Praeterita

I went back to England last week to attend my mother's 80th birthday. My home town of Newcastle is located about 300 miles north of London on the north-east coast, close to Scotland. It was one of the boom towns of the industrial revolution, with mighty coal mining and shipbuilding industries. The merchants who amassed great fortunes spent some of their wealth on public building, leaving a legacy of impressive architecture that looks better than ever these days, thanks to the clean-up that came along with the post-industrial urban renewal. The above photo shows the roof of Newcastle Central Railway Station. It was built in 1850, and architect used an 'arch and nave' design supported by cast-iron columns and hoops. This kind of framing, with glass roof panes, is reflected at smaller stations all around Tyneside. The street entrance of the station is a classical design of arches and pavilions in sandstone. This is also the style of Newcastle's elegant Grey Street: ...

I visited the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago recently. Renzo Piano’s building for the AIC is everything that Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum is not : light, airy, elegant, despite its size; striking without being overwhelming; and it serves the art extremely well. Every space in Piano’s design seems to be filled with natural light, presumably a combination of all the walls of glass and the innovative tile system of the roof. The materials, both inside and out, are beautiful: smooth wood, stone, glass. I know that architects can’t be expected to be the same, or to produce the same kinds of designs, but the difference in the Chicago and the Denver buildings shows a difference of attitude towards human beings. Libeskind clearly doesn’t care one bit about the effect of his buildings on people (except to be pleased when they are provoked), while Piano clearly thinks about how people will use the spaces that he creates.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader