Back to the Future

'Everything proceeds from everything else' – Leonardo Da Vinci – Notebooks.

 

           The Leonardo table by Designalexable is a 3D representation of the Da Vinci drawing proportions of the human figure according to Vitruvius. Being involved in any creative area intensifies the curiosity about where ideas come from, even though it is not difficult to see how an idea such as the Leonardo table comes into being. It is simply a case of looking at an artwork as an influence for something new; a two dimensional Renaissance picture becoming a three-dimensional object formed from modern materials. Although the primary influence for turning an old image into a modern table came from my interest in the work of the Italian artist Fornsetti. This made me wonder why; especially in architectural education, there appears to be an absence in teaching about the history of design. As David Hockney says in Secret Knowledge, “we seem to live in an arrogant age and the idea that there is not much to learn from the past is rather disturbing”. This is all the more curious when we look at modern design icons and we trace their roots and influences from the past. 

 

          With very little research we can see that the Mies cantilever chair of 1926 has its seed in the Victorian metal rocking chair of 1850. It is not that the design was copied, but that technology allowed a solution, which in the case of the metal rocking chair was to emulate in metal what was already being made in wood. With the Barcelona chair we might see the seed of the design in the Roman 'X' framed chair of AD 250 and the multiple variations of this that followed. Don't get me wrong, the Barcelona chair is indeed beautiful; and it is genius to make something that appears so modern, even today, from slight variations to a design that had been in existence for centuries.

          The Casa Malparte on the island of Capri may have its root in the stone stair behind the Italian author. Consciously or sub-consciously it is a form that has a particular Italian origin. This does not detract from it being remarkable to see that form reinvented to become an entire elevation of a house.

         The idea that an idea comes from a pristine virgin birth is misleading. Designs have their own inbuilt evolution that starts with the seed of inspiration that is wrapped around a problem to be solved. None of us likes problems, but we should because problems are the starting point of creativity. It therefore stands to reason that when faced with a problem the natural thing to do is to look at how other people might have tried to solve it. Buildings are complex objects that contain a strong visual element and it should not surprise us that in an age when architecture is presented in images that architects are affected by images.

            We might therefore look at Cranfield School by Foster and see Corbusier's Maison Monol (1920). And in the Maison Monol we might see inspiration from the Hed Sed Court at the Step Pyramid, which is itself a stone manifestation of the Arab huts on the salt mashes of the Euphrates (situated in modern day Iraq). When we perceive it as part of a history 'Modernism' does not seem so modern.

              A building that has always attracted me is The Glass Pavilion (1914) by Bruno Taut. I looked at the model of this and using Photoshop, stretched it until I found that it looked a little like 'St Mary Axe'. It is well known that Foster is a big fan of Bruno Taut and I would love to know if this was the origin of 'the Gherkin'. I don't know if it was, but I do know that a knowledge of history is necessary for this form of game playing. As Foster said in his TED talk (Munich, Germany Jan 2007), “as an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future that is unknown”.

        Following this thread I noticed that the Bruno Taut Chicago Building (1922) and the Saudi tower by Foster may also be related.

        As do the Aalto Finnish Pavilion for the NYC expo (1939) and Foster's Wallbrook (2010) development.

       Similar solutions will produce similar forms and a preference for a 'traditional' or a 'modernist' form should be seen as absurd as each solution should be defined by its own context. Of course, in examples such as the Millennium Dome and its antecedent, the Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain (1954), this context can be symbolic. The Alvaro Silva museum in Port Alegre, Brazil (2009) appears to have an influence from Corbusier's Palace of Justice, Chandigarh, India (1953). These are different buildings with different uses. So, rather than the idleness of imitation, we might consider this as the passing of the baton of history. There are residues in the modern, that even if we are not aware of them, give the building substance. As Goethe said: 'Tradition is the tending of the fire, not the worship of the ashes'. 

 

          The Balancing Barn in Suffolk, England by MVRDV with Mole Architects (2009) may be a relative of the Mausoleum Presidente Castelo Branco in Fortaleza, Brazil (1970) by the architect Sergio Bernardes. But the Mausoleum itself contains strong influences from the work of the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa.

         Could the seed of inspiration for The Sage in Gateshead by Foster be The Japanese Pavilion by Shineru Ban with Frei Otto and Buro Happold at the expo in 2000? This has a similar source to the Weald and Downland Museum Gridshell (2002) by Edward Cullinan Architects with Buro Happold acting as Engineers. The Japanese pavilion itself draws on a Japanese past and a technique of construction using lightweight materials that goes back centuries, although reinterpreted to the point of invention.

             The proposal for the Gwanggyo City Centre by MVRDV Architects (2009) looks like a very modern product - a product of the concerns of today - and yet The Crystal Chain (1919) by Walter Gropius has similarities and was conceived before 'green' was considered a design objective.

              History continues, often presenting itself as 'modern', from the proposal by Mies for a Glass skyscraper (1920) to the Herzog & de Meuron at Cottbus University Library, Germany (2010). “Genius”, as Einstein noted, “is being able to hide your sources”.

          Gropius designed the Kapp Putch Memorial in 1921 but it looks like any number of projects from the late 1990s. But, what was Gropius looking at? An early design by Gropius is The Block House, which is essentially a traditional timber frame house on the Scandinavian model. Timber frame houses, both the English and Scandinavian forms are prefabricated modules with site finished, lightweight, infill panels. Soon after designing 'The Block House' Gropius became seen as the innovator of prefabrication. What I understood when studying this was that Gropius translated a traditional vernacular technique into modern materials and construction methods, and in doing so, 'invented' a new form of construction. From the old came the new through a way of seeing, not from how the thing looked, but the idea embedded within it.

             The Louvre Pyramid by I. M. Pei (1989) is not the radical piece of modern architecture it was once said to be. The Pyramid form is ancient and it was Napoleon who re-discovered the Egyptian sites, bringing his findings back to the Louvre which became the centre for Egyptology (see History of Napoleon, Vincent Cronin). So the form of the visible part of the building (most of it is underground) is locked into the history of the Louvre. The glass pyramid further respects this context, since the pyramid form has a smaller mass than a comparable rectangular enclosure. The transparent nature of the building further reduces its impact as the main Louvre building can be seen through it. The building may be modern, but it continually reinforces its context and this makes it a better solution than a more traditional approach. Although, what could be more traditional at the centre of Egyptology than a pyramid?

            'Modern' architecture likes to portray itself as original and yet when we look at the Seti I complex at Abydos, Egypt we can see many modern buildings with echoes of that simple form. 

         About three years ago Designalexable created a design by inverting the contours of the River Thames as the structure and making a viewing platform with the underside in polished stainless steel to reflect the river for The World Turned Upside Down Café, London. For me, the interesting thing is that similar forms, the contour ribs that form the structure have since appeared elsewhere. For example, Zmianatematu Café in Poland by xm3 Architects and again in an even closer resemblance in Greenhouse by Jenny Sabin in the USA. 

          The Designalexable design was completed before the others, but was never built or published, so could not have been seen. How could such similar ideas all come about in different parts of the world, completely independent of each other? Could it be that ideas have their time and emerge simultaneously when the possibility for their existence comes into being or could it simply be that a progression of other ideas that have become a common currency lead to particular forms? It could be the progression of technology, the progression of ideas or the progression of fashions or forms. Whatever the route of a design, it seems that everything is part of a progression of something else. That progression can be corralled together in one simple word: History.

 

          So, History is not the enemy of innovation. It combines with contemporary culture to play with the present: Juno (goddess of childbirth) becomes a film about teenage pregnancy; Flora (Goddess of well-being) becomes a margarine, Nike (God of competition worshipped for winning) becomes a sports brand, Dido (Greek heroine sacrificed for love) becomes a singer of 'torch songs', Think of the pharmaceutical company Roche (C14th Saint protector against the plague) or the song 'Cecilia' by Simon and Garfunkel (St Cecilia patron saint of music). Hermes (messenger of the gods) becomes a fashion house, Minerva (as in Minerva books) takes its name from Minerva goddess of wisdom and art. The list goes on and on, embedded in attitudes, language and place names. If you live in London you will know the names Kings Cross, Brent Cross, and Charring Cross. These are names that mark the route of the funeral procession of Queen Eleanor. Edward I was so distressed at his wife's death that when carrying her back to Westminster wherever the funeral procession stopped he planted a cross (London. William Gaunt p74). And an awareness of that history creates a thread through the city, a different way of seeing. The most important thing about you as a designer is 'now', but 'now' has a context, 'now' has a history and this can be significant in the creation of the future. The past can be a generator of the future. Architects and designers always use history because to be interested in design is to be interested in design history and designers are affected by the designs they admire. Education and architectural education in particular, should not try to ignore this vast resource of ideas as it is not only a loss to the design world, but all those that live in a designed environment and in the 'modern world' that is almost all of us.

