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By the 1980s, modern architecture
was under attack.

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"It had failed so badly," some said,

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"we'd be better off going back
to older styles of building."

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But a bold young generation
of British architects argued

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the exact opposite.

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Instead of retreating into the past,

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they were building gleaming
visions of the future.

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During the 1970s, the work

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of Richard Rogers,

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Norman Foster,

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Nicholas Grimshaw,

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Terry Farrell

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and Michael Hopkins had begun to be
seen as a movement -

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"high-tech."

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In their 20s and 30s,
they'd collaborated

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and shared a dream of how
architecture could change the world.

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In middle age, they'd become rivals,

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and their work would become
increasingly controversial.

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Yet a decade which threatened
to break them would, instead,

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make them.

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These were the years when
they created some of the towering

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achievements of 20th-century design.

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They became the most successful
generation of architects

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Britain has ever produced.

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This, in their own words,
is the story of how.

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# Burning down the house

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# Burning down the house! #

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Like millions of others in late
'70s Britain, Richard Rogers was

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struggling to find work,
even though he'd already created

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a building that was famous
all over the world.

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I, you know, I used to say
nobody wanted another Pompidou.

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I think everybody thought
we only built Pompidous.

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And actually I think
people were somewhat afraid,

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certainly clients would have been
very bold to

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make a commission to us
after that building,

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which was very,
very radical at the time.

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There was a vacuum,

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and I came to a moment in time
when I thought I shan't be building

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any more buildings. I'm not
an architect, I'll be a teacher.

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It was very tough,
and just at the moment of

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the real low of lows,
you're thinking,

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"Well, maybe it's
time to do other things."

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We'd made the decision to go
into a competition

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for the Lloyd's of London building.

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The chances of winning seemed slim.

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Rogers was a left-winger
who thought suits were square.

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The City of London was still a
bastion of bowler-hatted tradition,

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not the sort of chaps you'd expect
to be fans of his work in Paris.

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I think Beaubourg made us
take a deep breath.

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For many of us, it is
so radical in design, er,

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we might have been frightened -
in fact we weren't.

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They said one of the reasons
that we chose you were

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because you were very much like us.

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And we thought, "Well,
that's very strange,"

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cos these are traditional
City gents

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who are the venerated institution.
Not a bit of it.

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Lloyd's, what do they do
for a living? They take risk.

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Lloyd's had confidence in spades,

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and, you know, Lloyd's were very
proud of who they were.

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They said to us, "We want a building
that will reflect our stature

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"within the world."

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Rogers certainly delivered
a building which made Lloyd's

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stand out from the crowd.

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Design had begun, however,
with another part of their brief -

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to maintain their traditional
style of doing business.

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The marketplace was prime.

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They wanted the whole market to feel
as if it was trading in one room.

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Which it always had done,
philosophically,

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from its earliest days.

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MUSIC: "Paninaro"
by Pet Shop Boys

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So the heart of the Lloyd's Building
is a single, very tall room,

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which splits trading
over several open floors.

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They said, "One of the things we
don't want is people in white coats

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"fixing services
in our trading floors."

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As they were making a very large
number of millions per day,

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in premiums, they didn't want
that process disturbed.

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"Can you find another place
to put the services, please?"

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So everything that's
a support service is outside.

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Developing the inside-out approach

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first seen at the Pompidou Centre,
toilets, staircases,

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pipes and ducts are arranged round
the perimeter of the building.

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That's where the lifts
were put as well.

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And not just so they'd be easier
for maintenance staff to reach.

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Aesthetically, movement can be
a very pleasurable thing.

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I've never understood why one should
get into a lift and rub shoulders

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with lots of people you don't
know in a dark box like a tomb.

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If you put it on the outside
of the building, you suddenly get

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the view, and movement becomes
part of the enjoyment of life,

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not just part of
the function of life.

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Despite the fact they appear to be
restrained City gentlemen,

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they loved them, too,
they're human beings.

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Once you get used to the notion
of the vertiginous ride, it's fun.

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Architects don't like the term
"high-tech",

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but with creations like Lloyd's,
you can see why the label stuck.

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It unapologetically uses materials
such as stainless steel,

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which had once been the preserve
of industry - not architecture.

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This is a machine for working in,
with no superfluous decoration.

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Instead, visual stimulation
comes from structural engineering.

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One of the things about working
with architects like Richard

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is that it not only has to work,

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but when it was finished, it had
to look that you could see how

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it had been put together

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so you could see nodes, connections.

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Knuckles and joints.

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Which is actually a lot of the logic
in these kind of buildings -

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you see an object which
explains how the thing was built.

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Though the high-tech generation
had been building since the 1960s,

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Lloyd's was by far the biggest
project any of them

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had yet got off the ground
in Britain.

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The basic concept of the design
had been decided within two years

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of winning the contest.

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Over the further six years it took
to construct, however, Rogers

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and his team were still puzzling out
exactly how it would all work.

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It's the nearest thing
I could imagine to being

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working on a medieval cathedral

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where there is this broad idea
of principles

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but then the nature of the fabric
of it was...

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was...was still being designed
as it was being constructed.

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When the building was...is
about to be completed,

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the Chairman of Lloyd's
said to me, um,

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"Why didn't you tell us that
it was going to look like that?"

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And I remember I said,
"But I didn't know."

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Because in a sense,
until you complete it,

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you don't really know
where this leads to.

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If Rogers' creation
resembled a cathedral,

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then the god it would
worship was money.

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The City of London was
increasingly turbo-charged

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by the time the building opened
in 1986, so the flashier

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occupants of the Square Mile might
have been expected to love it.

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It turned out to be a future
people weren't quite ready for.

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It's a deeply shocking building, and
I have to admit I don't like it yet.

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I've stood in front of it for a very
long time trying to like it.

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I hope that the people
who live in it like it.

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I don't like the fact that
we can't operate in there the way

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we have throughout
the history of Lloyd's.

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It is an abortion.
It's an excrescence, quite frankly.

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When I came to the opening of Lloyd's
I sat next to, er,

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the Dean of St Paul's, and he said,
"What if... Do you feel beleaguered?"

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And I said,
"Yes, I feel pretty beleaguered."

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All the headlines were,
you know, "A terrible architect."

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The public were not used
to this type of building.

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Er, so it was the shock of the new.

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So on the whole the press saw it as

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a destruction of a great historic
tradition of the City of London.

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The attacks were wounding,
because Rogers had tried to make

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a building that would
get along with its older neighbours.

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The area around Lloyd's
is primarily medieval.

