1
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:08,360
In the 1930s,
five children were born

2
00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,880
who grew up with dreams
of building a better world.

3
00:00:14,720 --> 00:00:17,040
And that's exactly what they did.

4
00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:22,480
The architecture of Norman Foster,
Richard Rogers,

5
00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:25,840
Michael Hopkins, Nicholas Grimshaw
and Terry Farrell

6
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:27,800
can be found across Britain
and the globe.

7
00:00:31,360 --> 00:00:34,800
In their youth, they collaborated,
and their work was hailed

8
00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:39,200
as a radical new style
of architecture - high-tech.

9
00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:41,520
In later years, they became rivals.

10
00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:43,960
Their buildings were
sometimes controversial,

11
00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:47,800
but they turned into the most
successful generation of architects

12
00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:50,040
Britain has ever produced.

13
00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:54,400
In this series, for the first time,
all five of them tell their story.

14
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,920
From housing to high culture,
from offices to airports,

15
00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:06,840
the world we live in now
is the world that they designed.

16
00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:15,440
This programme contains
some strong language.

17
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:47,080
If you've bought a ticket
for a tourist flight into space,

18
00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:49,720
the last building you'll see
as you leave Earth

19
00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:54,200
will have been designed by one of
the most successful architects
on the planet -

20
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:55,800
Norman Foster.

21
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:06,760
New Mexico is home to the world's
first commercial spaceport,

22
00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:11,960
both spacecraft hangar
and, from 2014, passenger terminal.

23
00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:15,640
Everything's all under one roof
and that roof

24
00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:18,040
is almost like the contours
of the desert.

25
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:19,880
So environmentally,

26
00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:20,920
it's very efficient.

27
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:27,640
And it brings together
the drama and the excitement,

28
00:02:27,640 --> 00:02:31,640
makes space travel accessible
beyond the few.

29
00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:34,360
In that way,
it opens up a new era of flying.

30
00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:49,920
I love flight.
I love flying as a pilot...

31
00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:53,120
..and the poetry of flying.

32
00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:58,080
Um...so you can imagine
the appeal of that project.

33
00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:06,760
Over the past four decades,

34
00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:11,080
Foster has built futuristic
structures all over the world.

35
00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:18,200
But to understand what inspired him,

36
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,080
you need to go back
to post-war Britain

37
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,960
and the comic he read as a teenager.

38
00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:33,040
I think the Eagle
was the romance of technology.

39
00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:39,680
There was a vitality

40
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:42,520
in the very freshness
of its graphics...

41
00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:48,360
..and the celebration
of making things.

42
00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:54,240
Back in the '60s,
Foster collaborated for several years

43
00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:59,120
with another architect
who, like him, is now a lord.

44
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,360
Opposite one of Rogers'
most famous creations,

45
00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:17,560
the headquarters
of Lloyd's of London,

46
00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:20,840
his architectural practice
has been building a new tower,

47
00:04:20,840 --> 00:04:22,680
nicknamed the Cheese Grater.

48
00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:42,640
I've always had this belief
that towers,

49
00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:45,680
in fact buildings,
should express their structure.

50
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:50,400
Clearly, towers
have a tremendous potential

51
00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:52,080
because they're reaching upwards.

52
00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:55,320
You've got to...you've got to have
a big...a big structure.

53
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:01,120
What can you actually create which
is more humanistic than just a box?

54
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:05,040
On the whole, for instance,
offices are just rectangular boxes.

55
00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:10,080
This tower thickens out at its base,

56
00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:12,960
where seven storeys
have been scooped away

57
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,640
to create something Rogers
often campaigns for -

58
00:05:15,640 --> 00:05:16,840
public space.

59
00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:31,560
Rogers, like Foster,

60
00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:35,480
can trace some of his architectural
inspirations back to his youth.

61
00:05:35,480 --> 00:05:37,400
One of my first presents,
I remember,

62
00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:38,960
was a tiny box of Meccano.

63
00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:48,520
And I have always enjoyed Meccano.

64
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:52,880
Though Rogers and Foster

65
00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:56,600
are the best-known British
architects of their generation,

66
00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:01,240
three of their close contemporaries
have also built a global reputation.

67
00:06:16,760 --> 00:06:18,160
Earlier in his career,

68
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:21,200
Michael Hopkins collaborated
with Norman Foster,

69
00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:23,560
just as Richard Rogers had done,

70
00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:25,360
and for Hopkins too,

71
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,600
a '40s childhood inspired
a life in architecture.

72
00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:32,000
I went to school,
I did absolutely no work at all

73
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:35,640
and I was always able to sort of
bunk off on my bike

74
00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:37,440
when other boys were playing games.

75
00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:44,200
I started sort of becoming aware
of buildings in the countryside

76
00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:47,880
and enjoying them and feeling...
feeling good about them.

77
00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:50,440
I used to go out bicycling a lot.

78
00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:03,680
Over 50 years later,

79
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:07,160
Hopkins Architects designed
the London Olympic velodrome.

80
00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:12,520
It's a Pringle, isn't it,
it got called?

81
00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:13,640
It's a beautiful form

82
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,880
and it begins to tell me
something about, from the outside,

83
00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:18,640
what's going on in the inside.

84
00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:25,040
Buildings must be legible
and easy to understand.

85
00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:29,560
As you arrive into
the stadium space,

86
00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:31,720
you're arriving
in a theatre of sport.

87
00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:35,640
CHEERING

88
00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:37,240
Hopkins learnt his craft

89
00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,920
at London's Architectural
Association.

90
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,000
One of his fellow students there
in the early '60s

91
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,920
went on to create Britain's
most visited work

92
00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:49,240
of high-tech architecture -
the Eden Project.

93
00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:00,920
Over the last decade,

94
00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:04,640
Grimshaw's firm has become
a major player in New York,

95
00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:08,480
building everything from
a public housing scheme in the Bronx

96
00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:11,520
to the Fulton Street
transit interchange.

97
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:16,880
It's ten floors,
three floors underground

98
00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:18,520
and the key thing is

99
00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:20,320
it's got a kind of opening
in the top.

100
00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:24,600
You can get a shaft of sunlight
coming down like that...

101
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:28,560
..right down to this level here

102
00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:30,920
and you get a patch of sun
down there.

103
00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:36,480
This is going be
a great meeting place,

104
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:40,280
through which hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of people,

105
00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:42,120
will go every day.

106
00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:47,080
So the idea of making it beautiful
is quite important

107
00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,960
and I think if you're just
lifting the spirits of people,

108
00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:52,280
you're doing something.

109
00:08:56,720 --> 00:08:59,760
And for the first 15 years
of his professional life,

110
00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:03,360
Nick Grimshaw's partner
was Terry Farrell.

111
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:19,920
The biggest Farrell buildings
in recent years

112
00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:21,560
can be found in China.