Community Greening Project

              We all know things that we don't like about our communities and for me the lack of greenery in a town that is essentially in the countryside is absurd. It was not always like that, old photos show tree lined streets, but where did the trees go? The answer is that they were cut down to improve sight lines for cars. As the traffic had improved sight lines it sped up and to slow it down the Council introduced hazards  as traffic calming measures. I therefore put forward a proposal to the Council on how to reintroduced trees within the urban landscape in such a way that they integrated with the cars. The 'parklets' are half depth parking bays so there is no sight line hazard and yet this simple action allows for the regular placement of trees.

          It is important to choose the type of tree carefully and with proper research. Do not pick trees with berries and that are known to attract birds as this will create a mess and start a negative reaction against the project. The choice of trees that do not drop their leaves is more cost effective to the Local Council who do not want  to allocate a part of their budget to clear up leaves every year.

                   More examples of work by Alex King can be seen at : Alex King Design

Designing for Earthquakes

Rebuilding Christchurch, NZ in the aftermath of 'the big one' - just published by the New Zealand Ministry of Culture.
Phoenix, Christchurch, New Zealand

See a video of the project at: Project Phoenix

Power to you...

The design of the vertical power poles (VWT) in the above picture, was a response to the immediate needs of people in the aftermath of a major earthquake. Survivors talked of being trapped in the dark, battery life of mobile phones failing, injured in the darkness and cut off all communication. In such situations off grid power sources become all important. What would be needed was a power source that could be placed in close proximity to buildings and be able to provide lighting, free Wifi and charge points for phones. None of the technologies used to meet this challenge are new, and yet it led to exploring the possibilities for sustainable power generation opportunities in unlikely places.

We are what Buckminster Fuller called “energy slaves” and with World energy consumption predicted to increase by 40% by 2030, access to sustainable power sources is becoming increasingly important. The argument by traditional power companies is that sustainable power cannot generate enough power on a sustained basis – but maybe it is that new technologies require new ways of thinking about where they are placed and how they are used.

I am trying to follow Jacques Franco's idea 'of not complaining without offering an alternative solutions' – or as Fuller put it: “you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”. If 35% of energy created is lost in transmission, it would make sense that any new model is likely to work on local supplies – possibly as a bi-product of other activities. As in the above picture, could vertical wind turbines be placed in the dividing space on busy motorways or indeed beside railway tracks or the runways of international airports? How much energy could be harvested from the air-flow in such situations? With a slight modification the fixed baffles that increase energy production could ensure that there was no dangerous spray from the devices in bad weather. The power from existing wind turbines is reduced to a restricted rotation to reduce noise – but noise would not be a problem in such situations. We live in a strange World where the MOD in the UK are protesting against wind turbines in Cornwall UK as a 'security threat' and in the USA a 'nuclear weapons facility' tries to earn itself some 'Green' credentials by claiming to 'be powered by the largest Federal wind farm' and this makes some strange ideas seem really quite sane.

In Korea there are electric buses in operation that charge wirelessly from the road. Could this be the future for cars? Is there also the possibility to generate energy from the movement of the traffic on the road? Maybe we are just not seeing all the energy sources available to us? Could the movement of people on a busy street, the pressure of their movement on the pavement, provide the energy to light the street, or train terminal, or airport? This might seem 'off the wall', but apparently a night club is taking people power literally and harvests power generated by the movement on the dance floor. It sounds like I'm 'talking out of my behind', but 'Poop Power' has also been suggested as a serious sustainable option and let's face it, there is an almost unending supply of the stuff. It's the methane gas bi-product that provides the power source in this idea and why couldn't a sewage treatment plant not power itself by the methane it produces? Instead of just letting the methane from landfill drift up into the atmosphere, why not capture it and use it? If the methane from 'Fresh Kills' was utilized, it probably wouldn't be enough to power NYC, but it could help reduce consumption on existing resources.

Using energy created as a bi-product as something else is an attractive idea and it points to the idea that future power generation will be localized. In the USA an architect was asked to look at power generation for an olive factory – they had PV panels, but the factory operated day and night, so they needed to supplement the power source. He discovered that their waste product – olive pips, could be used as bio mass, which reduced the factories waste and provided power at the same time – other factories across Europe are using this idea, but could the idea be replicated with other waste products in other industries?

