Richard Rogers Lloyds Building - Essay Example

Richard Rogers’ Lloyd’s Building Buildings are not idiosyncratic private s: they give publicperformances both to the user and the passerby. Thus the architects responsibility must go beyond the clients program and into the broader public realm. Though the clients program offers the architect a point of departure, it must be questioned, as the architectural solution lies in the complex and often contradictory interpretation of the needs of the individual, the institution, the place and history. (Richard Rogers cited in Campbell & Rogers, 1985: 19). In the above quote, Richard Rogers hints at the underlying ideas behind his design for the Lloyd’s Building. This building, started in 1979 but not completed until 1984, is a complex combination of both Modern and Postmodern ideals that manages to evade allowing either framework to dominate. A basic description of the building indicates a tall structure with the unusual feature of having its service features exposed to the exterior and utilized as a decorative element. This follows the Modernist movement in its focus on the mechanical elements of the structure while it also reflects the postmodern element of everything being in a constant state of flux. The building was originally designed to serve as the corporate headquarters of a large insurance firm and is erected in the center of London’s financial district. This context illustrates the importance of its design as a means of reflecting the higher monetary, capitalistic values of the community and thus much in line with the Modernist ideals of the era. However, the building was also required to be highly flexible to be able to accommodate perhaps as yet unknown technologies and to adapt to often changing uses, thus reinforcing the concepts of Postmodernism. As the following investigation will prove, though, the building itself, in its focus on mechanics and materials, falls more within the realm of the Modernist movement while its means of addressing the concerns of the times and the context incorporates the values and ideas of Postmodernism. The concepts of the Modern approach focus upon the assumption that everything can be classified into specific categories and definitions. “Modernity is a project, and not only a period, and it is, or was, a project of control, the rational mastery over nature, the planning, designing and plotting which led to planomania and technocracy” (Beilharz, 2001: 6). Emerging as a product and reaction to an increasingly mechanized world in which standardization seemed inevitable; the basic practices of modernism were to take a hard and fast look at various processes to determine the universal truths of existence. The world was broken into its various component parts while clean lines and distinct boundaries were sought as a means of discovering these universal truths. Once found, it was felt these universal truths could be canonized and applied across all cultures, individuals and time periods as a means of progressing toward a more ideal civilization. The tripod upon which the theory rested was economic, political and scientific rationalization (Mourad, 1997). Economic rationalization would bring all the forces of nature into the understanding and control of intellectual processes. In similar fashion, political rationalization would subject and control the governing bodies as well as the value systems by which the ‘correct’ society would measure itself and others. Scientific rationalization operated on the premise that an objective truth for all could be discovered through the careful application of appropriate scientific methods (Mourad, 1997). These concepts, combined, began focusing attention on the various ways in which form communicates content eventually leading into the Postmodern movement. Within the Modern form of expression, it was recognized that a distinction could be made between the content of an image and the form of an image, an idea that can be restated as the difference between the sublime (as in something that cannot be visually seen or described) and the visual. While the sublime element, or the content, of the image is not something that can take on a specific universal form or visual structure, the visual or form of the image is inherently connected with the content. This is the case whether the artist intended a connection or not because art and architecture are not static as they might seem but are instead interactive. This is the idea that Rogers was expressing above, indicating that the building must necessarily interact with its audience, the political climate in which it is seen, the social ideas of the people coming into contact with it and the meanings they ascribe to the symbols they discern in the particular forms employed. As these concepts became more pronounced, Postmodernism emerged. “The political and the aesthetic are inseparable, simultaneously present, faces of the postmodern problematic” (Burgin, 1982: 14). The postmodern movement growing out of the middle 1900s began to take on new explorations of the various levels and complexities of meaning inherent within any attempt at communication. As an analysis of the term suggests, Postmodernism refers to the artistic movement which immediately followed the Modernism of the early to middle 1900s. This movement is characterized by an increased awareness of the constant interaction that occurs between the art, the artist and the audience. While this relationship had been recognized before in numerous theories and philosophical approaches to art, it wasn’t until this period that they became a central element of the