113
00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:28,320
Biggest of all, at 1,449 feet,

114
00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:31,600
is the KK100 Tower in Shenzhen.

115
00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:36,200
The tower is the tallest
by a British architect.

116
00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:40,160
It was the tallest building
built in that year -

117
00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:41,640
in other words, in 2011,

118
00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:44,160
there was nothing else taller
in the world built.

119
00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:00,800
There aren't many like it.

120
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:02,920
It's not symmetrical both ways.

121
00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:05,200
I like to think
it's like a blade of grass.

122
00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,840
MUSIC: "I Don't Want To Set The World
On Fire" by The Ink Spots

123
00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:19,760
# I don't want
to set the world on fire... #

124
00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,240
For Farrell,
like the rest of these '30s babies,

125
00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:27,840
a life in construction
began with six years of destruction.

126
00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:31,960
My main memories of the war

127
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,440
was the shelter my father built
with my uncle,

128
00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:38,320
and I was fascinated -
here were men, doing men's things,

129
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:39,880
digging a hole in the ground,

130
00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:44,080
putting this metal corrugated thing
under and filling it over.

131
00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:50,960
Another formative experience
came soon after the war,

132
00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:54,440
when Terry's family moved
to a Newcastle council estate.

133
00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:56,360
Their house had been built
with a process

134
00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:00,040
which his generation of architects
would later make great use of -

135
00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:01,680
prefabrication.

136
00:11:01,680 --> 00:11:04,280
It was designed
in an aircraft factory.

137
00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:08,320
It was a steel-frame house
clad in...in asbestos.

138
00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:11,120
Farrell's working-class background

139
00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:12,880
would give him
a different perspective

140
00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:16,280
to most in the privileged world
of British architecture,

141
00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:18,560
and he wasn't the only Northern lad
in this group

142
00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:21,760
to benefit from a place
at grammar school.

143
00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:26,640
Norman Foster and I were probably
born just a couple of miles apart.

144
00:11:27,880 --> 00:11:30,200
NORMAN FOSTER: It was a fairly
tough neighbourhood -

145
00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:32,800
I mean, an area where people
worked with their hands

146
00:11:32,800 --> 00:11:34,520
and if you didn't work
with your hands,

147
00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:37,680
if you were interested in books
rather than other things,

148
00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:40,880
then you were very suspect
and given quite a hard time.

149
00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:51,160
Richard Rogers also came
to British architecture

150
00:11:51,160 --> 00:11:53,720
as something of an outsider -

151
00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,000
his family was Anglo-Italian

152
00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,520
and his earliest years
were spent in Florence.

153
00:11:58,520 --> 00:12:03,080
But when his parents fled
Mussolini's dictatorship in 1938,

154
00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:05,720
the five-year-old Rogers
got a crash course

155
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:07,800
in the English side of his heritage.

156
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:10,720
Especially in the beginning
of the war,

157
00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:13,360
either being Italian or German
was a bad thing

158
00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:14,960
and going to a small primary school,

159
00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:18,240
you know, bullying was,
er...prevalent, um...

160
00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:20,160
So I was pretty suicidal at school,

161
00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:22,560
especially in my primary school,
I really was suicidal.

162
00:12:23,560 --> 00:12:25,480
Being dyslexic,
as I found very much later,

163
00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:28,080
my aim in life
was to be second from last

164
00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,400
rather than bottom of the class
for most of my life.

165
00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:35,160
Hopkins and Grimshaw came from
more comfortable backgrounds,

166
00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:38,720
but they too were formed partly
by the experience of hardship.

167
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:42,520
I know all the other architects
you're filming -

168
00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:46,760
of course, we all were brought up
in years of serious austerity.

169
00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:49,680
We had, for instance,
utility furniture,

170
00:12:49,680 --> 00:12:53,000
which was furniture that had to be
approved by the government

171
00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:55,600
for using the minimum amount
of materials.

172
00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:58,040
No decoration, no frills.

173
00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:02,920
In 1951, however,
the teenage architects-to-be

174
00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:05,320
were given a glimpse
of a brighter future.

175
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:07,640
# The Festival of Britain is here

176
00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:10,240
# People are welcome
from everywhere... #

177
00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:12,320
When I went down
to the Festival of Britain,

178
00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:14,920
it made a big impression on me.

179
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,960
I particularly remember
the Dome of Discovery,

180
00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:21,480
which was a marvellously
futuristic shape.

181
00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:23,360
It was a damn good building,
actually.

182
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:28,760
I mean, if you took Richard's
Millennium Dome,

183
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:30,720
you could see a definite analogy,
actually,

184
00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:32,320
quite fascinatingly, there.

185
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:37,640
And the Skylon,
which was a marvellous bit

186
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:40,840
of "look, no hands"
structural virtuosity.

187
00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:46,680
These were, er...perhaps
even more exotic

188
00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:50,720
because of the...
the drab surroundings.

189
00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:58,680
The whole atmosphere was
determinedly sort of modernistic.

190
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:05,240
Across the rest of Britain too,

191
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,680
architecture quickly became
the promise of a better tomorrow,

192
00:14:08,680 --> 00:14:11,680
as the bombed-out nation
was rebuilt.

193
00:14:11,680 --> 00:14:15,200
You know, the optimism of
building houses for people

194
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,120
that are coming back from the war,
of building schools,

195
00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:21,800
of building hospitals,
er...of doing urban planning...

196
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,800
Changing the world was very much
on the agenda at that time.

197
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:31,400
Britain's post-war buildings
weren't nearly-new -

198
00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:33,960
they were products
of the modern movement.

199
00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:38,080
They followed the example set since
the '20s by Continental architects,

200
00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,960
such as Le Corbusier
and Mies van der Rohe.

201
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:45,080
Architecture for the machine age,
where form followed function

202
00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:46,960
and less was more.

203
00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:50,200
This kind of architecture makes
no attempt to disguise itself

204
00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:52,080
in a false and conventional style.

205
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:58,240
The goal of the modern movement
was healthier, lighter,

206
00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:01,200
better architecture for everyone.

207
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,480
So, at the birth of
the welfare state,

208
00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:06,720
modernism seemed a natural fit
for public buildings.

209
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:14,520
Young people wanting to change
the world saw modernism as the way

210
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:19,520
to do so, which is why Hopkins,
Grimshaw and Rogers

211
00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:22,600
all headed to the same place
for their architectural training.

212
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:26,800
There was only one school that
taught modern architecture in Britain

213
00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:28,840
and that was The Architecture
Association.

214
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:31,360
Every other school
was teaching Neoclassicism.

215
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,840
Michael Hopkins found more
than his education at the AA -

216
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:39,160
he also met his future collaborator
and wife Patricia.

217
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:45,560
There were 400 boys
and about ten girls...

218
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:48,480
so you made a beeline
for the prettiest girl.

219
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:52,320
I remember Michael coming into the
little cafe with very tight jeans,

220
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:56,720
washed leather jacket
and a book on ballet under his arm,

221
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,040
um, and I thought "Urgh, what a...

222
00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:02,160
"He's just showing off."

223
00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:05,200
But it obviously made a mark.

224
00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:07,440
Thanks to a scholarship,
Terry Farrell

225
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:11,040
completed his architectural
training in the United States.

226
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:15,440
JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

227
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:19,880
I had five days at sea and sailed
in past the Statue of Liberty

228
00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:24,600
into New York and I could see
that this was a life-changer.

229
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:29,400
# Somewhere beyond the sea

230
00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:32,240
# Somewhere waiting for me... #

231
00:16:32,240 --> 00:16:33,880
Unusually for the time,

232
00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:38,280
Foster and Rogers also made the
pilgrimage across the Atlantic.

233
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:39,760
Couldn't believe our eyes.

234
00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:42,600
The scale and the buildings
were soaring up and down

235
00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:44,000
these amazing avenues.

236
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:46,880
That certainly was a shocker.

237
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:51,560
It really knocked us out.

238
00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:55,400
When I got to America
I felt I'd come home.

239
00:16:55,400 --> 00:16:58,200
I think it changed the way
that I looked at things.

240
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:04,120
You had this feeling
that everything was possible.

241
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:10,560
Terry's postgraduate studies
took him to Philadelphia.

242
00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:12,320
Richard and Norman enrolled at Yale,

243
00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:16,120
where the two rapidly became
collaborators and close friends.

244
00:17:16,120 --> 00:17:20,320
Norman was a brilliant,
fantastically strong draftsman,

245
00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:22,800
where I could hardly
hold a pencil in comparison.

246
00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,160
When we first came together
at Yale it seemed to me

247
00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:29,080
that you know, Richard
had all the...

248
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:32,120
the qualities
that in a way I admired.

249
00:17:32,120 --> 00:17:35,560
My memory of the most exciting
intellectual talks

250
00:17:35,560 --> 00:17:39,240
that I've ever had in my life
were the ones with Norman.

251
00:17:39,240 --> 00:17:42,760
We argued about
how to change the world.

252
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:47,240
It was a great period
and, for me, very liberating.

253
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:52,600
I did a lot of drawing,
a lot of thinking,

254
00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:57,000
and a lot of travelling and I really
immersed myself in America.

255
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:03,760
We just worked like hell
day and night, and at the end of

256
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:09,360
a project we'd just drive thousands
of miles in search of architecture.

257
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:19,600
We did the trips together, went to
see industrial buildings together.

258
00:18:19,600 --> 00:18:22,440
The steel mills,
the Airstream caravans,

259
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:26,520
Cape Canaveral, NASA,
as well as the architecture.

260
00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:31,840
We went to see the majority
of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings...

261
00:18:33,360 --> 00:18:36,040
..so we were imbued with them.

262
00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:40,040
We were like sponges, you know,
we were just absorbing...

263
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:42,600
this new culture.

264
00:18:46,360 --> 00:18:49,480
They headed back to Britain,
inspired by America's

265
00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:52,080
can-do and capitalist dynamism.

266
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,800
Most architects in mid-'60s Britain
worked in the public sector,

267
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:02,480
but Norman and Richard set up
their own private firm

268
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:04,640
with their wives Wendy and Sue.

269
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:06,760
They called themselves Team 4

270
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:09,640
and set up shop
in the Fosters' tiny flat.

271
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,080
It was a bed-sitting room
in Hampstead Hill Gardens.

272
00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:15,800
On those few occasions
when there was a potential client,

273
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:20,160
then we had somebody who was in the
kitchen, just banging a typewriter

274
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:24,000
to make it sound as if there was
a lot of action going on.

275
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,480
MUSIC: "Get Ready"
by The Temptations

276
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:29,800
Their first projects were houses,

277
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:33,160
including a group of three
in North London.

278
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,920
Despite two future superstars
of architecture combining

279
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:40,800
their talents, this job proved an
inauspicious start to their careers.

280
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:44,200
I mean, it was hellish. I mean,
we had extremely little experience,

281
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:47,600
even though we tried to sort of bring
in people with a little bit more

282
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,840
experience, and we went from crisis
to crisis to crisis.

283
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:57,400
Unlike the later work of Foster
and Rogers, the houses were built

284
00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:00,280
with traditional materials,
such as brick,

285
00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,440
and they struggled to find builders
who could meet their ambitions.

286
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:06,320
One example of shoddy workmanship

287
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:10,520
was brought to the architects'
attention by the house owner.

288
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:14,240
He pointed to what I thought was
a damp-proof course, which is

289
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:17,480
usually a sort of rubber
membrane of plastic,

290
00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:19,440
stops the water
going through the bricks,

291
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:22,360
and then he picked it up and he
said, "What do you think this is?"

292
00:20:22,360 --> 00:20:24,160
And it was the,
it was the Daily Mail,

293
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,160
or whatever it was, painted black.

294
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:31,000
Well, I do remember, and
I'm a rather sort of tough person,

295
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:33,440
sitting on, under a tree
on Hampstead Heath

296
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:37,360
and literally crying, saying,
"I'll never be an architect."

297
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:42,960
The problems caused by the slow
and unreliable traditions

298
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:44,640
of the British building site

299
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:47,760
weren't just thwarting
their architectural dreams.

300
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:51,040
Financially it was disastrous,
and that's really what drove us

301
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:52,520
to look for another way.

302
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:55,840
I think Norman and I,
and Wendy and Sue,

303
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:57,840
all decided we had to change,

304
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:01,880
and we had an opportunity to build
a factory in Swindon

305
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:05,320
and it had to be done in a year
at an immensely low price.

306
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:10,600
Searching for a cheaper
and more reliable way of building,

307
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,800
the architects remembered some
of the steel structures they'd seen

308
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:17,160
on their American road trips,
for which components had been

309
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:21,760
manufactured under carefully
controlled factory conditions.

310
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:25,720
It was wanting to use materials
that were precise

311
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:28,920
and the whole thing went together
a bit like clockwork.

312
00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:32,240
It was all site welded,
but beautifully done

313
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:35,040
and it took no time at all
to build the frame.

314
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,960
Foster and Rogers' factory
for Reliance Controls

315
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,680
has since been demolished,
but back in 1967 it marked

316
00:21:51,680 --> 00:21:55,120
the birth of what became known
as high-tech architecture.

317
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:03,640
It was unlike anything else built
in Britain at the time,

318
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,720
neither traditional brick
nor the brutalist concrete

319
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:10,920
then in vogue with property
developers and the public sector.

320
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:13,600
You could see the whole skeleton.

321
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:15,920
It was perfectly obvious
how it all worked.

322
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,720
You know, really lightweight,
but stiff structure.

323
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:26,640
Tony Hunt was a crucial collaborator
for Rogers and Foster,

324
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,600
and later Grimshaw, Farrell
and Hopkins.

325
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,600
All these architects
built their success

326
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,600
on a different kind of relationship
with engineers.

327
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:40,360
The customary way of designing
is that the architect

328
00:22:40,360 --> 00:22:45,000
is trained to design
and then to bring in engineers

329
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,120
to translate that design
and make it stand out.

330
00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:51,840
I think that's a totally inadequate
way of designing.

331
00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:56,440
I want to know whilst
I'm in the process of designing,

332
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:59,080
I want to know what
the possibilities are.

333
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:02,080
To discuss at a meet,
early meeting with the architect,

334
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:03,560
"How are we going do this?"

335
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:06,960
It's very difficult to define
in the end...

336
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,640
exactly who designed precisely what
in the building.

337
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:11,800
In the situation
we're talking about here,

338
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:16,080
the engineer is part of
a complete team of people.

339
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:20,720
Sitting around a round table
which is non-hierarchical,

340
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:26,840
that was considered radical and
revolutionary as a way of working.

341
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:33,440
The times were a-changing,
how architects worked,

342
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:38,280
what they built with and who they
built for were all being rethought.

343
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,280
Since the '20s, modernists
had dreamed of the better world

344
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:42,920
they might construct.

345
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:47,520
In the '60s, that utopia got
a makeover from the counterculture.

346
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:50,520
# Something happening here

347
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,960
# What it is ain't exactly clear... #

348
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,800
We were extremely moved
by the political situation,

349
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,360
you know, CND marches,
went on most of those, Vietnam,

350
00:24:01,360 --> 00:24:05,760
and really the whole student,
intellectual workers revolution

351
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:08,720
against the status quo tradition
and so on.

352
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,400
We were very much involved in
all those things.

353
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,800
# Stop, children, what's that sound?

354
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:17,480
# Everybody looks
what's going down... #

355
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,200
I was responding to the times
I lived in.

356
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:25,600
Flower power and...
make love not war.

357
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,840
A general feeling of freedom
in society...

358
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,720
is there a kind of architecture
that reflects that?

359
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,480
Is there a kind of non-monumental
kind of architecture?

360
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:45,000
Other switched-on young cats
were asking the same questions,

361
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,720
and they defined the aims of
architecture for their generation.

362
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:55,360
What's needed is a new architecture
to stand beside the space capsules,

363
00:24:55,360 --> 00:24:58,680
computers and throwaway packs
of an atomic world.

364
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,120
Sometimes dubbed
the Beatles of Buildings,

365
00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:05,320
the collective of young designers
who called themselves Archigram

366
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,560
treated architecture like pop art.

367
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,920
I suppose we wanted to be
sort of interesting and famous

368
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,400
and do something weird, you know.

369
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,360
Change is the dominant fact of today.

370
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,560
Though hugely influential, Archigram
never actually built anything -

371
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:28,320
that was for the squares.

372
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:32,960
Instead they published magazines
and generally wound people up.

373
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:36,560
You know, I think if you don't rebel
against the generation before you,

374
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:39,160
there's something wrong with you.

375
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,440
The city should be capable
of forming and reforming

376
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:44,800
day by day, week by week,
year by year,

377
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,520
as events and purposes change.

378
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:51,760
I was really fired up by the idea of

379
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,000
architecture that you can manipulate
and you can change

380
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,160
and that's responsive to the users.

381
00:26:00,360 --> 00:26:03,520
And that was the subject
of my thesis.

382
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,880
Archigram's Peter Cook
was one of Grimshaw's tutors.

383
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:08,760
To show the importance of change,

384
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,240
Nick illustrated his final student
project with animation.

385
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:18,560
My subject was basically
an interweaving network

386
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,960
of travelators and escalators,
and so it was a constantly changing,

387
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,200
constantly rejuvenating
organisation.

388
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,680
When Grimshaw left college in 1965,

389
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,280
he formed a practice
with Terry Farrell.

390
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,160
Their first major new build project
together applied the concept

391
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:43,240
of adaptable architecture
to a pressing personal need.

392
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:45,160
We...none of us had anywhere
to live.

393
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,400
I'd slept on the floor of the office
for, for, for a while.

394
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,840
So Nick and Terry started
their own housing cooperative

395
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,800
and designed a tower block
for themselves to live in

396
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,200
on a site they'd found
near Regent's Park.

397
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:03,040
It was dirt cheap.

398
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,120
We built it for the same price
as a council block.

399
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:10,880
Farrell and Grimshaw's tower,
however,

400
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,520
wouldn't look anything like
a typical concrete council block.

401
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:35,320
I liked the idea of having
an anonymous frame,

402
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:39,520
which you could then clad
with modern materials.

403
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,360
There'd been very few buildings
clad in aluminium up to that point.

404
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,120
But it was structurally strong,
it didn't corrode

405
00:27:49,120 --> 00:27:51,560
and it was waterproof,
so it became a skin of a building.

406
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:00,120
The chief planning officer,
you know, he was speechless.

407
00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:01,920
I mean, he said, "You're...

408
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:05,040
"An aluminium building
next to Regent's Park!"

409
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,840
"Over my dead body", he said.

410
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,360
It wasn't just the exterior
which was radical.

411
00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:14,240
The interior was built
for the kind of constant change

412
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,960
Archigram had envisaged.

413
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:19,280
It was designed
almost like an office block.

414
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:22,720
All the structure was on
the outside wall or in the core,

415
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,000
so you could remove
any of the internal walls,

416
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,480
so that gave you tremendous
flexibility.

417
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:46,720
You could have 14 bed-sitters
on one floor, or in fact one flat,

418
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,760
and everything possible in between.

419
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,320
Some people bought the flat
next door later on

420
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,200
and knocked the two together,
so the configuration of bedrooms

421
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:02,520
and kitchens could vary
their position.

422
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,600
Grimshaw and I both
took an apartment there

423
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,880
and we both lived there. We were all
in and out of each other flats,

424
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,960
having dinner and what-have-you,
and drinks parties.

425
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,920
It was a very good,
a very good community actually,

426
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:19,800
a very good community feeling.

427
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,840
Cabbies quickly nicknamed it
"The Sardine Can"

428
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:27,240
but within the profession,

429
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:32,200
the tower marked out Farrell and
Grimshaw as architects on the rise.

430
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,200
By the time their partnership
took off however,

431
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,440
another had fallen apart -

432
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,280
Foster and Rogers.

433
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,320
There was no work
and if there's no work,

434
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,240
there's too much time
to argue about things,

435
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:48,440
but also probably we were both
as, er, strong as each other

436
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:53,760
and there was the beginning of a
feeling of we needed our own space.

437
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:58,960
In 1970, Norman Foster found
a new partner - Michael Hopkins.

438
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:02,400
And we got on very well together,
you know.

439
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,960
We had, um, a great relationship.

