Níall McLaughlin
Architects

ENCOUNTERS WITH WATERHOUSE

OCTOBER 2018

When reflecting on our work as a practice, it is possible to find connecting threads, ideas, references and people who have been an inspiration to us. One of these people is Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905). Our work for the Natural History Museum has given us a chance to learn more about the great Victorian architect and perhaps by happenstance, we continually meet him again and again through different projects.

Alfred Waterhouse was immensely prolific. He was born in Liverpool to wealthy Quaker parents and spent much of his youth travelling and studying throughout Europe. Upon his return to England, Waterhouse set up his own architectural practice in Manchester, where his Gothic designs won competitions for the Assize Courts (1859) and the Town Hall (1868). His reputation as a practical man, a master of rational planning and his reliability in executing designs, led to commissions for work of a varied character. Eventually he would have around 650 ecclesiastical, commercial, domes- tic and institutional buildings to his name.

In the spirit of High Victorian Gothic, Waterhouse was interested in experimentation, contemporary construction methods and architectural honesty through the expression of structure. Gothic Revivalism allowed architects to test their ideas and bring their vision to life by capitalising on new technologies of the time, and as such, Waterhouse’s interest in utilising new materials and techniques is expressed in the use of the great steel spans of the Natural History Museum’s Hintze Hall. Waterhouse is also known for his careful attention to durable urban materials for the industrial city, such as richly ornamented terracotta and faience, which he used both internally and externally. In our time working with the museum, we have deeply reflected on Waterhouse’s drawings for NHM which portray his predilection for simple bold ornamentation, a delight in the texture and subtle colours of terracotta, and a Victorian reverence for the craftsman.

Left to Right – New entrance to NHM Waterhouse building, ornamented terracotta facade detail

Waterhouse is often mentioned for his use of deep red brick, which was brought to London from the North through King’s Cross. Red became the dominant colour of the period in the area and signified the link to the North. For the T1/Tapestry Building in King’s Cross, we analysed the Prudential Assurance Company headquarters in Holborn, completed in stages between 1877-1897, not only for its colour, but also for civic qualities and robustness. The history of the site and the PAC building were a part of the collection of references for the colour-saturated character of the precast panels, reminiscent of Victorian terracotta. We took advantage of available technology when working with decorative pattern and applied it in a structured fashion to all of the precast elements. The pattern was created digitally in three-dimensions and the information was used to direct an automated routing process. This generated a positive panel in soft board, which, in turn, was used to make latex moulds used in the formwork to make a positive precast surface.

Left to Right – Prudential Assurance Building in Holborn, T1 Tapestry detail

In our projects for Oxbridge colleges we have often had the pleasure of having a Waterhouse building as a neighbour. He was prolific Oxford and Cambridge in the 1860s and 1870s where he built more than most of his contemporaries. Waterhouse’s first university work was the Cambridge Union in 1866, followed in rapid succession of new buildings for Balliol, Caius Tree Court, a new block for Jesus, a series of commissions for Pembroke College, a small wing for Trinity Hall and finally the new women’s college at Girton. It has been key to the success and joy of our projects in these cities to understand the rich historical and material conglomerations of the surrounding buildings. It informs our approach and helps us to weave the projects into the grain of the city. The new song school in Avery Court in Trinity College, Cambridge is sited so that one axis of its cruciform plan aligns with the arched opening leading through the Waterhouse building to Trinity Lane. The proportions of the lantern windows are inspired by the Gothic, and the brick for the Balliol College project was chosen to compliment the Waterhouse buildings along Broad Street and the surrounding buildings. We admire Waterhouse’s bold picturesque compositions and celebration of vertical movement that provides punctuation along the routes around the building. Such visual markers can be seen, for example, in our Somerville and Jesus College projects. We feel privileged to be presented with similar challenges and questions to Waterhouse – what is a contemporary and sensitive response to designing a new building within the existing architectural assemblages?

Left to Right – Waterhouse’s Balliol College Broad Street Frontage, NMLA Balliol College project window detail

By way of our continuing collaboration with the NHM, we constantly find ourselves in dialogue with Alfred Waterhouse through his buildings and the ideas contained within them. Studying his extensive body of work and the complexity contained within, is a fascinating prospect, as we’re learning more about ourselves as contemporary practitioners engaging with similar questions.

REFLECTIONS ON IMAGES OF HERITAGE

OCTOBER 2014

A few months ago I revisited my 5^th year dissertation: “The Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles; their essence and their absence”, as the possibility of writing a joint article with my MSc supervisor arose. Reading it again after so long felt like meeting an old friend; familiar and at once curiously foreign.

The much-contested issue of the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles is well known. Since 1965 it is the subject of international political debate while by the mid ‘80s, when the first official request to the British government for their reinstitution was made, it became a national issue. The British arguments for the non-repatriation are also well documented and until now neither the British Museum nor the British Government seem particularly keen to return them.

This however had not been the burning question in mind when writing the dissertation. Having assumed that they would not be returned (and not really questioning it as right or wrong) what intrigued me was how the building, having been proclaimed a catalyst for their return, would be designed to deal with their probable absence.

Until and including 2008 the widespread rhetoric was that the spaces must remain empty in anticipation of their return so as to remind the viewer that the museum will “remain incomplete as long as the Elgin Marbles sit in the Duveen Room of the British Museum”[1]. Upon the museum’s completion however the adopted solution was to exhibit casts of the missing pieces instead, “in order to suggest to the viewer how the monument might look like when complete”[2]

Having traced the history of the display of the Parthenon Marbles in Britain and at the British Museum (ranging from the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ approach through to a more modern curatorial attitude) and the influence they had had in its architecture, I approached the subject through a ‘semiology’ lens and considered the philosophy and meaning of ‘void’ while examining architectural examples of how empty spaces, when displayed correctly, can have a powerful meaning. The resulting conclusion was that even if the Parthenon Marbles were never exhibited within the new museums’ walls, their absent presence could still be felt through a careful portrayal of their void so as not to resort to a seemingly trite and rather defeatist attitude of using a plaque or indeed casts. Evidently, the message of the void would need to be conveyed in a way as to allow an ‘open’ reading while not being so ‘open’ that it prevents us from recognising in the message a formalizable structure.[3] An empty space would then not appear as “a deficiency, a failure to fill up a cavity or gap… but a bringing – forth.”[4]

Looking back now, the discourse was interesting if slightly self-righteous. Inadvertently, the conclusion reached could read as a glorified absence that would become a pressure vehicle for their return, because it is where they belong. But do we own heritage? Heritage is thought of as underpinning our roots and the importance we bestow on the material culture “plays a vital representational role in defining national identity”[5]; as such any discourse is incredibly complex and inherently political, so much so that it becomes personal.

When I first saw an image of the façade for the athlete’s residential building within the Stratford regeneration I thought it superficial, an ornament of post colonisation, almost hubristic. Reading Niall’s ‘Peplos: The dissimulating façade’ got me thinking about this more. When the Marbles were removed from the temple they began a different journey, their identity was altered “from deep walling elements to thin relief panels” while “their dissolution, replication and dispersal”[6] made them idealistically present but always lost [7]; they don’t ‘belong’ anywhere. Maybe this facade should not be offending me but helping me to recognise the expression of appreciation for the ‘lost’ pieces of a timeless masterpiece that could almost read as a celebrated protest.

…

_{[1] Sands, H. (2008) “Henry Sands says Athens’ new museum is missing its Marbles” Acropolis Now [online] http://www.elginism.com/new-acropolis-museum/the-new-acropolis-museum-needs-its-marbles-to-complete-it/20080827/1289/ (Accessed 3^rd March 2013)
[2] Plantzos, D. (2011) “Acropolismus”, Antiquity, no.85, p.623, [Online] http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/085/ant0850613.htm (Accessed 9^th October 2012)
[3] Caesar M. (1999) Umberto Eco: Philosophy, Semiotics and the Work of Fiction, Polity Press, Cambridge, p.65.
[4] Leach N. (1997) Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Routledge, Taylor & Francis group, London, p.123.
[5] Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage, New York, Routledge, p.48
[6] McLaughlin, N., (2012) “Peplos: The Dissimulating Façade”in Archithese.
[7] Ibid.}

_{Pinelopi Antoniou studied at the University of Cambridge and the Edinburgh College of Art. She holds a BArch (Hons) and a Diploma in Architecture. She  was nominated for the RIBA President’s Medal in 2005. She joined Niall McLaughlin Architects in 2013 and has worked on a private house in London, a private house in the Cotswolds and is currently on the Outpatients building in Oxford.}