foolfillment: the blog

As I have said before, I had to write an essay. It’s all done and handed in now, so it’ time to post it up here.

Baldassare Castiglione said in 1528 ?No matter what you study, you will always find that those which are good and useful are also graced with beauty?. What will be discussed here is if that is true or if it is the converse that is true; whether things that are full of beauty are also graced with functionality. Two examples of the same product where aesthetics have had an effect on their success are the Lloyd?s Building in London; and the Sydney Opera House.

Lloyd’s of London have been situated in London?s financial centre since they began in the 17th century. The first Lloyd?s building (Sir Edwin Cooper’s Lloyd’s of 1928) grew too small and in 1978 Richard Rogers was commissioned by Lloyd?s to build a brand new building and what he came up with was a 14 storey, glass roofed, central atrium surrounded with steel clad service towers.

In a recent paper Edward Keelaghan (2001) said of the Lloyd?s building:
?It has been successfully compared to a building turned inside out with ductwork and services on the outside instead of neatly concealed behind a uniform structure. While the six towers are most noticed by tourists, the main focus of the building is part that few actually see — the internal atrium. This is the hub around which all activity turns on a series of galleries. Building facilities like rest rooms, kitchens, elevators, etc? are placed on the outside of the building where they won?t get in the way of the work of business. More importantly, being easily accessible from the outside means they can be upgraded or replaced with a minimum of hassle and without impacting usable office space.?

This controversial design, influenced by Louis Kahn?s concept of service and servant areas, created a flexible building ready to take Lloyd?s into the 21st century. At the heart of Rogers? design was his desire to create a functional building and he followed a route where functionality took priority over form. That is not to say that form was forgotten altogether, this ?inside out? idea was revolutionary but it could well have taken it?s toll on the aesthetics of the building had it not been for the materials it was constructed from. The main atrium is glazed right round and topped with a glass house directly influenced by Joseph Paxton?s Crystal Palace. Lit up at night, the building glows and during the day it is a massive mirror, reflecting the image of the towers which are spirally clad in steel.

Images :
This image shows the external pipe work and one of the service towers.
The ?Crystal Palace? crowns the building, in the top-right you can see one of the cranes left by Rogers.

Technology has played a huge role in the design of this building. A building needs to be able to change as technology advances in order to remain functional. By having moved the areas most likely to need upgrading to the outside the Lloyd?s Building is in a far better position than most other buildings to do this, and as such should outlast all other buildings of it?s time, though it is also expected by Richard Rogers to be torn down and that explains the cranes left at the top of the towers and atrium.

Frederique Krupa (1991) wrote of Rogers own comments about his approach to the building:
?Rogers feels that if a building outgrow its usefulness and popularity, it will be torn down and replaced with something new, including his own Lloyd’s. His building displays technological symbolism of the new industrial revolution–computers, not machines–and “the process of manufacture, erection, maintenance, and finally demolition.” The cranes left on top are actually for the impending demolition, though Lloyd’s has been planned to last well into the 21st Century.?

The Lloyd?s building has proved itself to be useful and it will be used well into this new century but whether it is ?graced with beauty? is a difficult thing to decide. The combined effect of the glass and metal exterior is unquestionably outstanding but that doesn?t necessarily mean it is beautiful. This building will always have it?s supporters and detractors; those who dislike it will hark back to a long-gone age where the buildings were indeed good looking but are unlikely to be seen again due to the cost of their construction methods. The supporters, of which I am one, will see the functionality and take an image of beauty from that, which in an almost backwards way, agrees with Castiglione.

The Sydney Opera House has a chequered history but now holds iconic status. It?s silhouette in front of the Harbour Bridge is an image that is conjured up in most people?s minds whenever Australia is mentioned. As with the Lloyd?s Building the design was decided in a competition. The relatively unknown winner was Dane J?rn Utzon who?s designs were so revolutionary they met considerable opposition both from the people of Australia and from the laws of physics. When you consider the aesthetics of the building you see two very different approaches. The outside stands as testament to one man?s imagination, the inside a testament to the lack of imagination of other men. This essay will remain concerned by only the outside.
A brief history is required to pretext any discussion of the successes or failures of the building; when Utzen won the competition he had no more than preliminary sketches and only a vague idea of how he would construct the building. His original idea saw it formed from ellipsoids (shown below), made of a wire mesh covered in tiles; this proved impossible and a solution wasn?t found for some time.

Images :
Image of Utzen?s original plans for an ellipsoid based roof. Created using CAD technology by Cara Hickman
Image showing the actual building, making use of sections of spheres. Image courtesy of Phil Reynolds

The problems didn?t stop there though and the project ran furiously over budget and ten years late. Following a change in government in 1965 Utzen suffered from increasing interference from impatient politicians and eventually he resigned in 1966. This led to the interior being designed by government architects with the brief ?get it done?. This is what they did without thinking about what it should look like or how to get the right acoustics. The House was completed in 1973, but Utzen never set foot in Australia again and as such hasn?t ever seen his finished building.
Work on the platforms the House was to be built on was almost complete before Utzen came up with a solution for holding up the massive structure. Everything he threw at his engineers was dismissed until one lunch break when he was discussing the problems. It struck him that the problem was the basic shape of the arcs. Each interlocking ellipsoid was of a different radius and would have had to be free standing, the very fact that ellipsoids were to be used was also a debilitating factor. He hit upon the answer whilst unpeeling an orange: if the house were to be made of sections of spheres, all with the same radius they could support their own weight and each others. And so Utzen?s solution was influenced by something completely organic but led him to take a purely geometric approach. This is hardly surprising considering his upbringing near Copenhagen which was discussed in The Telegraph (2002):

?Utzon tells me he was brought up - “practically with my feet in the water” - near Copenhagen where his father designed and built yachts. He remembers, as a boy, being fascinated by the curves of boat hulls and considered a career in marine architecture before deciding his work would be on dry land - even if his cues came from the ocean.?

With regard to other influences, the usual comparison made is to the sails on a boat but perhaps in each dome there is a medieval knight?s helmet.

Images :
Sails on a boat or helmets?

Everyone agrees, this is a beautiful building but how successful is it? To measure it?s success you need to know what the purpose of it was. The original design brief was not much more than ?build an opera house with several performance halls? and this was done. It paid for it?s huge construction costs within two years of opening. It makes money each year. It hosts huge numbers of shows and exhibitions. It draws masses of people to Sydney. All of these things show it to be a useful building but these aren?t the things that make it beautiful as Castiglione would have us believe; it simply is a beautiful building; the usefulness followed the beauty.

In conclusion I have found that Castiglione?s quote doesn?t always hold true, while the Lloyds? building is ?good and useful? people?s opinions aren?t always that it is graced with beauty, and the Sydney Opera House is graced with beauty not because it is ?good and useful? but because it was designed to be so.

Bibliography

Keelaghan, E., 2001, ?Why has glass become the chosen building material for London in the 21st Century??, http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/UK/England/London/LloydsofLondon.html, (accessed 27.11.2003).

Krupa, F., 1991, ?Lloyd’s of London?, http://www.translucency.com/frede/lloyds.html (accessed 27.11.2003).

The Telegraph, 17/09/2002, ?The Phantom of the Opera?, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/09/17/basyd.xml, (accessed 27.11.2003).

This entry was posted at 3:55 pm on the 28th of November, 2003 and is filed under uni work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.