Skyscrapers portend doom
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Edwin Heathcote
There is a theory that skyscrapers are an indicator of looming recession. With dozens of tall towers planned for London, the omens are bad.
The biggest, Renzo Piano's Shard of Glass at London Bridge - set to be the tallest building in Europe at 300m and 72 floors - looks likely to go ahead. Sellar Properties, the developers, have pre-let part of the building to Transport for London.
Although others, including Richard Rogers' "Cheesegrater" in Leadenhall and Rafael Vinoly's "Walkie Talkie" at Fenchurch Street, now look doubtful there is plenty going on elsewhere.
Nakheel, the Dubai developer, and architects Woods Bagot earlier this month announced their intention to build the tallest tower in the world, at 1km high. This is before the current contender - the neighbouring Burj Tower, 700m and rising - is even complete. Could this be hubris?
As the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings raced each other to become the tallest in the world, the 1929 crash saw the economy collapse around them. The World Trade Center towers were completed in the dire stagflation of the mid-1970s which saw New York bankrupt, crime-ridden and at its lowest ebb. The passing of the high-rise baton to Asia with the completion of the Petronas Towers saw the collapse of the Asian markets in 1997. Super skyscrapers appear to be bad news for the economy.
If they are harbingers of recession, is there a recession architecture, a building style defined by austerity? In response to the Great Depression, Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt reacted with huge public building works, almost all of which were executed in the same grand, stripped classical style.
Recessions have led architects to retreat into theory and fantasy. The economic meltdown of Weimar Germany led to the austerity of modernism, an architecture from which bourgeois concepts of decoration were expunged. The recession of the late 1980s put paid to the excesses of Post Modernism.
Now, to kick-start the economy, Gordon Brown plans a Building Schools for the Future scheme worth an eye-watering £45bn ($73bn) and a huge programme of hospitals and other public works.
This leaves the emerging genre of "oligarchitecture". The super rich are not immune to the crunch, but neither are they likely to be bankrupted by it.
Developers Candy & Candy might have had to buy back their London Noho Square site from Kaupthing, the Icelandic bank, last week, but the scheme looks likely to proceed, as is its counterpart One Hyde Park - likely to become the most expensive apartments in the world.
Perhaps the impending downturn will curb vulgar architectural acrobatics in which every new building is required to become an icon. If it does, it will not have been entirely in vain.
..................................................
Under syndication arrangement with FE
There is a theory that skyscrapers are an indicator of looming recession. With dozens of tall towers planned for London, the omens are bad.
The biggest, Renzo Piano's Shard of Glass at London Bridge - set to be the tallest building in Europe at 300m and 72 floors - looks likely to go ahead. Sellar Properties, the developers, have pre-let part of the building to Transport for London.
Although others, including Richard Rogers' "Cheesegrater" in Leadenhall and Rafael Vinoly's "Walkie Talkie" at Fenchurch Street, now look doubtful there is plenty going on elsewhere.
Nakheel, the Dubai developer, and architects Woods Bagot earlier this month announced their intention to build the tallest tower in the world, at 1km high. This is before the current contender - the neighbouring Burj Tower, 700m and rising - is even complete. Could this be hubris?
As the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings raced each other to become the tallest in the world, the 1929 crash saw the economy collapse around them. The World Trade Center towers were completed in the dire stagflation of the mid-1970s which saw New York bankrupt, crime-ridden and at its lowest ebb. The passing of the high-rise baton to Asia with the completion of the Petronas Towers saw the collapse of the Asian markets in 1997. Super skyscrapers appear to be bad news for the economy.
If they are harbingers of recession, is there a recession architecture, a building style defined by austerity? In response to the Great Depression, Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt reacted with huge public building works, almost all of which were executed in the same grand, stripped classical style.
Recessions have led architects to retreat into theory and fantasy. The economic meltdown of Weimar Germany led to the austerity of modernism, an architecture from which bourgeois concepts of decoration were expunged. The recession of the late 1980s put paid to the excesses of Post Modernism.
Now, to kick-start the economy, Gordon Brown plans a Building Schools for the Future scheme worth an eye-watering £45bn ($73bn) and a huge programme of hospitals and other public works.
This leaves the emerging genre of "oligarchitecture". The super rich are not immune to the crunch, but neither are they likely to be bankrupted by it.
Developers Candy & Candy might have had to buy back their London Noho Square site from Kaupthing, the Icelandic bank, last week, but the scheme looks likely to proceed, as is its counterpart One Hyde Park - likely to become the most expensive apartments in the world.
Perhaps the impending downturn will curb vulgar architectural acrobatics in which every new building is required to become an icon. If it does, it will not have been entirely in vain.
..................................................
Under syndication arrangement with FE