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From The Sunday Times
July 29, 2007
St Paul’s, meet Darth Vader cathedral
Chris Gourlay
LORD FOSTER, the architect, is to build a futuristic twin for St Paul’s Cathedral, just 600 yards from Sir Christopher Wren’s baroque masterpiece.
The 72-year-old designer of the “gherkin” tower and the new Wembley stadium has won planning permission for an office complex built into a giant dome just 10ft shorter than St Paul’s.
Council documents show the original design for Foster’s glass and steel “cyborg cathedral” was opposed by St Paul’s, whose dean said it was too similar to its baroque neighbour and would detract from views of its 300-year-old dome.
The City Heritage Society also branded it “crude and oppressive”. As a result, Foster agreed to a more “compact and crystalline” shape that is “less dome-like”.
Now City of London planners have supported the 21-storey Walbrook Square development which replaces Bucklersbury House, a 1960s office block which has been the headquarters for Legal & General, the insurance company.
The decision comes as Foster enters the most influential phase of his career. He is completing the world’s largest airport in Beijing for next year’s Olympic Games and is also designing a canal to refill the Dead Sea from the Red Sea.
For his latest project – which will cost an estimated £300m – he has teamed up with Jean Nouvel, the French modernist architect who designed the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and emulated Foster with a torpedo-shaped skyscraper in Barcelona.
Their collaboration follows the award of planning consent to a cluster of new skyscrapers in the City which have already attracted their own nicknames.
The 36-storey “walkie-talkie” tower designed by Raphael Vinoly, the US-Argentine architect was approved by Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, earlier this month although English Heritage had judged it to be “brutally dominant”.
Lord Rogers, Foster’s former business partner, has designed the 48-storey “cheesegrater” next to his Lloyd’s of London building on Leadenhall Street, and the 63-storey “helter-skelter” tower by Kohn Pedersen Fox of the United States will become the highest point on the new City skyline.
Nouvel and Foster have coined their own nickname, “clouds”, for the curved, irregular upper storeys of the Walbrook development. The roof structure is clad in solar panels to provide 15% of the building’s power needs.
The dome will also collect and recycle rainwater for use in toilets and a hanging garden is planned with greenery dangling from the building’s exterior walls and roof terraces filled with potted birch trees.
“This is very much the way buildings are going,” said Peter Murray, director of the New London Architecture Centre. “Architects have much more freedom now to build exotic shapes using computer software.
“It is part of a trend of reversing the City’s disastrous postwar policy of putting pedestrians on overground walkways and giving the car freedom at ground level. This scheme is the best of both worlds. The base fits into the medieval street pattern while the top provides an iconic contribution to the skyline.”
Others are less impressed with a building that has also been dubbed “Darth Vader’s helmet” for mimicking the flared shape of the mask of the Star Wars villain. The revised design has been accepted by Martin Stancliffe, surveyor to the cathedral, as a “less uncomfortable contrast between the building and the form of the cathedral” than earlier designs.
The massive scale of the development, so close to the cathedral, was possible only after the mayor’s office issued revised planning guidance, narrowing protected viewing corridors.
“The City of London is a very special place. We don’t want to see too many skyscrapers,” said Douglas Woodwood, chairman of the City Heritage Society. “It would spoil the character of the area. The trouble is there has been a competition between the City and Canary Wharf to host big businesses, which has driven the push for skyscrapers.
“The City has been approving towers at a phenomenal rate, which in my view will soon provide a massive surplus of office space. They are trying to create a mini-Manhattan but it would be so sad for London to go down that path.”
Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, will be given new powers to override boroughs that object to building applications. At present he can only veto applications which have already been approved by the boroughs.
The architects of the Walbrook development say that despite the futuristic design, the dome will be built around a new public square where visitors will be able to view the foundations of the Roman temple of Mithras, at present marooned on a concrete plinth beside the entrance to the basement car park.
