while the War Museum was denied any of that. Indeed many of the War Museum North's abject opponents sincerely hoped that this would scupper the canal-side dream. Failing thus to achieve the ÂŁ40 millions actually targeted, Libeskind achieved, with great resourcefulness, a major miracle of economy and architectural professionalism within a budget of ÂŁ28.5 millions. He drastically revised the materials schedule and, minus the auditorium (still planned) and by converting the structure to steel and aluminium cladding, maintained the dramatic formal composition with which he had won the competition, virtually unchanged. An ironic, unwarranted loss was the external landscaping and planting. And yet what transpires from this further economy is the reality that such additions are not missed, Libeskind's building creates its own unique and moving landscape, hard textured by the wharf. The underlying concept for the Imperial War Museum derived from the pieces of a smashed globe. Leaving three major shards lying, Libeskind observed how

these pieces contained the poetry and the pathos of war. He chose to interlock these shards dramatically, if coincidentally.

The individual forms were taken to symbolise war at sea (the water shard), war in the air (the vertical air shard), and war on the ground (the earth shard), Out of that chaotic incidence Libeskind has fashioned this new container. The three shards offer within, a key to the product of war, the resultant process of transformation for civilisation.

21.

MAGICALLY THE BUILDING ‘SINGS IN THE RAIN’ AS WATER FLASHES DOWN ITS SURFACE, GLISTENING ALL A BIT INTHEATRICAL ANY DULL SKY. MICHAEL WILFORD’S DESIGN FOR THE LOWRY CENTER IS A DRAMATICAL THEATRICAL INTERPRATATION OF THE S.S LOWRY, PERFECTLY PERCHED ON PIERS 8 THE BUILDING IS THE SETTING FOR THE CREATIVITY WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE SALFORD QUAYS

30.

22. Report

23.

The Manchester skyline, itself once severely blitzed in World War 2, is now punctured by the 55 metre-high vertical spire of the air shard. At the base of this the entrance has been placed. And from that point visitors can rise 29 metres up to survey Manchester's surrounding land and water features, buffeted within the aluminium structure as if in a warplane.

The main public galleries of the museum are housed on the first floor level of the earth shard, a gently curving surface, with one gallery for special short term exhibitions and the other housing the permanent exhibition. The third, lower slung 'water shard' overlooks the canal and contains a restaurant and offices, in prime position, looking over the quite different architecture of the Lowry Centre. Libeskind would like to say that he builds in a world of order and disorder - he seeks here to explore the constant state of the "in-between", given the spirit of democratic openness, plurality, and potential. An outstandingly talented musician before he became a composer, he seeks references within the work of contemporary composers, such as Schoenberg and John Cage. themselves building on such values. The shards of the museum now gleam in the northern light, glinting in aluminium splendour (and this very much a material developed in wartime expediency).

Magically, the building 'sings in the rain' as water flashes down its surfaces, glistening in any dull sky. From the quayside entrance this building is seen at its very best, especially if the visitor walks in across the new bridge from the Lowry Centre. Like a seagoing vessel the Museum itself channels canal water through pipes sunken in the floor, under the curving first floor. This is sustainability applied to the cooling system, a typical Libeskind touch that converts raw technology into poetry.

24. Report

Tech Spec Site area Canal frontage Footprint area Highest point Height of viewing platform Full length of building

5 acres 190 metres approx 5,000 sq.metres 56 metres 29 metres 134 metres

25.

26. Report

27.

Museums are about memory, and the indebtedness of civilisations, through readily accessible, authentic artefacts as relics of the archaeology of war, both private and personal, and collective and communal in their significance today. The teamwork of architects and curators has enabled the central space to become something of a mediatheque in maximising the projection potential of the internal walls and spaces. The ancillary spaces are adorned with carefully selected key memorabilia. A US Marine Corps Harrier is suspended in one corner: a Soviet T34 tank looms: and around the corner, as if to symbolise the aftermath of war, a diminutive and almost comical 'Trabi' uniform peoples' car is lodged tentatively, itself soon to become extinct through capitalism. Memory is plumbed more deeply by the "button-push" accessible Time Stacks; here trays of selected objects appear in rotation vertically, behind glass in the traditional way. This material comes thematically ordered. At fixed times of day, curatorial staff assist visitors actually to touch and handle such objects and documents. This system might also be transferable to Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, which has no such technical facility.