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Therefore when you come along
the narrow roads as you approach

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the building, you never actually see
the building as a whole,

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you just see pieces,
and the building is designed

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to be seen in those pieces.

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In a sense, we've sculpted
the roofscape

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so as to make a building
which is anchored

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in the City of London
by a series of towers

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and which will be recognised from
considerable distances away.

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For Rogers, mixing the old with
the new was what architecture

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had always done.

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But an increasingly conservative,
and conservationist,

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culture disagreed,
as he learned to his cost

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while Lloyd's was still being built.

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In 1983, the National Gallery held
a contest to design a new extension.

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Rogers entered something high-tech.

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Not only did he lose
the competition,

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it made him a target

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for modern architecture's
most prominent critic.

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Instead of designing
an extension to the elegant

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facade of the National Gallery,
which complements it

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and continues the concept
of columns and domes,

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it looks as if we may be presented

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with a kind of vast municipal
fire station.

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I would understand better
this type of high-tech approach

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if you demolished the whole of
Trafalgar Square and started again.

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But what is proposed seems to me

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like a monstrous carbuncle

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on the face of a much loved
and elegant friend.

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I thought the speech
that Prince Charles made was

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unbelievably rude.
I thought it was appalling.

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And I think everybody was
pretty shocked.

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It wasn't as it happens our building,
but it could have been.

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I was perfectly proud
to accept being a carbuncle

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in the terms that he had put.

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Outside the architectural
profession, however, there was

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support for some
of the Prince's criticisms.

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There were terrible problems

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with architecture
from the 1950s, '60s, '70s,

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which emerged very strongly

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in the early 1980s.

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So as Prince Charles spoke,

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many people in Britain were living
in concrete apartment blocks

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that were leaking,
full of damp and condensation,

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lifts not working, so all the
famous things that people know.

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But the Prince wasn't just
complaining about the quality

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of post-war construction,

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he was attacking the whole approach
to architecture which Rogers

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and his generation believed in -
modernism.

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I find it hard, I must say,

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to appreciate architecture
which shouts at you,

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00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:10,920
strictly utilitarian designs -

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flat roofs, uncompromising angles,

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an absence of any decoration at all.

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The love affair
with revolutionary artificial

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building materials which so often
prove unsatisfactory in the end.

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Though the high-tech group built
more user-friendly buildings

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than the concrete boxes
of preceding generations,

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they still called themselves
modernists.

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50 years earlier,

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the likes of Le Corbusier
had tried to wipe clean the slate

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of history. Ever since, architects
had believed that only modern forms

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could meet the needs
of the modern age.

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But they could no longer ignore
the concerns the Prince had voiced

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00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:52,720
so powerfully.

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The architecture of the future
had to find a way

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00:12:56,920 --> 00:12:59,280
to get along better with the past.

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One architect from their generation
had been worrying about this

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since the '70s.

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00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:10,840
I think Charles was 99% right.

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00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:14,120
It was true - most people
did like traditional buildings

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00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:15,520
and traditional architecture.

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That's the kind of houses
they bought.

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It's something that architects
had to register,

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they had to deal with that.

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Terry Farrell had once been seen
as part of the high-tech movement.

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In the '70s, he co-designed

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and lived in
this startling tower block.

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Effectively, Terry Farrell was

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the apostate -
he's the one who gave up the

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00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:40,720
holy grail of pure modernism.

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But Farrell didn't want
to return to the traditional

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styles of building
the Prince of Wales was championing.

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Instead, he wanted to cherry-pick
the best of past and present.

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Postmodernism was a response
to dreary, dull,

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mechanical modern architecture.

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It's a hybrid movement
of many styles,

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many languages of architecture.

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You use ornaments,
symbolism, colour.

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Architects were freeing themselves up
to plunder history books

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00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:24,520
and to use history
as a kind of play box.

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00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:30,760
Architecture had been
very stuffy and rigid

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00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:32,680
and form follows function,

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honest expression of materials...

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00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:36,480
I just put all that completely to

242
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:41,360
one side and, erm, I suddenly found
released, artistically released.

243
00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:48,320
Across the world, postmodernism

244
00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:50,120
seemed to promise a new dawn

245
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:53,480
for architecture - and it was
Farrell who created the first

246
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:55,600
significant example in Britain.

247
00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:02,280
When breakfast television
was launched in 1983,

248
00:15:02,280 --> 00:15:07,080
the commercial service was broadcast
from studios designed by Terry.

249
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:12,880
Hello, good morning, and welcome!

250
00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:20,320
I deliberately made the front
look as though it had

251
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:24,440
origins in the streamline modern
of Hollywood. It had sunbursts

252
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,400
and had extruded lettering that
went all along right through it,

253
00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:32,480
which various exhibition and other
buildings in the '30s had done.

254
00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,320
On the canal side it's, I think...
By keeping the old wall

255
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:38,040
and adding a bit of colour, and the
kind of colour that you'd find

256
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:42,680
on canal boats, erm, it's really
kept a continuity with the canal.

257
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:52,720
And then inside,
an interior that was pure theatre.

258
00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:57,440
There was something quite special
about it.

259
00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:00,040
It was for a television company,
it was meant to be dramatic,

260
00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:01,520
it was meant to be playful.

261
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,160
It couldn't have looked more '80s.

262
00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:13,200
Yet its most famous features
had been inspired

263
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:15,680
by architecture
from centuries before.

264
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,120
I remember Terry was away
on holiday for a long weekend

265
00:16:19,120 --> 00:16:21,600
or something in Venice.

266
00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:23,800
And I was looking around Venice
at all these points

267
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:27,760
and gable ends, and I realised that
they always put something on it,

268
00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:30,800
whether it was a cup and ball
or a figure or what have you.

269
00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:33,840
And he called me up and said,
"I've got it, I've got it,

270
00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:35,080
"I know ex... We must..."

271
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:37,960
He said, "The buildings here
are covered in the most wonderful

272
00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:41,800
"decoration and finials. They would
look great on the top of TV-am.

273
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:43,400
"And we'll do eggcups!"

274
00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:46,240
And he said, "How many pinnacles
are there on the rear elevation?"

275
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:48,160
And he came back and he said,
"There are 11."

276
00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:50,440
I said, "We have to build a 12,
we have to have a dozen."

277
00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:56,240
And sure enough, we managed to get
another one in to have a dozen eggs.

278
00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:00,440
The notorious eggcups -
I remember being startled,

279
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:02,040
and I remember thinking,

280
00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:04,360
"Well, this is an acid test
of what I've been saying.

281
00:17:04,360 --> 00:17:07,400
I said, "We're not going to design
by committee. If that's what Terry

282
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:12,720
"wants to do, then in my opinion
that is what we should let him do."

