Architecture or Not?

Climate awareness has always been the remit of the architect and architecture. You need to look no further than Vitruvius’s Ten Books and read what is covered in Book Two, that is devoted to the origin of buildings, building materials, methods of construction and the characteristics of the four natural elements, earth, wind, fire and water.?

Vitruvius deals with the initia humanitatis in the beginning of the second of his ten books on architecture, in which he reflects on the??origins of the cities of men, an event that occurred in the forest and was produced by fire. This “natural catastrophe” led primitive men (homines veteres) to assemble, communicate (the origin of language), and, eventually, build the first huts. The fire—the greatest threat to architecture—would be the source of both architecture and human society. It is tempting to suppose that in the causal relationship established by Vitruvius between fire and the origin of architecture, fire is fundamentally not only conceived as a destructive agent, but mainly as a purifying one, enabling a return to primeval simplicity, to natural man. In the context of urban history, this may suggest that fire can provide an opportunity to rebuild a city with greater harmony.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known simply as The Monument, is a fluted Doric column, in London, England, situated near the northern end of London Bridge. Commemorating the Great Fire of London, it stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill, 202 feet (62?m) in height and 202 feet west of the spot in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire started on 2nd September 1966. Constructed between 1671 and 1677, it was built on the site of St Margaret, New Fish Street, the first church to be destroyed by the Great Fire. This fire led to the rebuilding of London and notably the erection of Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral as we know today, but although there were schemes to reconfigure the medieval planning of the city with an organising geometry none were forthcoming. It is only now that it is possible to see that another plan may have surreptitiously been enacted to convene a different sort of harmony that suggests a level of control and authority upon the primitiveness of man and the ‘climate’ they have experienced in our capital city of London.

Rome is famed for it 13 ancient obelisks that since their original capture have been relocated around the city, markers that have influenced the workings of the urban fabric of Rome. London has been hard done by in the same capacity where it’s public spaces are noted with only about five significant obelisks/columns. It is considered that an obelisk is erected to honour a sun god and signifies power; unwittingly they play a part in the myth or heresy of our climate awareness.

Notably these columns of London - Monument, Nelson, Cleopatra, Seven Dials, Duke of York - hold a narrative towards our recovery from catastrophe; together in their placement in the city, unlock an organising geometry that surpasses the tumult of all of London's master planning exercises and champions the scale and mystery of Nash’s Regents Street plan. As the crow flies, it seems that London is still burning and an architecture has clamoured over time to address this growing narrative of having a power over its population. By all accounts this documentation can now assert for its control to be placed in the hands of architects that can either admonish its significance or embellish it as part of our architectural heritage. It is the very foundations of our Warm War and it marks the understanding of a new tomorrow.

London

When you are looking for the organising geometry of a city look no further than the knowledgeable mind of a cab driver; that navigates between notable buildings and monuments. It is the rubric of the essential architectural education that can ignore the style of history and support an ideology to prospect for the future.

London is the battleground for The Warm War. By inference to this discovered geometry around the disparity of Mayfair and Soho, a square is imagined whose side is aligned between Marble Arch and Regent's Crescent, allowing a centre to be formed west of Oxford Circus at the intersection of Holles Street and Harewood Place on Oxford Street, which utilises the symbolism of the climate warriors extinction rebellion. We must believe that if we are to recover by the data of science, then we must utilise the imagination of London's fire to interrupt the malicious media that we are being spoon fed and orchestrate an architecture that can actually operate on the terms of tradition.

Charles Pigott

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Postscript

Protest

Have I miscalculated the paradox of life but is their any weight in comparing the likes of the current climate protest by Extinction / Rebellion in 2019 and the protest events in 1981 at RAF Greenham Common.? This is when the undercurrent need to force a discussion with The British Government. It could easily be misconstrued by gender politics but the matter of their fact is that people are making a stand about ‘Life on Earth’ and the media wants to represent it; whether for the quirkiness of the peace loving martyrs this country has produced or to parody the trappings of a normal middle class life.

I can not be certain but I assume all the protesters have lived in or have a home; they have experience of architecture; the notion of its security both familial and institutional but obviously not enough in balance.

When the Planet is in a crisis I can assure you too so is architecture. Not just empty homes or over full prisons but the notion that our culture is at the threshold of announcing another discovery. The time lapse between Greenham and now will adequately show what has been in the attention of the architectural mind and in turn models this crisis. I want to draw our viewpoint towards The Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany; designed by the British firm James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates and constructed between 1979 and 1984 and by my own circumstance the Golden Years led by Alvin Boyarsky at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square, London, while his tenure as director was from 1971 to 1990.

It is plain to say that there has been a fascination in the war of historicism and none more than in architecture. It’s timing mars these moments of political hiatus, so we can say something is going on. This is not just about the global onset of computing as a drawing tool, nor is it reasoning with its antithetical argument. It is about the recognition of the system of change; a kind of awakening to the aspects of power and authority that are governed by the institution of architecture that has already announced its decision before we could attempt to speak. Sure we have climate and yes we are concerned but do you make it your business? Are you a farmer that requires the sun and rain for crops to grow; do you supply your own solar electricity to the grid? Do you have a real Christmas tree every year? The answer has already been worked out for us and it is not for us to change it; perhaps surreptitiously influence, but not to protest because that will lead to extinction and rebellion. The method towards this path has been well documented by an architecture of both buildings and drawings and while our attentions might wane at the flippancy and irony that gave justice for the work we must know that the notion of planetary crisis is the byword for the architectural pursuit - CATCH ME IF YOU CAN