93Issue 101 April-June 2017

SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE

Post-Modernism post-Brexit

Many have questioned the future of the architectural profes-sion following Brexit but very few have enquired about thedirection architecture itself might take in a post-Brexit sce-nario. In order to compete on a more international platform,British architecture will have to respond to a broader market,with new investors, new needs and potentially a new creative

workforce. It is likely that London – the least European of thebig EU cities – will become even less European and moreinternational.

From an urbanism perspective, this might be considered a

natural evolution, as London has always been the antithesis of

its consciously planned European counterpart, an eclectic atlas

ABOVE: Giuseppe Parita

BELOW: Sir Terry Farrell

Terry Farrell,with GiuseppeParita of Farrellssee London as atestbed for apost-postmodernapproach

>>>

92 Planning in London

ABOVE:

Marylebone and Euston

Roads

RIGHT:

Regent’s Place, London –

Design from masterplan

through to interiors

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95Issue 101 April-June 2017

son for future local projects. Now that Euston is expected to

host HS2 terminus, for example, the flexibility of the original

masterplan and its conception as a process rather than a defined

design exercise appear almost prophetic and will be extremely

useful.

Another important feature of the Postmodern contextualism

is related to the idea of the city as a source of design inspiration

in itself. Through their experimental approach, Postmodernists

have demonstrated that the design process progresses through

both logical and analogic thinking, using analysis and rationality

to explain the underlying structure of a city as well as a set of

analogue pictures to interpret and evolve that same structure

with.

Thus, for example, in our Earl's Court masterplan, while the

logic responds to the need of regenerating an isolated area

through providing a network of new connections and centres,

the analogic thinking establishes that the main connection will

be shaped as a High Street, the new settlements will be as tradi-

tional villages and the answer to the problem of density and

height will be a reinterpretation of the mansion block. "Four vil-

lages and a high street" proposes on a tighter scale two very

well-known archetypes of London. As a result, the new street

layout is a loose grid with perimeter blocks surrounding green

spaces, which echoes the urban structure of adjacent

Kensington.

The open and accessible character of contextualism, which

allowed PoMo architects to play with historical elements of the

city in a flexible way, is strongly related to eclecticism. To the

very strict canons of Modernism, Postmodern architects made

variety one of the main drivers for a qualitative approach to

architecture and city-making. What we are now considering as

quite an obvious premise has to be read as a key result of this

eclectic approach, of which the much criticised pastiche was

only an aesthetic expression of the 80s style.

The Eagle – a residential-led mixed use city centre scheme –

sees Farrells following an approach that embraces diversity and

harmonises difference. This is the logic behind the decision of

retaining and restoring the existing Art Deco buildings, whilst

building a new landmark tower alongside. The project takes

inspiration from the history of the site and goes further to gain

the first consent for a taller building in the area, demonstrating

through an exhaustive study how the tower will be strategic to

the future of the high-tech quarter of Old Street. An unusual

challenge was restarting completion of the building after the

original developer ceased to trade; this meant that part of the

building was already there, not constructed exactly as the plan-

ning consent and with some structural inadequacies, which

effectively led to a conversion of the building. This added anoth-

er different element that had to be integrated and combined

within the design solution. Despite the challenges, the elegant

result demonstrates the ability of this pioneering approach to

create once again a contemporary version of Venturi's "both-

and" scenario.

In addition to this complexity, on top of the restoration of

94 Planning in London

composed of many characterful and distinctive places. High

Streets coexist with the magnificence of the monumental inter-

vention of the Crown, the fine grain of the villages sits alongside

the vastness of the City, and its intimate public spaces are side

by side with big parks. All these very different places live togeth-

er in an equilibrium that could be considered itself as postmod-

ern – if not in its aesthetic, then in structure; a structure where

the distinctiveness of the urban artefacts prevail on both the

sovereignty of planning and the logic of the individual architec-

ture.

This structure has made London one of the world's most

interesting and beautiful cities but it is not without its problems.

As proved by some of the successful projects completed in

London over recent years, some intrinsic features of the

Postmodern approach give an exhaustive response to the archi-

tectural matter, adding value from the social, the economic and

the environmental perspectives. Postmodern has yet to be con-

sidered in its broader sense and cleansed of the clichés that the

stylistic phenomenon we are now referring as "PoMo" has been

labelled for many years. But from the 1980s onwards, the broad-

er culture of Postmodernism has evolved and continues to add

value to contemporary projects.

Among the many criticisms made towards Modernism, the

main objection was the complete lack of respect for the context

in which Modernist architecture was built. As such, the real lega-

cy of Postmodernism is contextualism and its contribution to

both architecture and urban design. In the attempt to react to

Modernism dogma, the Postmodern approach operated a para-

digm shift, as it clearly demonstrated that the design process

begins with the city, proceeds inwards and then returns to the

urban scale. In the London of the late 1980s, PoMo projects such

as Embankment Place, Alban Gate and Vauxhall Cross, all started

with an urban gesture and managed to operate through archi-

tecture on the city.