283
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:14,800
It was, you know, OK, bonkers,

284
00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:20,000
but it was enjoyably bonkers
at a time where I think the nation

285
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,920
needed a little gaiety both
in television and in architecture.

286
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,000
Though TV-am cost just a fraction
of its contemporary

287
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:31,040
the Lloyd's building,
it established Farrell

288
00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:33,800
as a major figure
in British architecture,

289
00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:36,960
and it proved he could succeed
without the man who'd been

290
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:42,080
his professional partner in the
'60s and '70s, Nicholas Grimshaw.

291
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:45,560
TRIO: # Da, da, da

292
00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:48,760
# Da, da, da... #

293
00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:52,000
In the early '80s,
Grimshaw was still building

294
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,520
the kind of uncompromising
industrial architecture

295
00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,920
which had been the speciality
of his partnership with Farrell.

296
00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,440
At the time when TV-am was built,

297
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:04,240
Grimshaw was probably the least
fashionable architect

298
00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:06,280
in the entire country because,
you know,

299
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,400
he was putting up
sort of slick sheds.

300
00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:14,640
Was it Peter Jay who wrote this
thing in the Sunday Times

301
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:19,040
about calling Terry Farrell
a genius because of the eggcups?

302
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:22,760
HE LAUGHS
And that got Nick very cross indeed.

303
00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:30,840
I never quite worked out
why Terry Farrell

304
00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:36,280
adopted postmodernism
with such open arms as he did.

305
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:41,160
Nick is a very stubborn person,
and he's got very firm beliefs.

306
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:45,160
And, you know, none of that stuff
was allowed in the office.

307
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:48,640
High-tech was now under
attack on two fronts,

308
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:51,720
from postmodernism
as well as from the anti-modernism

309
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:55,280
which the Prince of Wales
was seen as championing.

310
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:59,040
In the early '80s, Foster and Rogers

311
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:02,760
were traumatised
by the style question,

312
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,760
and they started attacking
postmodernism by name.

313
00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:10,400
And as a result, the battle
of the styles took place,

314
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:13,800
which was really
negative in many respects.

315
00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:17,400
The flavour of the year at that time

316
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,680
was pastiche,
of a rather grotesque nature.

317
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:26,440
I mean, it was the cartoon
imagery of classical architecture.

318
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:30,360
Norman Foster had built
an impressive reputation

319
00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:34,320
with his sleek and minimal approach
to modern architecture.

320
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:38,120
But at the end of the '70s,
the change in architectural fashions

321
00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:42,080
and economic climate
threatened to end his career.

322
00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:46,680
And I remember that period very well.
No new projects were coming in.

323
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:50,920
So we were - although we never
said so at the time -

324
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:52,960
we were pretty desperate.

325
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:56,200
Foster had entered
the Lloyd's competition,

326
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,280
but when beaten to that job
by his former partner,

327
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,320
Norman instead
looked abroad for work.

328
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,840
MUSIC: "Canton"
by Japan

329
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,840
He entered a contest to build
the new headquarters

330
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:22,520
for the Hong Kong
and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

331
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:26,400
We invested heavily
in doing that competition.

332
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:30,200
If we hadn't won it,
I don't know...

333
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:33,040
Maybe we'd have survived,
maybe not.

334
00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:40,040
Foster and his team
threw everything they had

335
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:43,120
into trying to meet HSBC's
ambitious brief.

336
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:47,680
The bank wanted the best
building in the world.

337
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:50,440
Yeah, what does that mean?

338
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:55,640
I went with Norman to Hong Kong
for the briefing that the bank gave.

339
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:59,800
And unlike any of the other
practices

340
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,680
we stayed on for a few days after,

341
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:06,880
trying to understand better
the way in which the bank operated,

342
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,320
to get behind the scenes,
as it were.

343
00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:11,680
The bank's first reaction was,

344
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:14,720
"Well, of course we'd have to tell
the other competitors, wouldn't we?"

345
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,280
So I said, "Why would you have
to tell the other competitors?

346
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:19,280
"If we're interested in your bank,

347
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:23,080
"why would you share it
with our competitors?"

348
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,200
"Yes, you've got a point.
What can we tell you?"

349
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:31,120
And they said, "You'll hear
something called feng shui,

350
00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:32,920
"and don't worry about feng shui."

351
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:38,800
So I was immediately curious
and I consulted a feng shui man.

352
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:40,880
He did a drawing,

353
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:44,800
had a conversation,
we paid him a fee.

354
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:48,440
And actually the final
design, as built,

355
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:54,120
has some considerable similarities
to that sketch that was produced!

356
00:21:54,120 --> 00:21:56,040
MUSIC: "Living On The Ceiling"
by Blancmange

357
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:13,880
I think the
Hongkong and Shanghai Bank

358
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,400
is one of the great buildings
of the 20th century.

359
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:19,080
If you had to pick a top ten,
it would be up there.

360
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,200
# And I'm so tall, I'm so tall... #

361
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:27,000
And yet in 1979,
when Foster won the competition,

362
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,920
he'd never built anything
taller than four storeys.

363
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,520
I can remember the day it was
announced, and I remember

364
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:35,440
there were a few
glasses of champagne

365
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:37,080
that we were drinking
in the office,

366
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,560
and after a minute or two we started
to look round at each other

367
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,880
and realised, "How the hell
are we going to do this?"

368
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,560
"We've won it, but now
we're going to have to build it!"

369
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:53,880
The design was
far from settled at that stage.

370
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,000
All Foster knew for certain

371
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,040
is that he didn't like
most of the towers

372
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,160
which had been built previously.

373
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:05,080
So many high-rise buildings,
in retrospect,

374
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,040
are like so many kind of dumb boxes.

375
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,920
They're anonymous, they're hostile,

376
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,400
the only difference
from one floor to the other

377
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,120
is the number on the lift car
or the door in the corridor.

378
00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:19,400
There's no progression of space,
they're intimidating,

379
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,720
they're soulless.

380
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:27,120
Foster and his team decided
they could do better.

381
00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:30,600
They set out to reinvent
the skyscraper.

382
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:38,200
I think coming to a building type
that you've not done before

383
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,040
makes you think very hard.

384
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:42,880
You have no preconceptions,

385
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,280
you start with a clean
sheet of paper.

386
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:49,640
He just brainstormed it
to the nth degree.

387
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,560
In just over a year, something
like 5,000 drawings, 500 models.

388
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,560
Models of the structure,

389
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,560
drawings at a close-up scale.

