Does
Context Matter?
Architects
consider themselves as creative professionals, and take great pride in the
visual quality of the built form of their creations – the only part of
architectural design that the rest of the world understands. Unfortunately, this
has resulted in identifying architecture only with its visual form, at the cost
of all the other finer aspects aspects of design. In most of the cities today,
there seems to be some kind of competition amongst architects in trying to make
their designs strikingly in contrast to their contexts, without a second
thought as to the effect this would have on the overall urban landscape. The
more outrageous the form, the more the project gets talked about. The developer
is happy as a building in news gets more buyers and more rate, the architect is
happy to be in the limelight, may even get awards, and if the city becomes more
chaotic, neither the architect nor the developer have to live or work there
anyway; what we really preserve are the photographs on the day of the
inauguration. I recollect a photograph of Hongkong documenting the resultant
chaos, in a presentation by Jimmy Lim, with his typical dry comment about how you need to shout in order to be heard in
a scenario where the background noise is too loud.
Of
course, saner voices too prevail sometimes, calling for confirmity to the
context and providing a sense of belonging to the context, but when they become
institutionalised in the form of guidelines or regulations, they tilt the scale
to the other extreme, refusing to accept any variation in the theme, putting a
virtual stop to all creative intepretations of the context. It is no wonder
that architects resent this. The urban design guidelines for Chandigad is a
case in point. The interpretation of the context of Chandigad is frozen in a
set of regaulations so rigid that they have effectively killed all creativity
and made the city monotonous in character.
The
correct response to any physical context must lie somewhere in between these
two extremes, though not always in a manner directly apparent. Sometimes the
new project itself may redefine the context. When the Eiffel Tower was being
built, there was a lot of opposition to this ‘monstrous’ building, and it subsided only when it was clarified that
this was a temperory structure anyway, and would be eventually dismantled and
shipped away. But its continued presense has redefined the context, and has equated
it with the image of the city, so much so that you can not think of Paris now without
the Eiffel Tower.
And
there are many more examples all over the world. The Sydney Opera House, which
has become an icon of Sydney now, was built over a site which had an existing structure
with heritage value. Conservationists may now have an academic debate over the
virtue of promoting current iconic architecture by demolishing the heritage of
the past, but there are no clear-cut conclusions or solutions.
Indians
in general have scant regard for the historic setting which most of our old
cities have, but there are exceptions too. First we had the Delhi Urban Arts
Commission Act and then the Mumbai Heritage Precinct Regulations and the
regulations for protection of French Quarter in Pondicherry. But these are very
typical and interesting exceptions. Perhaps we have some kind of awe still left
over about our colonial rulers, and the remnants of western classical
architecture which they have left here as legacy of that rule.
So
when Charles Correa designed the LIC Building in Connaught Place, New Delhi,
people derided it as they felt that the huge concrete and glass tower would deface
the heritage quality of the place. Little is known about the original design by
Correa in which he sought to integrate the huge plaza at the ground level as an
extension of Connaught Place, making it directly accessible from the street; a proposal
that was rejected by the authorities, brought up in the British tradition of
treating the common people of the city as an undesirable element that the
building and its occupants need to be protected against by a high compound wall
and an entrance gate with armed security personnel. It was much later, in the
design of the city centre for Kolkota, that Correa would actually realise the
creation of a truly accessible public place for the city.
What
Correa was trying to do was to reflect the ambience of Connaught Place as a
democratic public place; without following any of its architectural styles,
which are british versions of the renaissance architecture in India, like the
rest of the Lutyens Delhi. The problem with such an approach is that it is a
bit too difficult to understand on paper and hence may get caught up in the
regulations about confirmity to context. Delhi Urban Arts Commission, had it
based its approving process on the basis of Chandigad regulations, would never
have cleared Correa’s proposal. Correa, being a much acclaimed and respected
architect, has been credited with the statement ‘the context of Connaught Place begins with the new LIC building’,
though I am not sure whether he himself said this or any one his ardent
admirers. However, I agree totally with the sentiment, and I think we must give
him credit for now redefining the context of Connaught Place, in spite of the
fact that his original scheme was not fully executed.
But
in general, we are not much bothered about all these issues, most of the them
are debated only in academic circles. Contrary to this, the journalists of the
first world are quite active about this as I have remarked earlier. A case in
point is the shifting of Apple Flagship retail store in San Francisco. Apple
Inc., an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino,
California, is the world's second-largest information technology company by
revenue and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker. Fortune magazine has named
Apple the most admired company in the world. Naturally, people in California
are proud of its achievements.
Apple
recently submitted plans for its new retail store in the Union Square in place
of the Levis Stores that now occupies the site. Initially everybody thought it
would be a welcome addition to the place. San Franciso’s Mayor Lee described
the new Apple Store as “quite simply
incredible” and that he could think of “no
better location for the world’s most stunning Apple Store than right here in
Union Square”.