Link to article
From The Sunday Times
July 29, 2007
St Paul’s, meet Darth Vader cathedral
Chris Gourlay
LORD FOSTER, the architect, is to build a futuristic twin for St Paul’s Cathedral, just 600 yards from Sir Christopher Wren’s baroque masterpiece.
The 72-year-old designer of the “gherkin” tower and the new Wembley stadium has won planning permission for an office complex built into a giant dome just 10ft shorter than St Paul’s.
Council documents show the original design for Foster’s glass and steel “cyborg cathedral” was opposed by St Paul’s, whose dean said it was too similar to its baroque neighbour and would detract from views of its 300-year-old dome.
The City Heritage Society also branded it “crude and oppressive”. As a result, Foster agreed to a more “compact and crystalline” shape that is “less dome-like”.
Now City of London planners have supported the 21-storey Walbrook Square development which replaces Bucklersbury House, a 1960s office block which has been the headquarters for Legal & General, the insurance company.
The decision comes as Foster enters the most influential phase of his career. He is completing the world’s largest airport in Beijing for next year’s Olympic Games and is also designing a canal to refill the Dead Sea from the Red Sea.
For his latest project – which will cost an estimated £300m – he has teamed up with Jean Nouvel, the French modernist architect who designed the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and emulated Foster with a torpedo-shaped skyscraper in Barcelona.
Their collaboration follows the award of planning consent to a cluster of new skyscrapers in the City which have already attracted their own nicknames.
The 36-storey “walkie-talkie” tower designed by Raphael Vinoly, the US-Argentine architect was approved by Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, earlier this month although English Heritage had judged it to be “brutally dominant”.
Lord Rogers, Foster’s former business partner, has designed the 48-storey “cheesegrater” next to his Lloyd’s of London building on Leadenhall Street, and the 63-storey “helter-skelter” tower by Kohn Pedersen Fox of the United States will become the highest point on the new City skyline.
Nouvel and Foster have coined their own nickname, “clouds”, for the curved, irregular upper storeys of the Walbrook development. The roof structure is clad in solar panels to provide 15% of the building’s power needs.
The dome will also collect and recycle rainwater for use in toilets and a hanging garden is planned with greenery dangling from the building’s exterior walls and roof terraces filled with potted birch trees.
“This is very much the way buildings are going,” said Peter Murray, director of the New London Architecture Centre. “Architects have much more freedom now to build exotic shapes using computer software.
“It is part of a trend of reversing the City’s disastrous postwar policy of putting pedestrians on overground walkways and giving the car freedom at ground level. This scheme is the best of both worlds. The base fits into the medieval street pattern while the top provides an iconic contribution to the skyline.”
Others are less impressed with a building that has also been dubbed “Darth Vader’s helmet” for mimicking the flared shape of the mask of the Star Wars villain. The revised design has been accepted by Martin Stancliffe, surveyor to the cathedral, as a “less uncomfortable contrast between the building and the form of the cathedral” than earlier designs.
The massive scale of the development, so close to the cathedral, was possible only after the mayor’s office issued revised planning guidance, narrowing protected viewing corridors.
“The City of London is a very special place. We don’t want to see too many skyscrapers,” said Douglas Woodwood, chairman of the City Heritage Society. “It would spoil the character of the area. The trouble is there has been a competition between the City and Canary Wharf to host big businesses, which has driven the push for skyscrapers.
“The City has been approving towers at a phenomenal rate, which in my view will soon provide a massive surplus of office space. They are trying to create a mini-Manhattan but it would be so sad for London to go down that path.”
Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, will be given new powers to override boroughs that object to building applications. At present he can only veto applications which have already been approved by the boroughs.
The architects of the Walbrook development say that despite the futuristic design, the dome will be built around a new public square where visitors will be able to view the foundations of the Roman temple of Mithras, at present marooned on a concrete plinth beside the entrance to the basement car park.