390
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,000
The way that something will bolt
together, junction together.

391
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,640
The things that hold the building,
drive the building.

392
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:07,680
I count myself very fortunate

393
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:10,440
that I worked first
for Roger and then for Foster's.

394
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:12,680
Cos they share a very rigorous
approach

395
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,400
where you carefully define
all the issues, the problems

396
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,680
you're going to solve
before you try to solve them.

397
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,640
Not only two-dimensionally,
but also as a model.

398
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,800
Three-dimensional study model here,
to explore what it looks like,

399
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:26,800
how it might assemble.

400
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,000
We tested options, you know,
we looked at other ways to do it.

401
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,160
So here we're showing
the possibility of a deck

402
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,160
that connects then
right out to the water,

403
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,160
in the same spirit of Venice,
if you like.

404
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,280
Nothing was designed or built
that hadn't gone through

405
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,320
a very rigorous process,

406
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,520
that there were very, very strong
reasons that it should be thus.

407
00:24:48,120 --> 00:24:52,280
The bank encouraged us
to look at the big wide world

408
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:54,640
and actually see what was available.

409
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,760
"Don't just come to us
with European ideas.

410
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:58,920
"What's available in America?
What's in Japan?

411
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,120
"What's in other parts
of the planet?"

412
00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:04,720
The idea of getting all these
building components from all over

413
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:09,320
the world, and of making them
conform to one architectural vision.

414
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:14,560
The scale of its ambition is one
reason why it's a great building.

415
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,240
What this exhaustive design process
produced

416
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,800
was a structure like no other.

417
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,360
It's questioning
the nature of a tall building.

418
00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:29,040
Every tall building up to that point
had a central core,

419
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,400
it was like a kebab.

420
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,280
If you took the core from the heart
of the building,

421
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,440
which had never been done before,

422
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,120
and you moved it to the edges
so you could see through the space,

423
00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:42,800
everybody would have a better working
environment.

424
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:49,760
It's wonderful -
the idea of suspending

425
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:53,720
the whole building
from those two rows of masts.

426
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,920
Like a multi-storey
suspension bridge.

427
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:07,560
The vast open-plan interior
could be arranged more flexibly

428
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,600
and adapted more easily -

429
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,880
obsessions of Foster and his peers
since the '60s.

430
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:19,280
The suspended structure also gave
something back to the city.

431
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:23,040
What's amazing about the HSBC
project is that in Hong Kong

432
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,480
real estate is extremely expensive,
and here is the ground floor,

433
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:30,240
which is usually seen as the grand
welcome entrance for most projects.

434
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,640
You know, you come up to this
extraordinary bank

435
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,720
and actually all you have
are two escalators

436
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,280
coming down to the ground
and an extraordinary open plaza.

437
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,520
Then you look up into the belly
of this glass building

438
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,280
and realise, "Oh, THAT'S the
building, the building's up there."

439
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,520
For a building like that to make
such a gesture was profound.

440
00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:54,320
HSBC paid an unprecedented price
for their building -

441
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,000
over a billion pounds
in today's money.

442
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,680
Shipping components
from 80 different countries

443
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:05,560
and pioneering new industrial
processes didn't come cheap.

444
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,600
At that time it was thought to be

445
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,640
the most expensive
building in the world.

446
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,920
I talked to the clients, so I knew
the people in Hong Kong quite well

447
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,040
and they would defend it as the most
expensive building in the world

448
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:19,800
because they said, "It's a work
of art, and any work of art,

449
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,280
" you have to spend
as much money as it takes."

450
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,000
Earlier in his career,
Foster had specialised in low-cost,

451
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,040
right-on buildings.

452
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,440
Now he'd created the ultimate
luxury object for a bank.

453
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,240
A man who'd always sought
flexibility in his architecture

454
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,600
was adapting perfectly
to the spirit of the '80s.

455
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,680
It was a building which
made his international reputation.

456
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,000
After that he could do
anything in the world.

457
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:55,800
It summarised,
at the highest level, high-tech.

458
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:07,680
Only one contemporary project could
seriously be considered its equal -

459
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:09,400
Lloyd's.

460
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,600
The two towers had more than just
height in common -

461
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,200
they had similar aims,
similar budgets and the same roots.

462
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,920
Foster and Rogers had,
after all,

463
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,960
been friends since the '60s
as well as rivals.

464
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,400
I think there's no question
there was a great competitive element

465
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,880
between Norman Foster
and Richard Rogers -

466
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,160
I mean, they spurred
each other on though.

467
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,040
To say that there was competition
between the two

468
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:40,440
would be to put it,
you know, mildly.

469
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,800
These things sort of came to a head
when the traditional cricket match

470
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:47,880
came up,

471
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,320
and the gloves came off between
the people in the two practices.

472
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:57,120
As the '80s drew on, however,
Foster had another serious rival.

473
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,760
One who, like Rogers,
had once been his collaborator.

474
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,160
This was the building
which proved Michael Hopkins

475
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,280
could be just as inventive
as Foster and Rogers,

476
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,520
and secured his place in the
front rank of British architects.

477
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:24,320
It's the research and development
base for an oil technology company.

478
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:36,040
It's on quite a prominent site
on the edge of Cambridge,

479
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,600
and you couldn't just stick
an ordinary old factory roof on it

480
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,800
if you wanted to.

481
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,120
It needed something more particular.

482
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,640
Like Foster's Hongkong Bank, this
structure is suspended from above

483
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,040
rather than supported from below.

484
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,720
Every roof
needs to be held up somehow.

485
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,800
You can do it with a forest of
columns which fill a whole interior,

486
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,280
or you can stick
a maypole in the middle of your roof

487
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,320
and hang it off that pole.

488
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:07,960
It's a landmark,
it's an eye-catcher.

489
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,840
It says,
"We're doing something special."

490
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,640
At Schlumberger, Hopkins combined
this novel approach to structure

491
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:19,760
with an innovative new material.

492
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,720
This fabric is collectively
known as PTFE glass,

493
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,760
polytetrafluoroethylene,

494
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:28,400
which is woven glass fibres
covered in Teflon.

495
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,320
But it had the huge
benefit of being non-stick,

496
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,360
so it's sort of self-cleaning,
sparkling in the sunshine,

497
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,000
and the glass fibres are very,
very strong.

498
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,000
At the research laboratory,

499
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,320
the fabric covers a central area
for mechanical work

500
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,000
as well as staff social areas.

501
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,920
It forms tents,
which join together the office

502
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:01,600
and lab areas
running along each side of the plan.

503
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:06,000
It's not like a boy scout tent
or even a circus tent.