But
when people realized that Apple, and the store’s architect Norman Foster had
not accounted for the famous bronze folk art fountain existing in the site, it
became a point of public contention. The Mayor retracted his statement and
admitted that he didn’t realize that the plans called for the elimination of
the Ruth Asawa fountain.
The
reason for this turnabout lies in the history of the fountain. It is designed
by Ruth Asawa, a Japanese American sculptor, who was the driving force behind
the creation of the San Francisco School of the Arts, which was renamed recently
as the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in tribute to her. The
fountain was Installed in 1973 and was made of baker’s clay and cast in bronze.
It is seven feet high and a focal point of a triangular-shaped public square
behind the Levis outlet. According to Asawa herself, “The fountain depicts San
Francisco, and approximately 250 friends and school children helped in its
making by contributing self-portraits, cars, buildings, and various San
Francisco landmarks.”
The
fountain is part of the public memory in SF for 40 years now. Apple’s proposal
therefore evoked strong resentment. Not only that, the initial proposal for the
building is a characterless box of metal and glass that contributes nothing
unique to the local landscape, and has no identity except the Apple symbol in
the centre of the huge glass façade on Post street, while the façade on Stokton
street is a dead wall with a similar symbol. The Glass façade of the building
faces Post street on South, and would be exposed to direct solar radiation for
most of the day, a design feature that shows utter disregard to the climate of
the region.
San
Francisco Chronicle urban design critic John King pointed out the absurdity of
“a company renowned for design innovation
hiring one of the world’s most acclaimed architecture firms, only to unload a
box that would look at home in Anymall, U.S.A.”
About
the dead wall of the building on the east side facing the Stokton Street,
another critic sarcastically commented that perhaps “Apple envisions that side of the building to be livened up occasionally
with lines of consumers around the corner waiting to buy new iPhones”,
revoking memories of the long queues of Apple-crazy Americans at all Apple
stores at the launch of almost every new Apple product.
However,
the news item from arch.daily.com also mentioned that ‘..not every Apple store design is as disquieting as this one. Their
store in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC, for example, is fairly
well-integrated into the existing style and framework of the street while still
maintaining its trademark sleek and modern style.’ This was rebutted by a
respondent claiming that Apple had no option in the Georgetown site, and can
not be given credit for respecting the context there. Indeed, the Georgetown area
in Washington DC has a very strong historical character, like many other parts
of Washington DC, and has Conservation Guidelines in place. So the San Fracisco
example is what Apple can do, left to itself, while the Georgetown Apple store seems
to be something that Apple was forced to do, not what it would have been
willing to do on its own.
This
in fact is true of all the multinational companies and their views on architectural
design at large: they would go at any length to promote a brand and its image
and would like to create a standardised architecture that would be identified
with the image of the company rather than the urban context in which it is
situated. It seems that they are afraid of losing their corporate identity if
their flagship projects integrate into the existing streetscape instead of
outshining every other building by their forms and structures.
But
this is not the only issue: in trying to reflect the corporate brand identity
we tend to convert architecture itself into a product, reliquinshing its
primary role in place-making in an urban setting. Architectural intervention in
any existing context goes beyond merely confirming to the heritage regulations.
It is not the treatment of façade or such other features of the existing
buildings around that matter in the long run, but the sensitivity to the needs
of people and enhancing the quality of public place in an urban setting. This
is what gives the place a unique identity and which tends to get destroyed by
the imposition of brand images. As a respondent on the article in arch.daily
commented, ‘the world would be better off
without the generic chain stores of drive throughs, gas stations, shopping malls
etc that plague our cities.’
Fortunately,
in this particular case, Apple bowed to the will of the people, and made a
revised proposal, which incorporated the fountain, but reduced the size of the
open plaza, as the apple building is rectangular (the existing Levis building
is triangular) and covers a part of the existing triangular plaza. This gesture
could not have come at a more appropriate time - Ruth Asawa died on 5th
August. So it became some kind of tribute to her. The news item in SFGate
starts with the line - ‘Ruth Asawa fans
can rest easy - the artist's beloved bronze fountain near Union Square is
staying pretty much right where it is.’
The
design of the building, however, has not changed, its remains a tall, taut cube
of glass and steel from Post Street (South side). The only difference is that
instead of being walled off by steel panels on the Stokton street, the design
includes an 8-foot-wide glass "window" in the centre of the East
wall, which continues over the roof, becoming a skylight. Both these changes –
retention of the fountain & the opening up of the Stokton street façade have
been appreciated by the Mayor, as Christine Falvey, Lee's director of
communications has been quoted in the news. And here the matter rests. As it
happens, the last item on the SFGate online news is an announcement of the
Public Memorial service for Ruth Asawa.
Public
memory, so it is said, is short. A former head of KGB would never have become a
democratically elected President in Russia otherwise. But it seems that when public
places in an urban setting have been retained in collective public memory for more
than a generation, the sentiments attached to them do not fade. Architects, as
creative professionals, need to be sensitive to this intangible aspect of our
public spaces.