ongoing discussion regarding what is considered art. Postmodernism is largely concerned with constantly investigating what is real versus what is not real as it is discovered by the artist while he creates, as it is expressed in the artwork in its completed form which includes any processes of erosion, deterioration or corruption and as it is understood by the audience as they come into contact with the art to varying depths of intimacy and relating it to their own concepts, viewpoints, experiences and personal knowledge base. Postmodern conclusions have more often revealed that there are very few distinctions that can be definitively made between reality and not reality. This is because elements that are pointed to as points of connection can simultaneously be pointed to as points of departure. The role of the artist and designer, therefore, was to explore this paradox of meaning and present a satisfactory solution in whatever form seemed to fit. Most artists tended to approach the problem of Postmodernism by attempting to “allude to something which does not allow itself to be made present” (Lyotard, 1979: 80). According to Lyotard, this is a fundamental principle of the Postmodernist movement itself. Lyotard argued that a “postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text he writes, the work he produces are not in principle governed by pre-established rules, and they cannot be judged according to a determining judgment, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. The rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking for” (Lyotard, 1979: 81). This is an idealistic conception of artistic production. It implies that an ‘innocent text’ can be produced, detached, by the conscious effort of the individual artist, from the categories established by preceding works. Kant’s theory of the sublime, on the other hand, states that “the aesthetic of the sublime is where modern art (including literature) finds its impetus, and where the logic of the avant-garde finds its axioms” (Kant, 2005: 10). For Kant, the sublime refers to an emotion that is both pleasure and pain at the same time. The pleasure is felt in the ability to appreciate the pain of the conflict that exists between the artist’s ability to conceive of something and his ability to represent it sufficiently to convey it to an audience as it was understood. While we are capable of understanding a concept of love, for example, we have no means of adequately expressing it in visual form except through abstraction. Modern art devotes itself “to presenting the existence of something unpresentable”; “it will make one see only by prohibiting one from seeing” (Kant, 2005: 11) while Postmodern art attempts to provide essential clues or hints as a means of evoking a more physical connection with the experience even if this connection is not necessarily the connection the artist had in mind, understanding that there are no universal truths. The Lloyd’s building expresses both of these approaches in its overall design approach as well as in its finished form. The finished form has a much heightened emphasis on the modern machinery and materials of the new century, with a great deal of glass and steel in obvious profusion, yet the purpose of this appearance serves postmodern ends as they are designed to be easily interchanged as needed. “Whereas the frame of the building has a long life expectancy, the servant areas, filled with mechanical equipment, have a relatively short life, especially in this energy-critical period. The servant equipment, mechanical services, lifts, toilets, kitchens, fire stairs, and lobbies, sit loosely in the tower framework, easily accessible for maintenance, and replaceable in the case of obsolescence” (Campbell & Rogers, 1985: 130-131). A full examination of this building reveals more of its modern/postmodern confusion. An essential part of the building’s design was based upon the requirement that it was expected to last no more than 50 years. This injunction was primarily a means of ensuring that the space was quickly and easily adaptable to the high demands of the postmodern age with its rapidly shifting technologies and the inherent changes to social and business life such changes might bring. In response to this directive, Rogers designed the core of the building to be a long-lasting rectangular box that could be quickly and easily adapted to a number of uses. This core is surrounded by six utility towers of varying heights designed thus to more appropriately reflect the surrounding existing structures. These utility towers house the more shifting elements of the building’s mechanisms which include the lifts, fire stairs, kitchens, mechanical systems, restrooms and lobbies. All of these elements are designed to fit only loosely within the main frame of the building core facilitating more accessibility for repair or maintenance as well as the potential, when necessary, to completely lift out these elements to be replaced with newer designs more in keeping with a future age (Forester, 2006: 5). This focus upon the adaptability of the building in order to meet with unknown future needs is perhaps the architect’s fullest expression of postmodern concepts as it is understood that a building can be utilized in numerous ways with varying technologies that don’t always fit within a universal form. The following aerial image illustrates the juxtaposition of these towers to the main structure. Although each of the towers is built to differing heights to accommodate its immediate surroundings, they are also each built to facilitate future expansion, should that be required as well. Similar