504
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,800
They flap about
and they don't stand up.

505
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,720
This one has to stand up
against all the wind loadings,

506
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,840
snow loadings that any other roof
has to deal with,

507
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,080
and it has to be there permanently.

508
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:24,000
To make a strong enough structure
out of fabric,

509
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,200
the engineers sought digital help.

510
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:32,520
This was one of the first buildings
designed, in part, by computers.

511
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,520
In architectural engineering

512
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,040
I don't think anything had relied
so much upon the computer.

513
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,680
Software had to specially
developed and written

514
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,480
that would compute the shape,
or form-find it, as we call it.

515
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,720
Computer drawing was almost
unheard of at that time,

516
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,760
and that was pretty special because
you didn't start with sketches

517
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,840
and drawings,
you started with numbers.

518
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,640
Some people find it very difficult
to believe

519
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,000
that a mathematical process
could generate a sculpture,

520
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,360
and so we then made a physical model
using hand-sewn pieces of canvas

521
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:11,840
attached to the wires and tension
rods with screws and threads,

522
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,200
just to make sure we'd got it right.

523
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,440
This is high-tech as sci-fi.

524
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,000
While postmodernism was
playing about with the past,

525
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,560
the remaining high-tech
true believers

526
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:30,120
seemed ever more determined
in their pursuit of the future.

527
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,400
So even when building something

528
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,680
as ordinary as an inner-city
supermarket,

529
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,000
Nicholas Grimshaw
refused to compromise

530
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,160
on his industrial approach.

531
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,880
We didn't waver one inch
from our belief

532
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,480
in our new palette of materials,
and in modernism generally.

533
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,040
The structure's really -
even though I say it myself -

534
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,440
a bit of a tour de force.

535
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,920
You can see these great
bunches of ties coming down,

536
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,480
and it sort of gives the building,
I think, enormous kind of strength

537
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:19,280
and impact in the street, instead
of being a rather sort of bland box.

538
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,800
Grimshaw gave a nod
to his building's older neighbours

539
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,320
in the arrangement of these rods,

540
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:30,880
which hold down
the cantilevered roof.

541
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,440
We put them at the same
sort of rhythm as the party walls

542
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,600
of the Georgian houses opposite.

543
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:40,640
And in an odd kind of way, it does
echo the scale of the buildings

544
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:42,960
on the other side of the street.

545
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,560
I actually think it fits in
rather well.

546
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,800
No other supermarket built in
the '80s looked anything like this.

547
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:56,320
But it owed its existence
not to shoppers' demands,

548
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,800
nor even Sainsbury's desires,

549
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,360
but to a powerful architects'
department at the local council.

550
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:04,880
We had a sympathetic
planning authority,

551
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,000
so we managed to do
something quite radical.

552
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:13,000
Grimshaw's weren't Sainsbury's first
choice of architects for the job,

553
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,680
but the die-hard modernists
at Camden Council

554
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,760
had rejected
all the previous designs

555
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,920
which the supermarket
had proposed for the site.

556
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:26,040
They started off with their standard
Surrey farmhouse style,

557
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,880
which is a brick building
with a pitched roof.

558
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,520
And then they tried bypass-Tudor,

559
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,280
which there's a pub on the corner,
still there,

560
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,040
with, you know, wood nailed onto
the outside.

561
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,240
The planners were getting pretty
fed up by then, and they said,

562
00:34:41,240 --> 00:34:43,280
"Look, you've tried
all these styles on us,

563
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,480
"all we want is a decent building."

564
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,120
And so, somewhat in desperation,
I think, Sainsbury's turned to us.

565
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:53,280
And by that time they were
so sort of beaten up, Sainsbury's,

566
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,800
they let us do what we wanted to do.

567
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,920
By odd coincidence,
Grimshaw's supermarket

568
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,320
was built round the corner
from Farrell's TV-am building.

569
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:09,360
Within a few metres of each other,
the former partners now presented

570
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,360
wildly divergent
visions of architecture.

571
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,680
Whereas the back of Farrell's
building had responded

572
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:20,400
to its setting by echoing the
colours of nearby canal boats,

573
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,040
what Grimshaw built
behind his supermarket

574
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,800
made no concessions
to context or tradition.

575
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:32,920
It was a terrace of high-tech homes,
built when most house builders

576
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,520
had reverted to red brick
and pitched roofs.

577
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,520
We felt, rightly or wrongly, that
the whole site had to be a piece.

578
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,600
And we felt we had developed
an expertise in working metal.

579
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,120
And, I have to admit,

580
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:53,080
we were at that time obsessed
with that kind of imagery,

581
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,040
and we aspired
to a kind of showroom gleam.

582
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,920
At a time when whole estates

583
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,320
were built in neo-Georgian
toytown pastiche,

584
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,680
Grimshaw and his team
were sticking to high-tech

585
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:08,960
with steely determination.

586
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,080
The world will catch up.

587
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,800
I think that was... Putting it
bluntly, that was the attitude.

588
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,440
By the late '80s,
the world WAS paying attention

589
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,160
to Britain's high-tech architects.

590
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,360
They were treated with
increasing respect abroad.

591
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,920
It was on home turf
where scepticism remained strongest.

592
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,400
You have, ladies and gentleman,
to give this much to the Luftwaffe.

593
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:33,280
When it knocked down our buildings,

594
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,040
it didn't replace them with anything
more offensive than rubble -

595
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:37,960
WE did that.

596
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,440
This royal broadside was provoked
by plans for a major development

597
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,600
next to St Paul's Cathedral,

598
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,240
replacing a 1960s scheme which even
fans of modernism

599
00:36:49,240 --> 00:36:51,840
had to admit wasn't very good.

600
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,360
In 1987, an architectural
contest was held

601
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,400
to come up with a replacement.

602
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:00,880
Both Rogers and Foster entered.

603
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,000
But once again,
Prince Charles was unimpressed

604
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,200
with all the modern schemes
proposed.

605
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:11,280
None of them, I believe,
address the primary problems

606
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,560
of appropriateness
and architectural good manners.

607
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:20,000
I would like to see the kinds
of materials Wren might have used,

608
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,400
and the ornament and detail
of classical architecture.

609
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:26,880
Rogers was selected
as part of the team

610
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,000
who would build the new
Paternoster Square.

611
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:34,240
After the Prince's intervention,
however, his scheme was scrapped,

612
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:36,640
and the architect was
to be further disappointed

613
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,680
when his royal opponent was invited

614
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:41,000
to debate their differences
in public.

615
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,360
Back came this message
from Buckingham Palace,

616
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,520
"The Prince does not debate."
That's what got my...got me.