After many years of experience in London, more recent

Farrells projects can be read as the result of a more advanced

version of the same process; the attention to the meso-scale of

the urban environment has led to a loop where architecture,

urban design and planning achieve the regeneration of big por-

tions of the city. The masterplan for Euston Road and Regent's

Place redevelopment are two projects that illustrate this success.

The Euston Road Masterplan set a strategic framework to

improve the existing pattern of spaces in order to create a linear

civic infrastructure Though the masterplan helped initiate a

number of key public realm projects, the noble ambition to shift

the perception of this important axis of the city as urban motor-

way to a distinctive liveable place would not be possible without

architectural-led interventions like Regent's place. Here, the

architecture responds contextually to each frontage of this

mixed-use redevelopment, activating spaces at street level and

drawing people to the internal spaces whilst protecting them

from the passing traffic of Euston road.

Triton Square – a little masterpiece of placemaking – creates

the appropriate linkage between the high-density residential

buildings and the main road, allowing a threshold between pub-

lic and private, vehicular and pedestrian spaces, the linearity of

the road infrastructure and the fabric of the northern settle-

ments. Regent's Place illustrates at a smaller scale the broader

vision set in Euston Road masterplan and serves as an urban les-

SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE

>>>

>>>

BELOW:

Farrell’s Home Office

ABOVE:Earl’s Court masterplan

95Issue 101 April-June 2017

son for future local projects. Now that Euston is expected to

host HS2 terminus, for example, the flexibility of the original

masterplan and its conception as a process rather than a defined

design exercise appear almost prophetic and will be extremely

useful.

Another important feature of the Postmodern contextualism

is related to the idea of the city as a source of design inspiration

in itself. Through their experimental approach, Postmodernists

have demonstrated that the design process progresses through

both logical and analogic thinking, using analysis and rationality

to explain the underlying structure of a city as well as a set of

analogue pictures to interpret and evolve that same structure

with.

Thus, for example, in our Earl's Court masterplan, while the

logic responds to the need of regenerating an isolated area

through providing a network of new connections and centres,

the analogic thinking establishes that the main connection will

be shaped as a High Street, the new settlements will be as tradi-

tional villages and the answer to the problem of density and

height will be a reinterpretation of the mansion block. "Four vil-

lages and a high street" proposes on a tighter scale two very

well-known archetypes of London. As a result, the new street

layout is a loose grid with perimeter blocks surrounding green

spaces, which echoes the urban structure of adjacent

Kensington.

The open and accessible character of contextualism, which

allowed PoMo architects to play with historical elements of the

city in a flexible way, is strongly related to eclecticism. To the

very strict canons of Modernism, Postmodern architects made

variety one of the main drivers for a qualitative approach to

architecture and city-making. What we are now considering as

quite an obvious premise has to be read as a key result of this

eclectic approach, of which the much criticised pastiche was

only an aesthetic expression of the 80s style.

The Eagle – a residential-led mixed use city centre scheme –

sees Farrells following an approach that embraces diversity and

harmonises difference. This is the logic behind the decision of

retaining and restoring the existing Art Deco buildings, whilst

building a new landmark tower alongside. The project takes

inspiration from the history of the site and goes further to gain

the first consent for a taller building in the area, demonstrating

through an exhaustive study how the tower will be strategic to

the future of the high-tech quarter of Old Street. An unusual

challenge was restarting completion of the building after the

original developer ceased to trade; this meant that part of the

building was already there, not constructed exactly as the plan-

ning consent and with some structural inadequacies, which

effectively led to a conversion of the building. This added anoth-

er different element that had to be integrated and combined

within the design solution. Despite the challenges, the elegant

result demonstrates the ability of this pioneering approach to

create once again a contemporary version of Venturi's "both-

and" scenario.

In addition to this complexity, on top of the restoration of

94 Planning in London

composed of many characterful and distinctive places. High

Streets coexist with the magnificence of the monumental inter-

vention of the Crown, the fine grain of the villages sits alongside

the vastness of the City, and its intimate public spaces are side

by side with big parks. All these very different places live togeth-

er in an equilibrium that could be considered itself as postmod-

ern – if not in its aesthetic, then in structure; a structure where

the distinctiveness of the urban artefacts prevail on both the

sovereignty of planning and the logic of the individual architec-

ture.

This structure has made London one of the world's most

interesting and beautiful cities but it is not without its problems.

As proved by some of the successful projects completed in

London over recent years, some intrinsic features of the

Postmodern approach give an exhaustive response to the archi-

tectural matter, adding value from the social, the economic and

the environmental perspectives. Postmodern has yet to be con-

sidered in its broader sense and cleansed of the clichés that the

stylistic phenomenon we are now referring as "PoMo" has been

labelled for many years. But from the 1980s onwards, the broad-

er culture of Postmodernism has evolved and continues to add

value to contemporary projects.