It is likely that there is no one sustainable solution to the energy problem, but rather that it is a case of using combinations of different energy producing solutions to meet different modern demands. It is 'eco – logical', we have the technological capability, 'the Future' is already here – it just isn't very well distributed yet. This means that as energy demand sky-rockets government policies should include measures for implementing the distribution of sustainable technologies and in a sense there is some movement in this direction, but we the general public have to do our bit.

Here is an idea that you can try at home and it is one that if you live in the right climatic conditions, will reduce your heating bills to almost zero. It is possible to heat your home from the air by using an 'air source heat pump'. My father has installed one in his home (see above photo) and so far the heating and hot water bills are a fraction of what he paid in a quarter with a traditional system. If he linked the pump to a PV Solar panel his heating and hot water would cost almost zero. I had thought that the system would need underfloor heating, but watch the 'air source heat pump' video on Youtube and it seems that some people have made the system work on a 'traditional' radiator system. Governments need to provide incentives to retrofit such technology in the same way as they might promote Solar PV panels.

How we generate energy is becoming increasingly important: Imagine a planet where everyone had $10,000,000.00 – but no basic resources: no clean drinking water, no arable land or access to food, what do they actually have of real value? It's a matter of offering alternatives to Fukushima and fracking, so let's put our heads together and see what we can do.

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouseʼ won the British Homes Awards in 2011.

Calling himself 'Designalexable', he occasionally puts a selection of what passes through his head on a blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

The Greenwich Foot Tunnel

            The Greenwich foot tunnel is one of London's great social engineering projects, and yet since the tube line extension created a direct link to the centre of Greenwich, it has in recent years become less used. Tourists occasionally wander through it to see the view that Canaletto made famous from Island Gardens and there has been renovation of the lifts, but this cannot sweep away the feeling that the structure could close to public use at any time.

               This structure was one of the great engineering feats of it's time. There had been tunnels through rock, but this was a tunnel through wet mud, with dangerous methane pockets (they tunneled by candle light), under London’s great water way. The Council surveyor for the tunnel informed me that the tunnel moves with the tide, “achieving a banana like shape when the tide is fully out”.

           

             The attached sketches/watercolors/part hand measured drawings were done as part of a historic study to describe the building in a style similar to the way it would have been presented when first created.

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

Look after your staircase... It may be the only diagonal you've got (2)

    

              In look after your staircase... It may be the only diagonal you've got (1) I was in raptures over the Nelson Stair in the Courthold Institute, Somerset House, and rather flippantly bemoaned that it is rare to see such flamboyant design in modern buildings. Of course, there are many modern flamboyant stairs and I thought that I would share a few that I like in the hope that they might inspire. 

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

On ugliness and beauty

“Beauty is sin deep” – Saki ¹

Coleridge defined beauty as 'unity in variety'

    Many places that are considered 'beautiful' contain horrible histories, grim realities that funded their construction or saved them from destruction. Venice 'trafficked in slaves, ignored her poor, dissipated her resources and exacted immoderate revenge on her enemies3. But does this, all these centuries later, detract from 'her' beauty? Venice is a place generally recognized as beautiful, romantic - a favorite place to visit for honeymooners and those on a romantic weekend and 'It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness'⁴ and yet 'we are merely the resultant of previous generations, we are also the resultant of their errors, passions, and crimes; it is impossible to shake off this chain'⁵. This monument to wealth and power that we perceive as 'beautiful' is built on the misery of others: 'the revived restrictions on the slave trade... aroused a great deal of discontent among the Venetians' who became involved in 'wars against the Croats, the Slavs, The Holy Land, The Greeks, The Hungarians, Belgrade, Rhodes, suppressing any would be power that might adversely affect its trading routes' ⁶.  The history that is the foundation to all that visual beauty becomes lost in some sort of collective amnesia, it sinks into the marshy waters and we are suitably impressed by all the facades that were built to impress. There is a disassociation with the place, the way it looks, and the history that created the wealth that funded the buildings we call beautiful – why?