440
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,600
Norman was clearly
a sort of very energetic chap,

441
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,520
who would be giving the whole thing
his heart and soul.

442
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,280
I was probably a bit more laid back.

443
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,040
They understand the building
they're going to work in, you know,

444
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,480
and where they get their tea
and where they park their car,

445
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:20,880
all these sort of things.

446
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:22,880
I mean, how do you see yourself...?

447
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,840
What the two shared was
a determination to innovate,

448
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:29,880
which proved particularly appealing

449
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,640
to clients in new industries
like high technology.

450
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,520
When a computer firm urgently
needed more space for its
expanding workforce,

451
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,120
Foster and Hopkins created
a pioneering membrane structure,

452
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,720
which sat in the office car park.

453
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:49,320
When you fill it with air,
it blows up like a balloon.

454
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:04,080
'We were able to realise space for
some 70 people in a total period,

455
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,480
'including research,
of, ooh, about eight weeks.

456
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,320
'But of that time,
the erection time was 55 minutes.'

457
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:18,000
Never collapsed, but the odd
puncture you could cope with.

458
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,360
You just get one of those...
get a bit of Elastoplast

459
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,480
and stick it on the outside.

460
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,800
The practice would prove
as radical in its social agenda

461
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,800
as in its approach
to structure and materials.

462
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,520
Mirror glass was a swanky
novelty in 1970.

463
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,080
Foster made a whole building from
the stuff in London's Docklands,

464
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,520
many years before
the bankers moved in.

465
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,600
Conditions were horrific
and this was a total transformation.

466
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:52,320
I mean, the idea that the dockers
could have a civilised place.

467
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,960
Foster's amenity centre for
the Fred Olsen Shipping Company gave

468
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,160
blue collar staff
a white collar quality of design.

469
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:07,000
And I brought together, under
one roof, dockers and management.

470
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,200
For so many,
it was unthinkable because...

471
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,560
I can remember the quotes
at the time -

472
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,680
"They're dirty", "They swear",

473
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,680
"How could secretaries be in
the same building as the dockers?"

474
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,600
Foster has always stuck to that,
he's always seen offices

475
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,080
and factories as basically
the same kind of thing,

476
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,400
they accommodate working people

477
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,080
and those working people
are not divided by any class.

478
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,240
He's a working-class chap himself.

479
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,480
I think that, in a way,
we're all products of a background,

480
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,000
I think we're influenced
by our background.

481
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:45,160
I would see my father coming home
as a manual worker and, um,

482
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:48,080
his workplace,
it was a pretty horrible place.

483
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:53,160
Um, now, at Olsen,
I engaged personally

484
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,840
and directly with the unions.

485
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:57,960
That's not what architects
are supposed to do,

486
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,480
architects are supposed to design
buildings, but buildings don't arise

487
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,480
out of thin air, they're generated
by needs, the needs of people.

488
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,680
Foster's ex-partner
had also moved on.

489
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,160
In 1970, Richard and Sue Rogers
formed a new practice

490
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,400
with the man who would eventually
build The Shard, Renzo Piano.

491
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,360
Renzo and I were both unemployed
and we thought it'd be more fun

492
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,760
to be two unemployed
than one unemployed, if you like.

493
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:23,920
We got on very well.

494
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,560
When I met him, it was
love at first sight, you know.

495
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,680
I was totally iconoclast, you know,
and Richard was,

496
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:33,840
we were young, mad people.

497
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,320
Bad boys in some ways.

498
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,200
Like so many of their generation,

499
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,280
both Richard and Renzo were fired up
by the spirit of '68,

500
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,920
the year when protests in Europe,
above all in Paris,

501
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,520
came close to full-scale revolution.

502
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,840
So when President Pompidou,
a figure hated by the left,

503
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,320
announced
an architectural competition,

504
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:02,080
Rogers refused on principle
to even consider entering.

505
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,360
So I wrote a whole list of things
which I didn't like -

506
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:06,680
I didn't like the idea
of working for a President.

507
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,840
And he actually made
a beautiful text

508
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,960
that was a perfect explication
why we should not do it.

509
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,000
I was against it and he was pro it.

510
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,080
We had a very democratic discussion.
I lost.

511
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,880
We said OK, so let's be free.

512
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,960
What can we do to break rules, to
make...to make something different.

513
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:33,080
What Pompidou wanted was
a new art gallery and library.

514
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,560
What Rogers and Piano designed
was a fun palace,

515
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,680
where people would be free
to do their own thing.

516
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,080
Alongside their
architectural sketches,

517
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,840
they submitted their own manifesto.

518
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,280
The first paragraph says,
"A place for all people, all ages,

519
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,160
"all creeds, for the poor and the
rich, for the old and the young."

520
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:57,400
To transform a place that used to be
quite dusty, quite closed,

521
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,640
to something completely accessible,

522
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:01,960
something that celebrates
the openness.

523
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:08,360
Their design specified that all the
walls and even the floors should be

524
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,240
moveable, to suit the changing
desires of the building's users.

525
00:35:12,240 --> 00:35:14,560
It was as flexible and fantastical

526
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,000
as anything Archigram
had dreamed up

527
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:19,360
and, even the architects assumed,

528
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,840
no more likely to make it
beyond the drawing board.

529
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,560
When we knew that there were

530
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:29,320
681 entries,
then we were sure that we never win.

531
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,960
And one morning a call came.

532
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,840
It took me ten minutes to understand
what the lady was talking about

533
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,320
and finally I got it.

534
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,040
I said "Oh, my God!"

535
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:42,880
So I called Richard and told,
"Hey, Vecchio."

536
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:46,960
Vecchio, which is what he calls me,
old man, um, I'm four years older,

537
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,320
and he said, "Sit down,
we've won the competition."

538
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:51,000
I said "Stop pulling my leg."

539
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,480
Thanks God he sat down
because it was...

540
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:56,760
it was completely unexpected.

541
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:59,120
And then the next day,
we had to go to Paris.

542
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,720
We arrived there and everybody was
in dinner jackets,

543
00:36:01,720 --> 00:36:04,640
I mean, it was really glittery,
only the way the French can do it,

544
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:07,800
you know, and here we were with
the sort of, you know, fuck-off-type

545
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,920
T-shirts one wore in those days
and people wearing shorts

546
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,560
and, you know, miniskirts and so on,
um, but they were immensely kind.

547
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,360
The competition jury
loved the concept.

548
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,160
They didn't realise that was all
Rogers and Piano had at the time.

549
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:25,760
As the architects moved to Paris,

550
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,480
they didn't actually know
what they were going to build.

551
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,520
There were people coming from
all over the world there, you know,

552
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,080
and nobody knew really
what they were doing.

553
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:40,800
Terrible problems with language.

554
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,040
We had Italians
that didn't speak English,

555
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,040
English that didn't speak French.

556
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:50,120
To be honest, the competition
design was unbuildable.