617
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,040
Within a democracy, it's not on.

618
00:37:50,240 --> 00:37:54,160
Instead, the two set out their
rival visions of architecture

619
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,680
in separate films for the BBC.

620
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,840
I am not interested
in copying styles.

621
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:01,880
That is actually belittling history.

622
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,360
I'm interested
in learning FROM history.

623
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:05,880
There is no need for buildings,

624
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,800
just because they house computers
and word processors,

625
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,160
to look like machines themselves.

626
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,960
There seemed no end in sight for
high-tech's battle with heritage.

627
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,320
MUSIC: "Moments In Love"
by The Art Of Noise

628
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,000
But then, one of Rogers' peers
called a ceasefire.

629
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:37,480
At Lord's Cricket Ground,
Michael Hopkins surprised everyone

630
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,000
with a new-found willingness to
engage with architectural history.

631
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,520
When I first started work
with Michael Hopkins

632
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,720
their architecture was what
people would call "high-tech".

633
00:38:46,720 --> 00:38:49,800
But then Lord's was the
turning point.

634
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,840
And that's when it began
to get quite different.

635
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,480
The first time going to
Lord's I was absolutely

636
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,400
sort of knocked out by the place -
particularly the Pavilion

637
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:04,480
which has this marvellous
Edwardian light, lacy,

638
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,360
very English summer quality
about it.

639
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,640
Hopkins' brief
was to replace a crumbling

640
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,520
19th-century part of the ground.

641
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,680
The standard modernist response

642
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,480
would have been to knock it down
and start again.

643
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,760
The Mound Stand, as it was before,

644
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,160
was very popular
to the cricketing fans.

645
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:30,000
The roof was shot, but the brickwork
underneath was very nice.

646
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,240
And in one of these sort of design
sessions where you're thinking

647
00:39:34,240 --> 00:39:38,040
of all sorts of things, I suggested,
"Why don't we keep the bottom bit?"

648
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,080
It was one of those sort of
suggestions you make

649
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,160
slightly sort of toe-in-water,
you know.

650
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,520
"I'm only an engineer, but
how about we keep this?" You know.

651
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,160
And that's really what we did.

652
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:01,320
Rather than inventing
something new for it,

653
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,960
we kept the good bits
of the Victorian outside wall

654
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,680
and just copied it
and extended it on.

655
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,360
And then you rise up from that

656
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,560
in a really gutsy
bit of modern engineering.

657
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,120
For a modernist architect to emulate
the Victorians was a surprise,

658
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,680
because it smacked of postmodernism.

659
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:36,240
Brickwork was the antithesis
of high-tech - a labour intensive,

660
00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:39,200
messy, piecemeal, site-based process.

661
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:44,360
But somehow, it captured
Hopkins' imagination.

662
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,400
He fell in love with bricks.

663
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,480
Maybe you will get an interesting
architecture out of brick,

664
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,240
and it would feel more contemporary
if you made it hold

665
00:40:53,240 --> 00:40:56,640
the bloody building up rather than
just sticking it on as a facade.

666
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,280
Whenever you see
a Hopkins brick pier,

667
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,600
it really does support the building.

668
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,640
It isn't a steel column
hidden inside,

669
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,080
which is what most architects
would do these days.

670
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:09,600
MUSIC: "Christian"
by China Crisis

671
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,120
Hopkins used fabric for the roof,

672
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,640
as he'd done at the
Schlumberger Research Centre

673
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,520
and as he'd go on to do
in many future projects.

674
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:26,320
The result was something
even Prince Charles could enjoy.

675
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:29,880
PRINCE CHARLES: It seems to me
to capture the spirit of Lord's,

676
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:34,760
with a suggestion of marquee tents
and Edwardian summer days.

677
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,680
Everyone welcomed it.
The Establishment loved it

678
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,760
as well as the progressive
architects. It was a great hit.

679
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:49,400
Other commissions from traditional
institutions began to follow.

680
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:52,920
High-tech was slowly
winning over the sceptics.

681
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,640
But it remained a relatively
rare sight in late '80s Britain.

682
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,040
The property developers
who transformed Britain's cities

683
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,800
during the third Thatcher term
much preferred postmodernism.

684
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,360
These were the years
when Terry Farrell made the leap

685
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,800
from critically-acclaimed
but small-scale projects

686
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:17,840
to big-budget buildings.

687
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,440
He now had three
gargantuan office blocks

688
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,320
under construction
in different parts of London,

689
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,200
including one which achieved
worldwide fame.

690
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,680
MUSIC: "Safe From Harm"
by Massive Attack

691
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:44,120
It is James Bond's headquarters,
MI6!

692
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,320
Like his other office blocks,

693
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:53,440
Vauxhall Cross was
commissioned by a private developer.

694
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,920
Only when the design
was well under way

695
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,680
did Farrell learn an arm
of government wanted to move in.

696
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,200
I had no idea I was building MI6.

697
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,280
I was told it was a government
headquarters,

698
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:08,520
and we guessed, wrongly,
very early on

699
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:10,640
that it was for the
Department of the Environment.

700
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,640
I put the trees on the top

701
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,200
particularly because it was
the Department of the Environment.

702
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,640
The building was finished
and handed over,

703
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,880
and I was watching television
and on the screen,

704
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,280
"The British have announced that
this is the headquarters of MI6."

705
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,680
The imposing appearance
of the building was inspired

706
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,960
not by its eventual occupants,
but by its position on the river.

707
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,120
The Thames brings out of Londoners

708
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,520
a different response
of scale and stature.

709
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,760
If you look along the river banks,

710
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,720
you see the buildings
much more clearly in silhouette.

711
00:43:51,720 --> 00:43:53,760
They have great stature.

712
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:57,960
So I argued you could build
a palazzo of height and bulk

713
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,200
and drama and scale.

714
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,520
It is a really masterful essay

715
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,880
in this kind of layered
contradiction

716
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:17,520
between steel and glass, masonry -
the classical and high-tech -

717
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:22,600
and in many ways was a high point
of British postmodernism.

718
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,400
And it was attacked,
of course, by the modernists

719
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:31,720
for being a little bit Egyptian,
being a bit Art Deco,

720
00:44:31,720 --> 00:44:37,080
for being like a set for Aida,
the opera - which it is...

721
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:41,280
I know it's received an awful lot of
criticism and so on.

722
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,720
I was told that in the latest
James Bond film,

723
00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:46,800
when they blew up the building,

724
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,520
an architect had taken
several friends to see the movie

725
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,280
and they all cheered when it was
blown up, inside the cinema.

