Magazine Article

Building flexibility losing out to style

Lifschutz, Alex

2004

Overview

The current debate regarding the dubious benefit of iconic buildings comes as little surprise to those who have been employed in urban areas blighted by too rich a mix of splendid structures. London's South Bank has been unable to digest its ample share of landmark office buildings despite a succession of masterplans by leading architects aiming to integrate them into a coherent urban fabric. How much more difficult it must be, therefore, for cities coping with buildings that have sought but failed to achieve such architectural status. The example of the South Bank seems to indicate that the big school of regeneration is, in fact, problematic - it is the illness to which it purports to be the cure. Yet, at the other end of the spectrum, the potential drudgery of contextual architecture can be equally problematic; how often this tends to discard the possibility of a better, more inspired, urban environment, substituting boring for big. Again, the South Bank, indeed much of London's riverfront, abounds with ghastly examples of the failure of imagination that comes with merely attempting to fit in with the background and replicate.

• Publisher: Haymarket Business Publications Ltd
• Subject: 19th century / Academic achievement / Architects / Architecture / Area planning & development / Buildings / Cities / Coping / Coping style / Cure / Design / Historic buildings & sites / Historic preservation / Imagination / Meat processing / Museums / Office buildings / Planning / Succession / Theater / Urban areas / Urban environments