Chronology is greatly clarified for visitors circulating around the Museum in the conventional manner by a visible mural 'Time-Line" which creates a kind of spinal pathway through the various fixed displays, treating distinct periods of the 28. Report

past century. Complementary to this are the silos which adorn the towering exhibition spaces. Such subjects as experience of War, as Science, Technology and War, or the Legacy of War, are wellcrafted set-pieces in the great curatorial tradition, often seemingly archaeological in the presentation of the object, yet redolent of the great tide of war as it has swept across countries, scything its swathes through the history of different nations. And above all, the 'Air Shard' looms, accessible in an open lift as if moving through a structural frame more akin to a biplane or a Wellington bomber's fuselage.

This building is a great triumph for the architect, Daniel Libeskind, and for past and present directors and curators of the Imperial War Museum. Its Board should be congratulated on their own vision and determination in bringing this masterwork to fruition, on time, and also within budget.

WORDS. The Studio Trust PHOTOGRAPHY. Aadil Mughal

29.

MAGICALLY THE BUILDING ‘SINGS IN THE RAIN’ AS WATER FLASHES DOWN ITS SURFACE, GLISTENING ALL A BIT INTHEATRICAL ANY DULL SKY. MICHAEL WILFORD’S DESIGN FOR THE LOWRY CENTER IS A DRAMATICAL THEATRICAL INTERPRATATION OF THE S.S LOWRY, PERFECTLY PERCHED ON PIERS 8 THE BUILDING IS THE SETTING FOR THE CREATIVITY WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE SALFORD QUAYS

30.

22. Report

31.

AN EXUBERANT COLLECTION OF DISTINCT FORMS 32. Report

Over the footbridge from the Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum is an extraordinary building, The Lowry Center. As part of a long-term regional regeneration project, the building is an exuberant collection of distinct forms located on a difficult triangular site, the culmination of the collaboration between Wilford and the late James Stirling (1926-1992) on the 1992 Lowry masterplan. The Lowry Center is a combined theater and gallery complex dedicated to the S.S. Lowry situated in Salford Quays, in Greater Manchester. In response to a highly complex brief, Michael Wilford’s landmark millennium project, The Lowry Center is located on the Manchester’s historic shipping canal. The building was finished in 2000 with the help for £21m of National Lottery funding. The brief includes galleries for touring exhibitions and for the City of Salford’s Lowry collection, a Lowry study centre, the Artworks’ interactive childrens’ gallery, a 1730 seat lyric theater and 450 seat flexible courtyard theatre, rehearsal rooms and together with the full complement of support spaces essential for the contemporary visitor attraction such as bars, cafes, retail and hospitality suites. The two theatres, the Lyric and the Quays, colored purple and red respectively, which host a wide range of touring plays, comedians and musicians. The Lowry Center also hosts the Opera North series of operas. It is said that the Lyric theatre has the largest stage in the UK outside London’s West End. Proving to be very popular, visitor numbers have more than doubled from those first anticipated and the Lowry has now become a destination in itself. It has become one of the top attractions of North West England, receiving over a million visitors a year. The Lowry Center is served by the Harbour City stop on the Metrolink tram network. It has provided a new focal point within the community and has proved to be successful in encouraging people to experience the visual and performing arts. The major permanent exhibition shows the work of Lawrence Stephen Lowry, 1887-1976, born in nearby Old Trafford.

Throughout the plan symmetry between the principle performance spaces predominates on

a central axis. In balance to this the peripheral spaces bring a subtle variation both to the external composition and to the carefully choreographed spatial sequences within. The aerofoil canopy at the entrance is clad with combination of stainless steel shingles, perforated sheet metal and glass in dynamic geometries, illuminated from inside at night. The exciting cladding materials are strong in colours, which provide a new focal point within the community, creating a complex that has already proved to be successful in its mission to encourage people to experience the visual and performing arts.

Daniel Libeskind's creation, an adjunct to the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, is situated beside the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford. When opened this was a perfect 'stealth' affair.