726
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,360
MUSIC: "Enjoy The Silence"
by Depeche Mode

727
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,120
The more successful Terry became,
the more he found himself

728
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,480
the number one target
for the opponents of postmodernism.

729
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,840
I got a huge amount
of antagonism thrown at me.

730
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:16,120
It was partly a case
of guilt by association.

731
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:20,280
There were firms in Britain
that took on the mantle

732
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,080
of postmodernism
and did some dreadful buildings.

733
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,560
In the hands
of the commercial world,

734
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,240
it becomes too much,
you know, glitz and bling.

735
00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:32,400
People were thinking
this can't develop.

736
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,520
How many more pink and grey shiny
granite pedimented buildings

737
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:37,560
with bobbles on do we want, really?

738
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,280
By 1991, when Farrell's new building
for Charing Cross station

739
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,280
was completed,
the backlash was well under way.

740
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,880
Tastemakers looked instead
to another station

741
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:52,800
just across the river, being
built by Terry's former partner

742
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,840
who'd stayed steadfast to high-tech.

743
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:57,520
MUSIC: "Voyage, Voyage"
by Desireless

744
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:11,760
Digging of the Channel Tunnel
had begun in earnest in 1988,

745
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,840
so London needed a new terminus
for the high speed

746
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,360
international trains
which would go through it.

747
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,320
It was a very,
very hard fought competition,

748
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:26,000
and we absolutely put everything
we had into getting that job.

749
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,080
We knew that it was very exciting,

750
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:36,120
because the French side were not
doing very much to Gare du Nord

751
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:40,040
so we felt that we could do
something rather special.

752
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:44,280
Something heroic was needed.

753
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,440
The site for the new station
wasn't heroic, however -

754
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,800
a tight and irregular
bit of leftover land.

755
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:57,880
It was a bit like being given a foot

756
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,080
and being asked to design
a sock to pull over it.

757
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,320
It was a very twisting,
difficult geometry.

758
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,320
Normally, the way in a complex shape
it would be dealt with

759
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:08,080
would be to have thousands of
different shaped pieces of glass,

760
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:10,160
and then you would have to marry -

761
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:12,120
each piece would be a special
bespoke piece.

762
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,240
This was the thing that really
terrified the project managers -

763
00:47:15,240 --> 00:47:17,400
they saw this convoluted shape

764
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,360
and said, "That will cost you
a hell of a lot more money."

765
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,600
We had to, in some way,
make the thing

766
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,640
so that we had mass-produced
components to bring...

767
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:26,720
to keep the price down.

768
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:32,560
To allow the roof
to change shape with the site,

769
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,680
the team devised a "loose fit"
glazing system.

770
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,760
It's all tiled with regular
rectilinear sheets.

771
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,600
The panels overlap, which means that
you can get this kind of adjustment.

772
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,200
So each layer goes one over
the other, and then by creating

773
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,320
this special set of hands that can
move in any direction, that dealt

774
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,840
with the difficulty of joining the
glass back to the steel structure.

775
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,680
There was a period in the site
offices where you kept seeing

776
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,680
people demonstrating how the
bracket works and how it adjusted.

777
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:07,360
"No, no, no, it's like this!"

778
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,520
SIR NICHOLAS GRIMSHAW:
We were involved absolutely

779
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:15,120
down to the last nut and bolt.

780
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,400
The steel components were specially
cast for the project

781
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:22,520
in a foundry, having been
designed by Nick and the team.

782
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,960
There were a number of tubular
elements coming into one point -

783
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,240
if we'd rammed them all together
and tried to sort of weld them up

784
00:48:34,240 --> 00:48:38,680
in a great kind of gnarled knot,
it would have looked horrible.

785
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,760
So what we did was we did this
casting like a kind of heart valve,

786
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:48,360
with short stubs coming out of it
for each of the tubes to fit over...

787
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,680
..so it was a beautiful,
functional thing.

788
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:04,800
Waterloo International met with
huge public, as well as critical,

789
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:08,240
enthusiasm when it opened in 1994.

790
00:49:08,240 --> 00:49:10,240
Sometimes everything goes right.

791
00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:12,520
This was going to be a special
moment in history,

792
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:15,280
the first train through the
Channel Tunnel, ribbon-cutting with

793
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:20,440
the Queen and Mitterrand,
and we wouldn't have been allowed

794
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,960
to make such an ebullient building,
er, for a lesser moment.

795
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,520
Here was a work of uncompromising
modern architecture

796
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:36,640
which didn't upset
the heritage brigade.

797
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:40,400
One reason might have been that
elegantly engineered glass roofs

798
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:42,880
were themselves
part of British history -

799
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:46,040
going back to the
Crystal Palace of 1851,

800
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:48,560
and the first Victorian
railway stations.

801
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:52,240
Those structures had always been
a very direct inspiration

802
00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:54,000
for the high-tech generation.

803
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,200
My colleagues
Foster and Hopkins would have said

804
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:01,080
exactly the same thing -
it's more or less running

805
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:05,440
in a straight line from Paxton
and Brunel up to the present day.

806
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:10,440
Paxton, with the Crystal Palace,
still holds the record

807
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,280
for the maximum space covered
in the minimum amount of time.

808
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:22,560
Waterloo proved postmodernists
weren't the only ones

809
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,600
who could draw inspiration
from architectural history.

810
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:28,200
I think there was a feeling,

811
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,240
"Let's get back to something
a little more earthy and serious."

812
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:34,160
You get sick of postmodernism
very quickly.

813
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,000
You know, we were the glass
of cold water that everyone

814
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,400
needed to drink after a rich meal,
I think.

815
00:50:42,720 --> 00:50:44,680
Like the Grimshaw team,

816
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,360
Norman Foster never wavered
from his modernist belief

817
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:51,800
that well-engineered structures
don't need dressing up.

818
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:56,200
The project he unveiled in 1992
would prove to millions

819
00:50:56,200 --> 00:51:00,640
of visitors each year that high-tech
was nothing to be scared of.

820
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:04,480
British Airports Authority
at the time was

821
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,640
headed out by an engineer,
Norman Payne.

822
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:14,440
And he said, quite simply,
"I want a new generation airport."

823
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:19,640
The other challenge he gave us
was he wanted the building to be

824
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:26,000
between 15 and 20% cheaper than any
terminal that he'd built previously.

825
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:28,760
So not only did
we have to reinvent the terminal,

826
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,280
it had to be considerably cheaper.

827
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,240
Foster and his team,
as was now their custom,

828
00:51:36,240 --> 00:51:40,840
exhaustively analysed
the whole concept of airport design.