557
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:53,560
You know, sort of floundered around,

558
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,760
trying to find out
what was happening.

559
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:02,080
We dug an absolutely colossal hole
in the centre of Paris.

560
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,000
I do remember this sort of feeling
of slight panic once,

561
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:11,280
looking down this massive hole,
and it was huge,

562
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,280
and thinking,
"Christ, what the hell
are we going to put in this hole?"

563
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,240
And gradually, over the next weeks,
it became apparent that we were

564
00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:23,360
in a war because the French
were absolutely hopping up and down

565
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:27,360
that foreigners, non-French, had won
a competition for what was going

566
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,240
to be, although we didn't realise
at the time, a national monument.

567
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,640
While Rogers battled
to get his new-style art centre
out of its hole,

568
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,640
his former partner
was radically rethinking

569
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,440
a different type of building -
the office.

570
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:01,680
This is Ipswich.

571
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,800
It's a pleasant,
if rather ordinary town.

572
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:09,040
In 1975, it found itself with
a most extraordinary building.

573
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,280
You may think it looks odd.

574
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,880
I think it may be
the nearest thing to a masterpiece

575
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:16,720
that the modern movement has produced
in Great Britain so far.

576
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,600
Norman Foster, with Michael Hopkins,
created a building which,

577
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,120
in more ways than one, would prove
the forerunner of the places

578
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,560
where many of us work today.

579
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:42,080
For starters, it's shiny.

580
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,320
If you look back at the people
that changed the way that

581
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,440
architecture around us looks,
there's not that many of them

582
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,160
and Norman Foster had a lot to do
with persuading the architects

583
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:58,000
that followed him to use extensive
glass all over their buildings.

584
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,440
Earlier generations
of modern architects held

585
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,200
large panes of glass in place
with concrete or steel supports.

586
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,080
At Willis Faber,
there's nothing between the sheets

587
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:13,080
except a thin layer
of neoprene rubber.

588
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:15,880
Rather than trying to support
something from underneath,

589
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,160
it's much easier
to hang it from the top.

590
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,960
I mean, glass is immensely strong
when it's suspended

591
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:24,280
and the glass is truly
suspended around the edge.

592
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,320
Foster perfected the art of framing
huge sheets of glass

593
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:29,920
with next to nothing.

594
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,680
It was an extraordinary
technical achievement.

595
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:38,840
It made buildings look wonderfully
precise and elegant and ethereal.

596
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,360
Back in the '70s, even the nation's
leading glass manufacturer

597
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,440
had been sceptical about whether

598
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,400
a curtain wall of the size
Foster wanted was remotely feasible.

599
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,800
Pilkington's were nervous of it
and they were worried about

600
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,320
whether they could do it.

601
00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:00,440
4,000 square metres, after all,
the largest glass wall in Europe,

602
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,000
this was taking technology
a whole lot further

603
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:05,720
in terms of flexibility and the fact
it would go round curves

604
00:40:05,720 --> 00:40:10,000
and everything else, so it was
an enormous leap forward.

605
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,640
Oh, it was very radical.

606
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:16,160
The great thing about Willis is
they were an insurance business

607
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,880
and they were prepared to take a
punt on this working out, you know.

608
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,560
As with Foster's work
for the dockers,

609
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,680
this building was radical not only
in terms of how it looked,

610
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,360
but also how it was
designed to be used.

611
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,120
Employees were treated to
a garden on the roof and -

612
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,720
the height of '70s luxury -
a heated swimming pool.

613
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,400
The feature which proved
most influential however was

614
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,600
the way the workers were arranged -

615
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,320
this was the first major
office block in Britain

616
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:57,960
to be entirely open plan.

617
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,120
It seemed you could get a better
solution by bringing people

618
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:09,080
together on one floor, without, um,
fixed walls between them,

619
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,760
and to create areas with moveable
elements of furniture.

620
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,280
It seemed a progressive idea
at the time.

621
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,280
Tear down the walls and everyone
could come together in harmony -

622
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,720
the workplace as one big commune...

623
00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:26,000
with typewriters.

624
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,560
And the freedom promised by
open plan wasn't just social,

625
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:31,200
it was structural.

626
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,440
Fewer walls meant
greater flexibility.

627
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,280
It's a far better environment
for today's changing functions.

628
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:43,200
An instant flexible office facility
that can parallel

629
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,680
the surging turbulent business life
it serves.

630
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:50,240
Large open spaces still needed
to be organised somehow,

631
00:41:50,240 --> 00:41:53,480
which is why American designers
Herman Miller had pioneered

632
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,040
a system of modular
office furniture.

633
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:01,040
Building their British headquarters
was a dream commission

634
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,400
for any young architect
obsessed with adaptability.

635
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:09,240
I think they interviewed six firms
of architects for their UK factory

636
00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:11,560
and Norman Foster was one of them.

637
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,760
I know because they came straight
from his office to our office, so...

638
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,920
Your business is changing
constantly.

639
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,800
Herman Miller believes your office
should change with it.

640
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:25,040
They had a very good patter
about flexibility

641
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:28,440
and about how human beings
weren't meant to be in boxes

642
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:30,520
and we liked all this.
We thought, together,

643
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:34,160
we could design a factory building
which was totally flexible.

644
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,120
The particular innovation
of this Farrell Grimshaw design was

645
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,040
to take the concept of adaptability

646
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,880
and apply it
to the exterior of a building.

647
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,400
All the wall panels here,
whether plastic or glass,

648
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,480
were interchangeable.

649
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,520
Where we wanted glass,
we could put glazing up,

650
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,240
we could just have solid walls
et cetera and we could change them.

651
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,920
It was an architecture which
doesn't just sort of stand there

652
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,280
and you try and use it,

653
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,920
but architecture that you can
manipulate and you can change.

654
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,400
"Hold on, Geoff" if you like
democracy in the workplace,

655
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,320
that's what was emerging.

656
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,560
The goal of flexibility
was challenging notions

657
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:30,000
of how buildings functioned and
consequently what they look like.

658
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,520
In Paris, Rogers and Piano
had finally figured out

659
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,840
how to build their adaptable,
accessible art centre.

660
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:53,160
In the pursuit of architectural
and political freedom,

661
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,800
they'd discarded
their own early plans,

662
00:43:55,800 --> 00:44:00,600
rejected architectural tradition
and inverted structural convention.

663
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,400
The building itself is inside out.

664
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,800
In other words, what you usually
see inside goes on the outside.

665
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,400
That means that inside is
totally free of these elements

666
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,160
and so totally flexible.

667
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:13,520
These large spaces, the equivalent
of two football fields,

668
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,840
without a single
vertical interruption.

669
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:21,800
You've got the ultimate
Meccano box here,

670
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:23,320
where you can change everything,

671
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,720
you can build a little cell there,
you can build a big space there,

672
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:28,280
you can have a moving floor there.

