Reflections on
the AA
2
Project for an 800 m mirror in front of the AA
Federico Ortiz
39. Disassociation
38. Home
37. Global
36. Factory
Even though it might be referred as one building, the AA campus in London consists of at least twelve different buildings. A very complex system of corridors joins eight Georgian houses at Bedford Square with four buildings on Morwell Street. The corridors also connect the buildings within each other and represent a 35% of the total area of the school which has no specific use but is said to hold an intense range of activities. Yet, they embody fragmentation and isolation in what could be understood as an archipelago of rooms.
Today there are no residents in the square. It has office hours; it works nine hours a day from Monday to Saturday. The AA moved to 35 and 34 Bedford Square in 1917, in 1947 took over a bombed site on Morwell Street and quite recently actually, from 2005, purchased the leases for 32, 33, 36, 37, 38 and 39. Living rooms were turned into offices, studios, and rooms to provide a world elite a space to speculate on the future of the cities and architecture. For 2020 the AA is planning to expand its 6400 square metres.
One might think that the Architectural Association Incorporated is here in this group of buildings but in fact with more than 50 AA Visiting Schools around the 5 continents with 130 sponsors and an average size of 234 participants and more than 5000 AA Members from all over the world, the population interested in the art or science of architecture, as the AA Constitution says, is far bigger than the campus can hold. Nonetheless, these colonial apparatuses rely on the presence of the façade of 36 Bedford Square.
The AA consumes and produces strong ambitious individuals that can establish a very personal approach towards the world and architecture. A factory of personalities, designers of their own portfolios, entrepreneurs of their own careers, star-architects of tomorrow. The diagram underlying this assembly line is not based on a free plan but on a sequence of party walls, that must be overcome in order to find the shortcuts, halls and staircases that would lead to the construction of a free critical architect.
35. Inaccessible
34. Private
33. Business
32. White
When you enter the building – oh wait, where is my card? Proudly insisting on the fact that it is one of oldest and only remaining private school of architecture in the UK, together with domesticity, privacy is a key element in the configuration of the school. To go through these doors, you need a golden sectioned credit-card-like AA Member Card (in fact you can purchase goods with it). You can become a member at any time and your contribution allows you to use the premises and helps this charitable company.
Right from the beginning Bedford Square was built for speculative reasons as real estate property. The land was divided and leased out to builders speculators that would build each Georgian house. There was not a specific architect in charge of all the development. The enterprise was very successful and the square quickly became one of the most fashionable and aristocrat squares of central London. Today the houses around the square are listed Grade I and they are part of the 5% of buildings in that category in the city.
There are approximately 750 full-time students, 150 tutors and 80 administrative staff. 60% of the students are in the Undergraduate School. The remaining 40% study in the Graduate School and a smaller number are enrolled in the PhD Programmes. 90% of the students come from abroad. The institution tries hard to overcome the traditional white male Eurocentric educational model. Looking through the windows, inside and outside are reversible and one has to constantly redefine who sees and who is seen.