829
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,560
They found plenty of room
for improvement.

830
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:49,440
So often in earlier terminals, you
didn't know where the hell you were,

831
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,840
which way you were facing
and which way you were meant to go.

832
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,680
The act of travel raises the level
of anxiety in a lot of people,

833
00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:00,760
so what you want to do
is to make the experience

834
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:03,240
as easy, as enjoyable as possible.

835
00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:05,960
Um...and the way to do that is

836
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,160
to provide a terminal building

837
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:10,800
that gets rid of all the clutter.

838
00:52:24,240 --> 00:52:27,720
It's very open, very clear,
easy to navigate.

839
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,480
With the views out, you can see the
plane, you know where you're going.

840
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:39,920
Essentially, Stansted is...
is one very large room.

841
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:44,320
And everything happens in that room
as far as the passengers

842
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,800
are concerned,
both arriving and departing.

843
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,440
All of the grubby, oily,
engineering stuff -

844
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:54,840
you know, the baggage handling,

845
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:58,000
the air conditioning - would be
in the basement and feed upwards,

846
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,400
so that people
would then be separated from

847
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:02,480
the works of the building.

848
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:05,840
Traditionally, all of this
mechanical plant

849
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:07,920
had been placed on the roof.

850
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:12,480
So this idea of turning
the building literally upside down

851
00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:17,160
also saved money, because we didn't
have to have a great beefy structure

852
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:19,720
supporting all this
heavy plant up in the air.

853
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:28,480
The roof then only had to keep the
water out, and it can let natural

854
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:33,520
light in throughout the whole depth
and footprint of the building.

855
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:40,600
The trees, as we call them,
because they fan outwards, erm,

856
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:44,600
they hold up the roof, but they also
order the space as well,

857
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,520
they give it a clarity,
a sense of rhythm,

858
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:50,280
of order, of movement,
of progression.

859
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:54,120
Compared to the engineering
gymnastics

860
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:57,920
of the Hongkong Shanghai Bank,
Stansted is calmer,

861
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:00,760
more minimal architecture,
and easier, perhaps,

862
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:02,560
for the public to like.

863
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:04,520
That didn't mean it was
easier to design.

864
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:10,360
In the end, I think that
the simplicity is deceptive.

865
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,560
It's like writing a poem -
it's easier to write an essay.

866
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:16,600
This is Foster's genius - that
he can make something

867
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:20,400
intensely difficult
seem obvious and effortless.

868
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,280
Having already reinvented
the skyscraper,

869
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:29,360
Foster had successfully
reinvented the airport.

870
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:33,640
That model has been
adopted by every architect,

871
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:39,360
every airport planner - and that, of
course, is the ultimate compliment.

872
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:42,720
It's been very flattering
that it has been interpreted

873
00:54:42,720 --> 00:54:47,280
in all sorts of very interesting
ways by architects across the world.

874
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:52,320
Foster and his peers had argued
since the '60s that modern

875
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:56,680
architecture should reflect the
advanced technology of modern life.

876
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,880
When they started
building airports,

877
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:01,320
everyone could see their point.

878
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:03,720
Try to imagine a world

879
00:55:03,720 --> 00:55:09,120
in which the latest aircraft
comes into a neo-Georgian airport.

880
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:11,280
I mean, it's not going to work,
is it?

881
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:16,080
So it seems likely that an airport
would commission an architect

882
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:19,520
like Norman Foster, rather than
one of the Prince of Wales' team.

883
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:26,280
But by the mid-'90s,
traditional styles of architecture

884
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:30,720
were losing out to high-tech
even in historic locations.

885
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:36,280
Foster showed the light, minimal
approach he'd used in Stansted

886
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:38,120
could work equally well in the midst

887
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,760
of the 19th-century Royal Academy
in London.

888
00:55:44,800 --> 00:55:47,760
Once, the prospect of an English
country house like Glyndebourne

889
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:49,720
getting a high-tech extension

890
00:55:49,720 --> 00:55:53,120
would have caused outraged cries
of "Carbuncle!"

891
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:56,640
Yet in 1994, even the most
traditional of opera goers

892
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,960
applauded the new theatre
by Hopkins Architects.

893
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:05,040
High-tech had proved
its versatility and diversity,

894
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,840
and firms which were fighting
for their lives at the start

895
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:10,920
of the '80s were finally booming.

896
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:13,480
But with their form of modernism
rehabilitated,

897
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,640
what need was there
for postmodernism?

898
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:20,160
Farrell was then in the wilderness.

899
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,360
And so for ten years
during the '90s,

900
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,400
I never got a single commission
in London - where I lived!

901
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:29,160
MUSIC: "Belfast" by Orbital

902
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,520
Farrell instead set up shop,
very successfully,

903
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,120
in Asia,
where he spent much of the '90s

904
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:40,480
building projects like
Hong Kong's Peak Tower.

905
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:47,880
Meanwhile, those who stuck
with high-tech

906
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,880
were now in demand across the world.

907
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:58,520
The architectural axis shifted
to Britain, without question,

908
00:56:58,520 --> 00:56:59,880
without question,

909
00:56:59,880 --> 00:57:03,680
and Rogers and Foster were the most
influential architects in the world,

910
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:05,160
I think, at that time.

911
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,560
Eight years after the Lloyd's
building caused such a ruckus,

912
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:12,240
Rogers' London headquarters
for Channel 4

913
00:57:12,240 --> 00:57:14,880
opened without a squeak
of controversy.

914
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:18,960
Even the British public now seemed
at ease with high-tech buildings,

915
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:22,760
and their architects
were no longer public enemies.

916
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:28,080
In 1996, Richard Rogers
became Lord Rogers of Riverside.

917
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:32,080
Soon after, he was joined
by Lord Foster of Thames Bank.

918
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:36,960
Grimshaw, Hopkins and Farrell
were all knighted too.

919
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:39,720
Men who had once been
radical outsiders

920
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:42,640
were slowly edging
into the Establishment.

921
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:45,480
MUSIC: "Porcelain" by Moby

922
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:50,080
Yet, at an age where many would
think of retiring,

923
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:53,560
they showed no signs
of slowing down.

924
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,800
In the next programme, the stories
behind some of their most

925
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:00,960
iconic buildings
and biggest controversies.

926
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:02,720
Moving into the heart of power

927
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:05,600
produced a whole new set
of problems.

928
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:10,840
You can learn more about
iconic British designs

929
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:12,560
and the people behind them

930
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:16,280
with The Open University's
interactive Building Stories.

931
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:20,280
Go to...

932
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,000
and follow the links
to The Open University.