673
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,680
The architects couldn't find
a Meccano set

674
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:36,800
with 150-foot-long pieces, however,

675
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:39,640
so their kit of parts
had to be custom-made.

676
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,760
These huge things were made
in a casting factory.

677
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:47,160
It was a bit like Dante's Inferno.

678
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,600
You know, it's extraordinary to see

679
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,320
because you've got these
huge vats of molten steel

680
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,440
and you can mould something
to the exact requirements,

681
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:58,200
which is a big advantage.

682
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,320
Obviously, aesthetically,
it's very pleasing

683
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:02,800
because you can get
any shape you want.

684
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,080
Quality is controlled
in the factory.

685
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,520
Everything arrives prefabricated,
ready-finished.

686
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:16,560
This building was put up faster
than any building in Europe.

687
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,160
The structure itself and the floors

688
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,040
all went up above ground
in eight months,

689
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:21,200
just like a Meccano.

690
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:27,840
It wasn't just
the structural engineering

691
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,360
which the architects had exposed
to the public.

692
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:36,280
What you actually are seeing, which
is new in this inside-out building,

693
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,400
is the mechanical services.

694
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,480
All those elements which are usually
hidden behind a false ceiling

695
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:42,640
or a false wall.

696
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:44,080
From a functional point of view,

697
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,560
this also happens to be
the part which you change most.

698
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,040
The pipes are colour-coded -
green for water, blue for air,

699
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,560
as if they were merely
elements of a diagram.

700
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:56,200
But filling an entire street
of historic Paris

701
00:45:56,200 --> 00:46:00,800
with supersized plumbing wasn't
motivated purely by practicality.

702
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:06,120
The use of the machine language
was really part of this rebellion,

703
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:11,240
to the fact that a cultural building
should be like a tool

704
00:46:11,240 --> 00:46:13,320
and not like a palace.

705
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:21,520
French critics had once dismissed
Rogers and Piano as "hippies".

706
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,480
They were, in fact, more like punks,

707
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:25,720
sticking two fingers up
at conventions

708
00:46:25,720 --> 00:46:27,600
of what a building should look like

709
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:29,800
and also
at the Parisian authorities.

710
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,960
I have to be honest,
I certainly look at it and think,

711
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,040
"God, how did we
get away with that?"

712
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,840
We just sort of didn't really bother
about the planners and things.

713
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:47,920
There was never a drawing of it.

714
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,080
They were just pipes and nobody's
interested in pipes, are they?

715
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,360
And I don't think anybody
outside the office was quite aware

716
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:58,600
of what was happening
until it happened.

717
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,720
We went through
all the adventure of Pompidou

718
00:47:03,720 --> 00:47:06,560
pretending we didn't talk French.

719
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:08,720
"Je ne comprends pas."

720
00:47:08,720 --> 00:47:12,200
"I don't understand" was our system.

721
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,440
I think, just watching back,
we were impossible people.

722
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:19,840
Through their bloody-mindedness,

723
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,680
the team had got their design built
more or less as they'd wanted,

724
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:25,920
but at first
there was little to suggest

725
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,200
that anyone else would like it.

726
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:32,680
We didn't have a single piece
of positive media for six years.

727
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,080
There were all sort of comments
in the paper, like,

728
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,440
"When are they going to take
the scaffolding down?",

729
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:38,960
and all this sort of thing.

730
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,800
The fortunes of the project were
transformed, however, by the public.

731
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,920
In its first year of opening,
it attracted more visitors

732
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,440
than the Eiffel Tower
or the Louvre -

733
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:58,160
over six million people.

734
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,920
It was immediately
taken over by the young.

735
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,600
Within days of opening, it was full
to the doors with young people.

736
00:48:09,240 --> 00:48:13,160
Out of 681 entries
to Pompidou's competition,

737
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,320
only Rogers and Piano had suggested

738
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,200
creating a public piazza
on the site.

739
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,960
It became a meeting point
for the whole of Paris.

740
00:48:24,720 --> 00:48:29,200
The Pompidou Centre set the template
for the modern arts landmark -

741
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,120
accessible, fun and iconic -

742
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:34,040
and some of its earliest visitors

743
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,280
have grown up to be
architects themselves.

744
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,600
I used to go to Paris while
the Centre Pompidou was being built.

745
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,040
It was a very important experience,

746
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:46,800
just to see
such an extraordinary building.

747
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,640
It's certainly
the most radical building

748
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:52,160
of the post-war years, I think.

749
00:48:54,240 --> 00:48:56,000
There aren't many buildings

750
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,400
that actually change things
for ever,

751
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,960
that they change the way
we look at the world.

752
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:05,560
Centre Pompidou spawned
a new generation of architects

753
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:10,040
who unashamedly celebrated
the art of engineering

754
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:12,280
in a way that was very explicit.

755
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:19,040
Pompidou, created against all odds,
felt at first like a one-off.

756
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:20,800
Yet, less than a year later,

757
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,280
Norman Foster unveiled
an art gallery

758
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:26,080
which sounded remarkably similar.

759
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,480
Aiming for a number of things -

760
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:34,360
to produce a building
that didn't monumentalise art,

761
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:37,160
a building that would be open
in its approach,

762
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,000
that would bring activities together.

763
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:59,760
The interior itself is completely
uncluttered, so that you can

764
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:03,200
adjust lights within it and you
can move panels around and so on.

765
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:07,960
Flexibility -
the building can change.

766
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,600
Parts of it are open so you can get
views out and natural light in.

767
00:50:22,240 --> 00:50:25,280
The aims of Foster and Rogers
were almost identical.

768
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:29,880
The resulting buildings, however,
looked very different.

769
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,320
Rogers' structure felt like
a fantastical machine.

770
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,840
Foster's architecture
was rational and minimal,

771
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,000
less of a spaceship,
more of an aircraft hanger.

772
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:48,520
There are obviously
common denominators between us,

773
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:50,880
a sense of shared values.

774
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,920
But if you look at the directions
in which we've evolved,

775
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,880
I think that you'll find that
we've gone in different directions

776
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,560
and I think, you know,
that's something to celebrate.

777
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:07,160
While Foster was
designing his temple

778
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:10,400
for Sir Robert and Lisa Sainsbury's
art collection,

779
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:14,600
another of his collaborators
decided to go solo.

780
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:18,640
Norman came up with the idea of
this bloody great aircraft hangar.

781
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:22,840
I remember feeling that that was
going off in the wrong direction

782
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,040
for that particular thing.

783
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,400
And I was sort of half thinking
of going on my own

784
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:32,080
and, anyway, Norman went on
and built the Sainsbury Centre

785
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:34,880
and far from being the wrong thing,

786
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:39,240
it was always the best thing
in Robert Sainsbury's collection.

787
00:51:39,240 --> 00:51:41,200
You know, he really loved it.

788
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:44,400
So I was quite wrong.