While the launch was crowded, very few of those present had ventured Northwards from London, a capital which seems, while it still deliberates on the pros and cons of the superb 'Spiral' addition which Libeskind has designed for the Victoria and Albert Museum, wholly oblivious to the masterwork presented here by Libeskind to the clear approbation of War Museum curatorial staff. The structure was evidence that superb architecture existed outside the capital. The building stands opposite Michael Wilford's Lowry Centre, and of course the two could not be more different. However the Lowry was awash with National Lottery funds, while the War Museum was denied any of that. Indeed many of the War Museum North's abject opponents sincerely hoped that this would scupper the canal-side dream. Failing thus to achieve the ÂŁ40 millions actually targeted, Libeskind achieved, with great resourcefulness, a major miracle of economy and architectural professionalism within a budget of ÂŁ28.5 millions. He drastically revised the materials schedule and, minus the auditorium (still planned) and by converting the structure to steel and aluminium cladding, maintained the dramatic formal composition with which he had won the competition, virtually unchanged. An ironic, unwarranted loss was the external landscaping and planting. And yet what transpires from this further economy is the reality that such additions are not missed, Libeskind's building creates its own unique and moving landscape, hard textured by the wharf. The underlying concept for the Imperial War Museum derived from the pieces of a smashed globe. Leaving three major shards lying, Libeskind observed how

these pieces contained the poetry and the pathos of war. He chose to interlock these shards dramatically, if coincidentally.

The individual forms were taken to symbolise war at sea (the water shard), war in the air (the vertical air shard), and war on the ground (the earth shard), Out of that chaotic incidence Libeskind has fashioned this new container. The three shards offer within, a key to the product of war, the resultant process of transformation for civilisation.

21.

33.

In 1988, a new arts centre, based at Pier 8, was proposed to raise the cultural profile of the city and bring more businesses and tourism into the area. Salford City Council commissioned the internationally famous architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford to produce designs for the arts centre. Stirling died suddenly in 1992, and Michael Wilford was confirmed as architect. Lottery funding was secured, building began in April 1997, and was completed three years later. The total cost of the project, ÂŁ106 million, includes The Lowry building, the large triangular Plaza, the terraced areas down to the canal and the Lifting Footbridge leading to Trafford Wharfside and the Imperial War Museum - North. Also included in The Lowry project is the Digital World Centre (DWC) - a hightech business centre providing quality, serviced premises. The Lowry is triangular in shape, to fit with its site at the end of Pier 8. In area it is the size of 5 football pitches. The building stands on 803 concrete piles sunk down into the bedrock; it was made from 48,000 tons of concrete, 2,466 tons of steel and 5,263 sq metres of glass. From the outside, it has a shiplike appearance, especially when viewed from across the canal. This maritime feeling transmits through to the interior as well. Standing just outside the Lyric Theatre, you can see the porthole windows in the Tower and the stairways and landings that look like ships' gangways. The Lowry comprises a sequence of geometrical shapes - hexagon, circle, triangle and rectangle. The promenade runs all the way round building is intended to give leisurely access to all parts of the building. The spaces are designed in layers like an 34. Report

onion and decorated with the bright colours that are typical of Michael Wilford's architecture. First is the cool glass and stainless steel skin around the outside to reflect the sky and water; then comes the blue terrazzo floor of the foyer, with silver lines that are reminiscent of the longitude and latitude lines on a nautical map.

According to Michael Wilford, "right out the outset there was a sense of the chemistry that might develop between the parties involved." The masterplan demonstrated how the Pier 8 site might be developed, showing an "opera house" in relation to a public plaza, hotel, car parking, a transportation building and a future commercial development.

Guardian architectural critic Deyan Sudjic reviewed the plan favourably.

Although he described Salford Quays as "a location as plausible as the middle of the Sahara desert" (old metropolitan prejudices evidently died hard despite the strenuous improvements to the docks), he praised the project as "a rediscovery by a local authority of serious architecture" and for making "no apologies for cutting across so many conventional expectations". Looked at today, Stirling's first thoughts on The Lowry are elegant and powerful, capturing a spirit for the project that would later be effectively developed through design and construction.

35.

The highly functional editors letter. design of the building was

focus to a drab stretch of brushland next to a not due simply to Wilford's own modernist busy freeway north of Los Angeles. Architectural June 2009 but also to the fierce logic of The inclinations strategies for regeneration are often shared Lowry Centre Trust in driving the project forward internationally but made special by their local As months goevery by, the baby that arkitekhimself magazine context. is by the questioning decision.