Among the many criticisms made towards Modernism, the

main objection was the complete lack of respect for the context

in which Modernist architecture was built. As such, the real lega-

cy of Postmodernism is contextualism and its contribution to

both architecture and urban design. In the attempt to react to

Modernism dogma, the Postmodern approach operated a para-

digm shift, as it clearly demonstrated that the design process

begins with the city, proceeds inwards and then returns to the

urban scale. In the London of the late 1980s, PoMo projects such

as Embankment Place, Alban Gate and Vauxhall Cross, all started

with an urban gesture and managed to operate through archi-

tecture on the city.

After many years of experience in London, more recent

Farrells projects can be read as the result of a more advanced

version of the same process; the attention to the meso-scale of

the urban environment has led to a loop where architecture,

urban design and planning achieve the regeneration of big por-

tions of the city. The masterplan for Euston Road and Regent's

Place redevelopment are two projects that illustrate this success.

The Euston Road Masterplan set a strategic framework to

improve the existing pattern of spaces in order to create a linear

civic infrastructure Though the masterplan helped initiate a

number of key public realm projects, the noble ambition to shift

the perception of this important axis of the city as urban motor-

way to a distinctive liveable place would not be possible without

architectural-led interventions like Regent's place. Here, the

architecture responds contextually to each frontage of this

mixed-use redevelopment, activating spaces at street level and

drawing people to the internal spaces whilst protecting them

from the passing traffic of Euston road.

Triton Square – a little masterpiece of placemaking – creates

the appropriate linkage between the high-density residential

buildings and the main road, allowing a threshold between pub-

lic and private, vehicular and pedestrian spaces, the linearity of

the road infrastructure and the fabric of the northern settle-

ments. Regent's Place illustrates at a smaller scale the broader

vision set in Euston Road masterplan and serves as an urban les-

SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE

>>>

>>>

BELOW:

Farrell’s Home Office

ABOVE:Earl’s Court masterplan

ADVICE

97Issue 101 April-June 2017

Planning and Advice

ADVICE

71Issue 99 OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2016

Planning and Advice

Planning solved bydesign

Planning consultantsand architects

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13/10/2016 13:24 Page 71

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pil99 OCTOBER 2016 2.qxp_pil pp15-18 13/10/2016 13:24 Page 71

96 Planning in London

the 1930s building, a rooftop sculpture tangibly projects the

eagle imagery. Apart from being part of an integral arts strate-

gy, this celebrates the history of the site through a further quo-

tation, yet another feature of Postmodern legacy. At the height

of the movement, the quotations – particularly when historical

– were meant to provoke by deconsecrating architectural struc-

tures and elements that were supposed to be inviolable. Farrells

approach on quotation has always been more playful than

provocative, disseminating pieces of art throughout its archi-

tecture as coded messages to its audience.

Our Hatton Street Studios display on its facade a series of

wings, which allude to urban stories; they pay homage to the

past of the building, which once used to host an aircraft factory.

This use of memory make this approach particularly important

in the Information Era, fulfilling the architecture of both deno-

tative and connotative meanings by using the same playful

code of current mass-media.

There is no doubt that playfulness is a characteristic that

PoMo inherited from the pop culture. Like pop culture,

Postmodernists appealed to a broad popular audience without

trivialising the quality of their products, proposing a "double

coding" that continues to stimulate the debate on architecture

at an advanced level while offering democratic solutions. For

the Home Office, the collaboration between Farrells and artist

Liam Gillick created a better place, using art not as an add-on

but as an integral part of the architectural expression itself. At

the same time, this intervention has become well-known from

the urban perspective as it has been able to demonstrate the

feasibility of a low-rise intervention with a high capacity for

office, residential and retail uses. By clearing the area from the

previous intrusive towers, the design solution has provided an

invaluable contribution to the urban district of Westminster

and its residents by creating an inclusive, civic community.

The pluralism and openness of PoMo have been declining in

many ways until now, giving some very appropriate responses

to the ever-changing needs of a city like London. Its principles

have been unconsciously absorbed into the daily practice of

architecture, to the extent that we can now all be defined as

post-postmodernist. However, those who have been pioneering

the Postmodern approach are more aware that these very few

principles – if rightly declined – offer pertinent solutions in criti-

cal conditions and stimulate innovation in times of crisis.

We strongly believe that the more international the market

becomes, the more contextualism can help design solutions

that meet local needs and that eclecticism is still the key to

response to the complexity of reality and response to multiple

needs. We also believe that shapes, archetypes and historical

images of cities should be considered as valuable “big data” to

develop smarter cities and that architecture should preserve

multiple codes in order to be accessible to different stakehold-

ers. In addition to this, we believe that the city has to be consid-

ered as the ultimate client and democratically be transmitted

to future generations. All this considered, Brexit’s uncertainty is

only one of the many challenges that the Post-Modern Era will

have positively faced. n

SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE

>>>

ABOVE:Farrell’s offices, HattonStreet

RIGHT:The Eagle, City Road