789
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,560
Michael Hopkins immediately
set up a new practice,

790
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,160
with an architect
he already knew well -

791
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:53,840
Mrs Hopkins.

792
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:56,400
You came home to join me,
really, didn't you?

793
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:03,600
Their first project was to build
themselves a family home,

794
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,720
which took a strikingly different
form from its Hampstead neighbours.

795
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:20,960
There would be no question
at that moment in time...

796
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,960
..it was going to be
a steel and glass box.

797
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:27,720
It was an aesthetic
that we really enjoyed,

798
00:52:27,720 --> 00:52:31,040
the structure expressed
on the inside.

799
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,600
In the way that we knew
we liked things to look.

800
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:47,800
Having built one of Britain's
first open-plan office blocks,

801
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,440
Michael Hopkins now chose to live
in a very open-plan home.

802
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,480
Initially, we didn't have
any blinds around the perimeter.

803
00:52:56,480 --> 00:53:00,320
It became clear very quickly
that we needed some blinds,

804
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:02,000
so we got the perimeter blinds

805
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:07,120
and then we went on to use blinds
as the subdivision internally.

806
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:10,840
They're raised and lowered
to adapt the space.

807
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:15,440
Le Corbusier had aspired to a house
which was "a machine for living in".

808
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,440
50 years on, here was a home
built like a factory,

809
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:20,480
from industrial materials.

810
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:22,440
Hello.

811
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,080
Photographs appeared in books
and magazines across the world.

812
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,520
We've lived...
How long have we lived here now?

813
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:33,400
Um... 30-odd years.

814
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,200
Mmm, 35 years now.

815
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,160
It's exactly the same as it's
always been. It's always been...

816
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:39,520
It's just us, really.

817
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,640
Haven't changed my mind about it
one little jot in, er...

818
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:43,680
No.

819
00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:46,000
I mean, I'd like...

820
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,040
I'd like the thing
a bit bigger, bigger scale.

821
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,440
The Hopkins house was a textbook
example of what, by the late '70s,

822
00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:00,640
was seen as a distinctive
movement in architecture.

823
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,680
Hopkins, Foster, Rogers,
Grimshaw and Farrell

824
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:08,280
were praised by critics for bringing
modernism into the space age,

825
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,640
and their collective achievements
now had a name -

826
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:13,040
high-tech.

827
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:15,360
But it hadn't come
from the architects.

828
00:54:15,360 --> 00:54:18,560
I've always rather objected
to the word "high-tech".

829
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:22,640
It sort of implies some kind
of fashion label or something.

830
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:24,960
High-tech, for God's sake,
was going to the moon,

831
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:26,400
you know, I mean...

832
00:54:27,720 --> 00:54:31,440
It doesn't really have anything much
to do with real high technology,

833
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:33,120
digital technology,

834
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:38,320
but then Gothic has nothing
to do with Goths either.

835
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:40,960
Stylistic labels have
a life of their own.

836
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:48,640
The writers who popularised
the term "high-tech" had picked up

837
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:51,120
on something the architects
rarely discussed.

838
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,600
Technology in their work
wasn't only a means

839
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,000
of delivering
more efficient buildings -

840
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:58,960
it was also
their defining aesthetic.

841
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,480
This century is very much
the century of science

842
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,800
and we find
that the analysis of science

843
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:07,200
helps us
with the poetry of architecture.

844
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:13,840
High-tech meant more than the
rational application of engineering.

845
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:15,600
It was the celebration,

846
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:20,200
perhaps even fetishisation,
of the imagery of technology.

847
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,320
Unfortunately, those were
the qualities one of its inventors

848
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,440
began to distrust.

849
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:29,880
It wasn't just a way of building,
it was a style.

850
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:34,480
There were ideological fixers that
everything had to be lightweight,

851
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,240
everything had to be
synthetic and factory-made.

852
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:42,040
Farrell's doubts about high-tech
were fuelled by plans

853
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:44,920
for the historic London district
of Covent Garden.

854
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,840
The fruit and veg market
moved out to this big shed,

855
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:53,760
quite techy kind of building,
very efficient and so on,

856
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:58,560
so there was a whole district of
empty and semi-derelict buildings.

857
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:02,400
So the proposal, if you continued
the past 20 years,

858
00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:05,120
was to knock it all down,
start again.

859
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:07,760
In fact, the student,
Nicholas Grimshaw,

860
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:09,200
had designed a new scheme

861
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:11,720
for the whole Covent Garden site
in the '60s.

862
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,360
There was no idea
of conservation then.

863
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,040
As far as we were concerned,

864
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:20,120
they were crummy, crumbling
Victorian buildings

865
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:23,240
and we students were
absolutely thrilled -

866
00:56:23,240 --> 00:56:25,560
this was a real chance
for something new.

867
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,360
But by the '70s, the public
was beginning to question

868
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:33,560
whether new always meant better.

869
00:56:35,240 --> 00:56:39,400
For the first time, opposition was
growing, protest movements began

870
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:43,600
and I joined in the groups
and I did several projects there.

871
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,320
I was able to argue for
the retention of all the buildings

872
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:49,400
and I made a new courtyard

873
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:51,960
and we did almost, as it were,
a demonstration scheme.

874
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:56,520
Farrell's new-found interest
in conservation

875
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,680
set him on a collision course
with his partner.

876
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,320
I got the most terrific excitement

877
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:06,240
and thrill out of working
with the newer materials

878
00:57:06,240 --> 00:57:09,400
and the possibilities
for the future

879
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,880
and I didn't sense,
really in any way,

880
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,000
that Farrell was interested in that.

881
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:19,960
Grimshaw saw it much more clearly
than I did at the time

882
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:25,600
that it couldn't continue with two
architects that were drifting apart,

883
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:27,360
as they say in marriages.

884
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:29,000
You know, Fosters and Rogers,

885
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,200
they were never longer
than two or three years.

886
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,920
Ours was 15 years,
and so when it went,

887
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:38,600
I felt a deep sense of loss
and I felt this was like a death.

888
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:42,480
Farrell and Grimshaw split in 1980.

889
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:44,480
Their differences proved prophetic

890
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,600
for the difficult decade which
architecture was about to enter.

891
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:49,840
MUSIC: "Are 'Friends' Electric?"
by Tubeway Army

892
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,560
Heritage and high-tech would
be pitted against each other

893
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,480
and the '60s radicals would have
to adapt to a more conservative era.

894
00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:02,680
In the next episode, high-tech
defends itself against rival styles,

895
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:05,720
the press
and even the heir to the throne.

896
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,680
The new mission
for the architecture of the future

897
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:11,800
was to get along better
with the past.

898
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,360
You can learn more about
iconic British designs

899
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:18,720
and the people behind them

900
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:22,120
with The Open University's
interactive Building Stories.

901
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:23,600
Go to...

902
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:28,640
..and follow the links
to The Open University.