            The past that produced the historic built environment is presented as a 'Golden Age', whatever the era and before WWI and WWII, the cities of Europe were filled with grand historic buildings that became casualties in the fighting. Even before those events one of the main jewels in historic Europe was Prague. Sometimes called 'the city of silence', there is a history in Prague that is rarely mentioned: As a tourist in Prague I admired Staromestske Namesti (Old Town Square), the Astronomical clock and the delightful buildings that weave towards the statues of the Charles Bridge, across the river and up to Prague Castle. I read Kafka and about Kafka, and about the atrocities by the Russian Communists that ended with 'The Velvet Revolution'. Eventually, after drinking coffee outside a street café, I climbed a magnificent modern spiral stair* looking for a toilet. Outside the toilet was a sign – 'These toilets are for the use of those visiting the Art Gallery ONLY. Being a respectful person, I visited the Art Gallery. I walked around the gallery, not intending to spend much time there, then a beautiful painting of a girl beside a river caught my eye. I liked the colours and the way the painting seemed to be suffused with the joys of Spring. I read the label stuck on the wall..... 'died Bergen Belsen. I was shocked. The pretty joy of the canvas was as removed from the death camps as was possible. I looked at the next canvas, same thing: 'died Bergen Belsen'. Every sign in the gallery said the same thing. I went to speak to the girl on the desk and she enlightened me: “To save the city from harm, the city Governors (Sudeten Party) traded the people to the Nazis”. When I went outside the buildings did not seem so beautiful. They seemed almost creepy, a stage set behind which piled up the bodies of the death camps. Here lies a philosophical dilemma: was it right to trade thousands of lives to preserve a city for future generations on the basis that it is considered 'beautiful'? If you think the answer to that is “yes”, then would it still be “yes” if it were your family, your Grandmother, your mother, your daughter? Does it make any difference if the target group is a religious group, 'intellectuals', 'deviant artists', political beliefs or because of the colour of your skin – all of who were targeted and ended up in the death camps? Can the city still be considered 'beautiful' when we become aware of the horror of it's history, of the thinking that allows it to exist? Surely, a good building graces it's environment, not disgraces it and why it is still standing there is surely as important as how 'attractive' it might be deemed to look within the street scene.

 

Mengo, capital of Buganda prior to the effects of slavery

     Similar stories of grand historic buildings standing on human misery are everywhere, from the slave plantations of the Caribbean and the Americas, to the 'elegant' streets of European ports where merchants and 'ordinary' people benefited from the slave trade⁷. Can such places be ethically conserved if they are separated from their social history? My personal experience⁸ is that such buildings are appreciated separated from their social history, which is actively suppressed. It seems that the buildings of the past are held up as an example⁹, but that example is sometimes a selective construct and we should ask the question 'why are some parts of the history are edited out'.

      The history behind the facades of historic buildings as a record of atrocities extends beyond WWII, the slave trade and far back into history. 'Languedoc (France) is now a peaceful land, but during the 13^th Century it was the site of one of the most vicious episodes in medieval history. It was invaded and there was a bitter battle for the soul of the people of the region, a battle in which beauty was used as a political weapon'¹⁰. This story focuses on The Cathars, a pacifist, religious sect inspired by the mysticism and non-materialism of Christ's teaching. 'It now seems extraordinary that one of the most fanatical and bloodthirsty crusades undertaken by Roman Catholic Christians in the Middle Ages was... against' its own people, 'a people that venerated Christ' and 'the crusaders were just as bloodthirsty in Languedoc as they had been in The Holy Land'¹⁰.

        Albi cathedral is at the center of this story and it is like no other cathedral in Europe. 'Built using treasure seized from persecuted families' the new regime sponsored by the Catholic Church of Rome extorted or confiscated money and property from the local people and 'property continued to be confiscated for the completion of the cathedral – which took over 100 years' ¹⁰. For the local people at the time the cathedral was being built, it must have seemed like 'an emblem of evil' and yet we might look at the buildings across the river Tarn on a spring day and think “how beautiful”. Is it beautiful? when we preserve such monuments, what are we actually preserving? When we visit the Vatican museum and see the wealth of objects displayed, do we consider where they come from? When we understand their history, soaked in blood and persecution, are they still beautiful, and if the answer to that is “yes”, then what does that say about our ideas of beauty and the power of aesthetics on moral perception?