to designs of the earliest skyscrapers constructed in the United States in the late 1800s, all of the structures of the Lloyd’s building make use of reinforced concrete, rather than simple masonry, walls to carry the weight. “In order to support the load along these elongated expanses between each utility tower, a gridded pillar system is incorporated into the main spaces. Though this may cause some visual noise and blockade certain viewpoint, on a whole, since the system is in such a linear pattern and uses the minimum cross section, it creates an aesthetically pleasing design and tends to give the space an even more open feel because the supports show how a wall that may have been necessary before is now replaced by a single pillar” (Forester, 2006: 8). This approach, seen somewhat in the following image, reflects the Modern approach in that it both focuses upon the materials and underlying structure of the building while also attempting to bring that structure into its most basic and essential parts. The benefit of this design is not only its ability to deliver a strong building with adequate support systems, but also in the building’s readiness to receive future additions at a moment’s notice. While ‘finished’ buildings typically require significant alterations initially before additional vertical expansion can be accomplished, the Lloyd’s building is already prepped. The design of the building pulls from numerous cultures and periods, again reflecting a more postmodern approach in its attempt to pull together the most functional and universal elements while still recognizing that there are no universals. Its dependence upon the earlier Modern designs of skyscrapers has already been mentioned in its approach to the load-bearing walls. Forester (2006) points out how the plan reflects ancient Italian palazzos in its tendency to focus public spaces on the lower floors and private spaces higher up, yet this is also a tendency in much of modern design as well. However, her basis for comparison goes further than intended use. “He [Rogers] also takes full advantage of the doughnut layout. Just as Palazzos had a central courtyard with the highest profile rooms surrounding it, as did the older high rises, the Lloyd’s Building consists of a main lobby or atrium area that is simply referred to as ‘the Room’ since, in essence, that is all it is” (Forester, 2006: 9). Vertical connections are made through the centralized escalator that provides users with continuous views of ‘the Room’ throughout their ascension as well as mimics the exterior structure of the building without unduly cluttering up the interior space. The Room also speaks to the users’ more traditional nature in its ability to reflect the aspect of the ancient churches, with their central elongated naves, upper dome and openness to the sky through its central skylight. However, this suggestion is open for interpretation as the interior space remains open for multiple uses free of restrictions in terms of established focal points. In the combination of basic traditional ideas that nevertheless manage to remain voiceless as well as in the supreme adaptability of the interior space by pushing the mechanical structures to the exterior, the building takes on definite Postmodern ideas. As has been demonstrated, the Lloyd’s building is a masterpiece of architecture that brilliantly combines the ideas of Modernism and Postmodernism into one cohesive, highly adaptable structure. Despite the seemingly equal inspiration from both schools of thought, though, it must be concluded that the Lloyd’s building operates more on the Modern than the Postmodern. This is because a great deal of its focus, in its external and internal presentation as well as in its underlying intended function, remains directed primarily upon the mechanics involved in the space and on the materials used. While Modernists generally wished to present clean lines and de-clutter the confused impressions of a world gone suddenly mad with wealth and new innovations, the Lloyd’s building’s complicated mass nevertheless serves to expose the underlying structures that cause the building to operate. Its innovation is based upon the unusual mechanical processes of being able to quickly and easily integrate new technologies and mechanisms, thus highlighting its own mechanical advancement. While Postmodern elements cannot be ignored completely, such as in the extreme adaptability of the structure, this, too, is pointed out as being the result of the Modern elements inherent in the design. Thus, the Lloyd’s building might most accurately be termed a late or High Modern design with Postmodern influences. References Beilharz, Peter. (2001). The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Burgin, Victor. (1982). Thinking Philosophically. New Jersey: Humanities Press Intl. Campbell, Barbie & Ruth Elias Rogers. (1985). Richard Rogers and Architects. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Forester, Larisa. (2006). The Lloyds Building: Richard Rogers. Ohio: University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Kant, Immanuel. (2005; orig. 1790). The Critique of Judgment. New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing. “Lloyds Building.” (2008). Great Buildings Online. Available January 12, 2009 from Lyotard, Jean-Francois. (1979). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester University Press. Mourad, R.P. (1997). “At the Forefront: Postmodern Interdisciplinarity.” The Review of Higher Education. Vol 29, N. 2, pp. 115-140. Rose, Steve. (July 21, 2007). “But Does it Work?” The Guardian. Available January 12, 2009 from Read More