Understanding Scott's building
Alan Powers on the story behind the transformation of Bankside Power Station It is now well known that Herzog & de Meuron were outsiders in the architectural Competition for the transformation of Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern. The choice of this young (-ish) Swiss prac- tice, offering the most conservative option among those involved, was one of a series of clever decisions by Sir Nicholas Serota, starting with the selection of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's massive brick box, a build- ing which was only still standing at the time of the competition in 1994 because there was a recession. Southwark Council, now so supportive of Tate Modern, then wanted to demolish the obsolete power station, egged on by Sir Andrew Derbyshire, advi- sor to its owners, Nuclear Electric. After the debacle of trying to transform Scott's much more familiar Battersea into a theme Park, there was a scepticism about power stations. Ministers refused to list it, despite repeated recommendations from English Heritage and eloquent pleading from Gavin Stamp. I can claim a modest role in turning the first cogwheel that led to the present tri- umph. As honorary secretary of the Twen- tieth Century Society, the conservation group into whose domain Bankside fell, I wanted to get inside the building to see what was there and take one or two influ- ential people who could spread the word. Sir Michael Hopkins came on a site visit with the engineer Alan Baxter, and it was .ttle latter who lobbied the Tate, which was Th. en considering two other problematic sites in London. Serota must have seen that most contemporary architects would want to build transparent buildings, which are not necessarily best suited for the display of art. Bankside offered a lot of space for the money, in a big box, and a route to avoid- ing controversy over a new design, specially had such been proposed on a Thameside site. The conservationists were delighted to have it preserved, while since it was not a listed building they could not make too much trouble about the way it was adapted.
In the course of a couple of discussions with Herzog & de Meuron as the design was being developed, I got the impression that, compared with what one would expect from British architects, they understood Scott's building without any prejudice against its traditional qualities, even though they were proposing some quite radical changes. They had no 'side' at all, which was refreshing and disarming. The finished result justifies this impression. It would be hard to say where they have put a foot wrong.
When there was a public inquiry about Scott's design in 1947, the planner Sir Patrick Abercrombie objected to the chim- ney opposite St Paul's saying, 'I would not wish to have my bath in my drawing-room, even if it were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.' Allowing for some shift in the rela- tive terminology, what is interesting now is that people do wish to have their baths designed, if not in the drawing-room, at least with a comparable level of minimalist attention to detail. The hierarchy of genre in relation to place and purpose that Aber- crombie evoked has not disappeared, but been inverted. The architectural elite has no means or desire to say anything in archi- tecture that cannot be related back in some way to the aesthetics of function, often by reference to obsolete and originally non- aesthetic structures and objects, such as one might find in a bathroom. If Bankside had just been opened with its rusty old tur- bines in place, it might have been as popu- lar as it will be when filled with rusty iron Tate Modern photographed by Marcus Leith art. It was lucky, then, to come upon such a large objet-trouve of industrial decay in the centre of London.
Although some critics have deplored the failure to produce a completely new design, architecture currently is at its best when dealing with highly figured existing condi- tions, particularly in interiors, and at its least successful when inventing in a vacu- um. This is because there is no current lan- guage of form with a vocabulary shared between maker and user through which communication can take place. The most successful contemporary exteriors are those that overstate their case, like Frank Gehry's Guggenheim in Bilbao, or Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, but the legitimate opportunities for such build- ings are rare. The rest whisper or talk platitudes.
The Royal Opera House extension might illustrate the case. It is brilliant in many respects, but the street elevations offer lit- tle to hold or gratify the eye. The same architects, Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones, have just brought off a striking transformation of the National Portrait Gallery. With virtually no exterior at all, manipulating light and space and easing the circulation of a difficult building, it is, as it were, the perfect public bathroom and Martin Gayford gave it due praise in last week's Spectator. I am sad, though, to have lost Roderick Gradidge's colourful entrance hall and beautifully crafted revolving doors at the NPG because he is a maxirnalist in an age of minimalism, repre- senting a bloody-minded opposition that favours the warm and quirky over the uni- versal contemporary cool.
English architecture will not continue to thrive for long while it remains in its pre- sent self-satisfied condition. Without returning to the style wars of the 1980s and their baleful legacy in the form of the Sainsbury Wing around the corner in Trafalgar Square, is it too much to hope for a more grown-up conversation, both about architecture and through architec- ture itself, re-making a language through which buildings can get dressed and go out on the streets? This should include a more generous attitude on the part of architects towards the existing built fabric which they are often unwilling to retain, even when compelled to, matched by a more imagina- tive while still demanding door-policy on the part of conservation's bouncers towards what gets done in old buildings, and any- where else for that matter.
In the standard monograph on Herzog & de Meuron, the critic Wilfrid Wang states that they do not seek to invent a new lan- guage, but see 'the basis of contemporary architectural communication' as 'a concep- tual transparency with articulated materi- als'. Their thoughtful way of finding design hints from materials and programme is well displayed at Bankside, but I think they are good enough to start inventing language again as well.
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