        Buildings of the past have a history, the impressive monuments to wealth and power that form the streets of Europe's big cities are often the product of something we would rather forget. To articulate the past does not mean to recognize it 'the way it really was' as 'the past can only be seized as an image'¹¹ - our entire sensibility is locked into the time we occupy, with its own historical influences, concerns, tastes and fashions. We experience the past separated from its context, distanced from its embedded tradition : 'a statue of Venus stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks, who made it an object of veneration, than with the clerics of the Middle Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol'¹¹. Outside of this context there is sometimes a conscious act to reverse history, particularly with damage done by the different sides in the Second World War.

Market Square in the Old Town, Warsaw, Poland 1945

 

Market Square in the Old Town, Warsaw, Poland 1970

           From the reconstruction of Ypres (Belgium) or Market Square in the Old Town, Warsaw, Poland, to the rebuilding of Riga or Dresden, sometimes the act of 'Conservation' actively seeks to erase the past and restore things to how they were before the tragic event that led to their destruction: This is 'Conservation' of the built environment as active historical revisionism. 'We did not want a new city... we wanted the Warsaw of our day and that of the future to continue the ancient tradition'¹² explained the conservation chief of Warsaw's medieval city centre when it was proposed that it be restored so that it looked exactly as it did before the Nazi destruction. The rebuilding of a 'replica' of what had been is not an 'ancient tradition', traditionally after events, such as the destruction of Chicago or the Fire of London, people tried to use the situation as an opportunity to improve on what had been. The rebuilding of an exact replica of a place prior to a destructive act – particularly an occupation or act of war, is therefore 'Cconservation' as an act of political defiance that seeks to write the event out of history.

      An example of two, almost opposite, approaches in the rebuilding after an act of war would be to compare Coventry, England, with Dresden, Germany. Coventry was one of the first cities to be 'carpet bombed' by the Nazi aggressors, and they saw it as so 'successful' an act of destruction that they reportedly referred to later cities that they 'carpet bombed' as 'having been Coventried'¹³. With the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral, Basil Spence did not seek to rebuild the destroyed Gothic Cathedral or even to build in a 'historical style', but rather to keep the ruin of the destroyed cathedral as a record of the destruction and interconnect that space with the new building. The space within the ruins of the Gothic Cathedral becomes an event space, an open air chapel that seems to stretch back in history to the dawn of religion. As the buildings interconnect this almost becomes the entrance courtyard to the new building. The cross on the alter of the new building is formed of building elements fused together during the firestorm in the destruction of the original, and this seeks to connect the present to the past in the central focus of the new building; reinforcing history and the sense of place that the building inhabits. This is a modern building that speaks of history and is 'rich in invention' and has a 'real feeling of symbolism' ¹⁴.

       There is symbolism in Dresden too, the Frauenkirche may be a recreation of what was destroyed, however, 'over 2,000 original fragments were re-used in this reconstruction'¹⁵ creating a patchwork of dark original stones among the modern stonework. Therefore, the building seeks to appear as if the event never occurred and at the same time reminds us that it did. Is what we are looking at 'reconstruction', or is it more? 'Memory is a deep and complex phenomenon. It requires internalization and intensification; it means the interpenetration of all the elements of the past'¹⁶. This is important as it stops the building from being a mere replica, as the history of the building is embedded in its fabric for all to see. It seems to describe more than recollection as a reversal of an event, 'It is not simply a repetition but rather a rebirth of the past; it implies a creative and constructive process' ¹⁷. The inclusion of the burnt stones at Dresden show a past that has been re-collected and organized and assembled into a focus of thought.

The Frauenkirche, Dresden, Germany – reconstruction with reclaimed stones

             Is either approach to the rebuilding after the destruction 'better' than the other? If the quality of a modern building cannot be guaranteed, is the 'recreation' approach the safest approach for a city trying to recover? 'Since antiquity, beauty has been regarded as possessing a privileged relation to the truth'¹⁸ and Alain de Botton makes the point that 'bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design'¹⁹. If that statement is true, should we be worried? As Katherine Shonfield noted, the 'future ultimately rests on ideas we have about it'²⁰. So what does the increasing power of the conservation movement say about our views of the future? Nietzsche argued in 'The Use and Abuse of History' that 'the past mobilized against ideas of the present robs us of our future'^<1. But does it, or does it just create a different future? Is the 'recreation' of Dresden not a modern construct, a product of our time, a modern political act that seeks to validate itself through the promotion of the illusion of continuity with the past? If this is true, does it matter? Are not people, wherever they are, just seeking to create the environments that they wish to inhabit? With this in mind, it might be interesting to think on what the rebuilding of Iraq might look like and whether anyone other than the Iraqi people could do it successfully? Speed, security and lack of finance will probably create an environment that no one would want to live in, but if these were not issues, what would be produced and how would it reflect the Iraqi people's attitude towards recent events? How would it be perceived if the Iraqi people chose to restore Baghdad so that it appeared exactly as it had done before the fall of Saddam?