As isWilford Then there are the signature modern growing up. I "Architecture, remember the as launch like it was art, yesterday... has written: a pragmatic buildings to which Wilford's Lowry project relates: the start of the year was difficult, launching a high quality cannot be about style. The battle of style arises Frank Gehry's reflective Guggenheim Museum mid-priced magazine in the current economical climate substantially from a deep suspicion of change." on the water in Bilbao; Kisho Kurakawa's Ehime was a huge risk. As we roll on to a landmark sixth issue (okay Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Museum of Science in Japan, a seemingly so its not really a landmark issue) the arkitek team have little architectural design is that random collage of geometric shapes at the foot or no regret. We discovered a multi-functional void on the shelfs and gave requirements of the building a of readers and architecture boffins are alikewrapped what theyinwanted.

A the mountains on Shikoku Island; Sir Richard well designed, stylish, and informative architecture and sculptural collage that retains its artistic flair Rogers' European Court of Human Rights, design magazine.With our escalating fame the arkitek despite all the changing demands placed uponteam expressing the idea of transparency and find sitting at many a dinner table, conversing openness in its form. But such comparisons only it. Asthemselves Richard Carr wrote in Building Design: "The about design, architecture, and current affairs. And take you so far. In the end, The Lowry's complex looks like an architectural collage, everyone's favourite topic of the moment... the recession. architectural design is very much of itself; the jumbled and fragmented, but exciting and challenging." directindustry comparisons building stands very much on its own terms firmly in the The recession is One hittingcan the make architectural with other StirlingThe Wilford buildings, with heaven other arts the tough, history-scarred landscape unmentionables. former architectural that against is from which it clearly draws such inspiration. projects which are affected. anchors Once for urban even Dubai is being a land where money was no object, where the with sky was literally the limitofand the regeneration, or simply other examples Salford City Council submitted a bid to The lining of investor's pockets had no limit.

But is, nofor need to be innovative modern architecture.

There National Lottery. The success of the bid was glum, chum...

Gordonplay Brown says it's going to be o.k! example, a familiar on interlocking announced in February 1996. Lord Gowrie, then Seriously, all joking aside architectural firms are still plugging geometric shapes in Wilford's design for the new Chairman of the Arts Council, described it as 'A away and continue to construct stunning architecture. So British Embassy in Berlin; a pronounced prow to magnet to attract artists and audiences from far for this issue we applaud a man and a team whose the shiplike triangular form of the practice's and wide'. In the local press the headlines read outrageously futuristic work inspires all across the planet.

'Salford's Greatest Day'. The colours grow warmer scheme for Number One Poultry in running the Cityaround of Daniel Libeskind.

And while we were the towards the centre, moving from the purple London;War an emphasis on the relationship Imperial Museum North in the Salford Quays area of Manchester (proving that there’s whole country of exterior wall and orange balconies to the blue between plaza, promenade and aparkland in architecture outside of London, for those of interior of the Lyric Theatre and the red interior Stirling Wilford's Temasek Polytechnic in you that hadn’t noticed), and we found in time to take some of the Quays Theatre. At night, the building really Singapore, completed 1995.

Ideas thatextraordinary snaps of the angular structure, amidst all the excitement of surface in other projects are honed to a shine by comes into its own. The Tower and the canopy seeing guns and tanks. Enjoy.

Wilford at The Lowry. Beyond the Stirling Wilford at the front are clad in perforated steel, and portfolio, one can see architectural solutions for when these are illuminated from inside, the new arts complexes in rundown urban districts in whole building glows. other parts of the world which are not dissimilar in form or spirit or outlook to The Lowry at Salford WORDS. The Payback PHOTOGRAPHY. Aadil Mughal Quays. The public promenade is prominent and rythmical in architect Christian de Portzamparc's east wing of the Cite de La Music on the famous La Villette site in industrial Paris. Kiyonori Kikutake's Tokyo Edo Museum, meanwhile, hovers on four giant stilts over a regenerated district of the city as part of a design which involved reinserting historic canals to connect to Tokyo's Sukida River. Antoine Predock's Civic Arts Plaza at Thousand Oaks in California, with its tower, massing and cascade of terraces, gives civic 36. Report

37.

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