Architecture

Arriving in Oslo, the Barcode District is unavoidable. It is so named because its blocks are laid out like dominos – each design a tawdry, throwaway joke. But the Norwegians have had enough. With a spate of such controversies, Oslo has become an epicentre for an architectural uprising against the uglification of cities. Its Nordic Symposium on Beauty in Architecture has become an annual meeting point for plotting the insurgency. Unlike on this side of the North Sea, where traditional and classical architecture found a champion in the King, Scandinavia’s counterrevolution is led by ordinary citizens.

Should we hop on a call? Let’s touch base. Let’s take this offline. Let’s circle back to your last slide deck. Let’s get those action items actioned by close of play. We need stakeholder buy-in. We need deliverables. We need to make sure you’re aligned with company culture. We’re concerned you’re not leveraging your core competencies. After careful consideration, management has made the difficult decision to terminate your contract. We’re committed to helping you with this transition. Corporate jargon is zombified language. These euphemisms and elisions are the soulless husks of words, meant to blunt the sharp edges of human emotion (sorry – ‘maintain professionalism’). And they often leave you feeling a sneaking sense of dread.

The Festival of Britain – that much mythologised moment of national renewal – is wheeled out every time the country goes through an identity crisis. An echo of the Great Exhibition, the 1951 South Bank extravaganza was spoofed by Tony Blair in his millennium plans and Theresa May in her entirely forgotten ‘Festival of Brexit’. With the country currently in a bit of a state, the Festival’s 75th anniversary this month comes at a fitting moment. Several lessons can be learnt by looking closer at the only part of the Festival to survive: the Royal Festival Hall.

The Notre-Dame de Paris has had several close shaves down the years – even before the 2019 fire that nearly obliterated it. The revolutionaries temporarily turned it into a ‘Temple of Reason’, then a grain warehouse; some of it was even sold for scrap. It only became the recognisable Gothic fantasy and French national icon that we know today largely down to the efforts of architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who headed its definitive restoration from 1844 to 1864. Following the cathedral’s 2024 rebirth, Bard Graduate Center is now hosting the most comprehensive exhibition in the Anglosphere of the architect’s work. Viollet-le-Duc kept superhuman working hours: 6 a.m. to midnight.

Van’s genius, without Thought or Lecture,Is hugely turn’d to Architecture. Jonathan Swift’s dismissive jest has never been forgotten. It may not be as vituperative as ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’ but it is there ready for duty whenever the skirmish between the principals’ proxies is resumed in all its petty self-importance. It’s England, so social class looms. While Vanbrugh strode with ease among kings and bitchy duchesses, heavily made-up Foppingtons and grand cru horizontales, the resentful Hawksmoor – his collaborator – lurked in the shadows meekly giving great forelock and not receiving the commissions he deserved.

Slavoj Zizek        Hegel thought that, in the movement of history, the world spirit passes from one country to another, from the East to the West. Something similar happened at the beginning of the 21st century: the world spirit passed from cinema, the art of the 20th century, to the TV series.

Britain’s heritage is slowly going up in smoke. Medlock Mill was Manchester’s oldest standing textile mill until it burnt down in June. It joins Grade I-listed Woolton Hall – destroyed by a catastrophic fire in August. But it’s not just the buildings that are under threat, but the entire system designed to protect them. Prior to the disaster, the architect Stephen Hodder had proposed gutting the mill and converting it into a 37-storey block of student flats. A coalition of concerned citizens and conservation charities fought for a stay of execution by applying for the mill to be listed. After reviewing new archaeological evidence, Historic England concurred and recommended it for Grade II.

Of all the moronic decisions made by cultural organisations over the past 50 years, probably the most insulting and retrograde is the decision, in 2021, by Unesco to strip Liverpool of its world heritage status. Unesco said the development of the docks amounted to an ‘irreversible loss’. The regeneration of the waterfront, including the building of Everton’s new £500 million stadium, was blamed for destroying Liverpool’s ‘outstanding universal value’.  I walked up Liverpool’s Regent Road for half an hour to see for myself. Doing so took me through one of the most derelict wards in the country, the old docklands. I didn’t pass another human being for a good 20 minutes, only cars screaming. There was some majesty in the buildings. The Tobacco Warehouse is beautiful.

It is very hard to imagine the University of Oxford ever constructing a modernist building again. This is the significance of the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. In its sheer scale, in its prominence both within the city centre and within the university – the first multi-department, purpose-built structure to open in its history – it is the most important building to be erected in Oxford in half a century and an endstop to an architectural era. One can imagine that its use of a restrained classicism won’t just influence the architectural aesthetics of Oxford but also of other universities within historical cities, both in the UK and internationally. Its impact is all the more profound given its radical – in Oxford terms – proposition.

The DNA of Dulwich Picture Gallery is aspirational, in the sincerest sense. Opening in 1817 when private collections were still the norm, it’s the world’s first purpose-built public art gallery. (It’s also a credible contender for inspiring the design of the red telephone box.) After a significant reworking, and the addition of a new children’s space and sculpture garden, the Gallery is again hoping to redefine what it means to make art accessible. The Grade II*-listed building was Sir John Soane’s utterly original embodiment of the dying wish of the founders: for their collection of old masters to ‘go down to Posterity for the benefit of the Public’.

The cover painting for The Specialist, a new podcast from Sotheby’s, looks like a scene from Mad Men. The people are so good-looking and so well dressed that you barely notice how odd they are. One chap’s walking along with a porcelain bowl as if it were a macchiato; a lady holds a plant in her palms in the manner of receiving communion; someone else walks the street with a gavel. The admen have done their job: intrigued, I press play. It becomes apparent that the people who work at Sotheby’s have no interest in persuading anyone that they are normal. I listen to Ottilie, Julian and Gregory, and to mouths that volunteer, with ease, such phrases as ‘the visceral power is undimmed by the passage of time’.