      Research undertaken by CABE in 2008 found that for most people 'beauty was important' and if from antiquity the idea of beauty is linked to truth,'from this follows that an ugly object is a negation not just of beauty, but of truth. Ugliness belongs to whatever negates the truth. It belongs to a series of categories which similarly distort the truth of things....It has negated what is real, what is a true object of thought'²². So maybe Le Corbusier was right when he said, 'a good building is an honest building'²³. Although 'when Coleridge tried to define beauty, he returned always to one deep thought; beauty, he said, is unity in variety'²⁴.

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

1 Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) P287 Brit Wit Susie Jones 2004 ISBN 1 84024 415 1

2 The image of Venice 'Canaletto meets the future' is by Alex King ©Alex King 1995.

3 The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton - . P135 - Ideals of home. 2007 ISBN 978-0-141-01500-2

4 The Kreutzer Sonata – Tolstoy - Dictionary of quotations 1994 Geddes & Grosset P53 ISBN 1 85534 743 1

5 'Use and Abuse of History'. Nietzsche. P21.

6 Francesco's Venice – Francesco Da Mosto - P39 -P48.

7 There are many books documenting the Slave trade both specific and as incidental to other histories: Bristol slave trade: 'Conquerors of Time' by Trevor Fishlock, 1988, Chapter 7, Page 77. also 'The scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham – ISBN 0-349-10449-2 which describes the organization of traders such as Tippu Tib in the capturing of people for trade as slaves. Pakenham's book also includes an illustration of Mengo, capital of Buganda, the largest kingdom in central Africa and excerpts from missionary journals describing the structure of the society. What becomes clear from Pakenham's book is that many of the problems in Africa today are a direct result of Europeans creating countries with complete disregard for the local tribes and their land rights. The genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s was a product of this as is the continuing conflict in Nigeria.

8 'Terminology, Heritage and being 'Modern' by Alex King - read it at The Urban Times.

9 See Prince's Trust.

10 Adventure's in Architecture - 1996 – Dan Cruickshank - P26 'Beauty' ISBN 978 0 297 84444 0

10 IBID – P27.

10 IBID – P31.

11 Ranke quoted in Illuminations. Walter Benjamin. 1955. P247. ISBN 0-7126-6575-7

11 Illuminations. Walter Benjamin. 1955. P217. ISBN 0-7126-6575-7.

12 The Past is a Foreign Country – David Lowenthal. P46 quoting: Lorentz, 'Reconstruction of the old town centers of Poland' P46-47. See also: 'Protection of monuments' p 420.

13 Source: Yesterday Channel documentary – 'Secrets of World War II'.

14 Sir John Summerson, AA Files No 26. 1993 P69.

15 'Adventure's in Architecture' - 1996 – Dan Cruickshank - P132 'Beauty' ISBN 978 0 297 84444 0.

16 'Matiere et memoire'. Bergson.

17 'An essay on man'. Ernst Cassirer. P51 1944. Yale University Press.

18 'The Ugly'. Mark Cousins. AA Files No 28. 1994. P61.

19 'The Architecture of Happiness'. Alain de Botton. 2006. P248. ISBN 978-0-141-01500-2.

20 'Purity & Tolerance'. Katherine Shonfield. AA Files 28. 1994. P34.

21 'The Use and Abuse of History'. Nietzsche – See P172-173 'The Story of Philosophy'. Bryan Magee. 2001.

22 'The Ugly'. Mark Cousins. AA Files No 28. 1994. P61.

23 Corbusier is in this statement applying an idea that permeates philosophy to building: beauty and truth are linked. From Socrates 'Dinner Party' via Plato's 'Symposium' to statements such as 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know' – Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn.

24 The Divine Proportion – a study in Mathematical beauty. H. E. Huntly P14 .1970. quoting J. Bronowski – 'Science and Human Values' (Pelican 1964) p29-30.

*The stair and gallery are located at The House of The Black Madonna, Stare Mesto, Prague1.