Although plans to tear down Tadao Ando's Piccadilly Gardens have been floating about since last late last year, the Manchester City Council just gave its official approval to knock down Ando's quasi-Brutalist structure in favor of a "leisure-led" scheme last week, according to the Architects Journal.
In a thoughtful piece written for The Globe and Mail last year, Russell Smith questioned the role of the experts who had commissioned Ando to design the Gardens versus the opinions of the locals who encountered it daily. He noted that a "sealant, for some reason, possibly economic, was not used to coat the large unadorned surfaces of the Manchester pavilion. That building, basically a shelter to house a small café, occupies half of Piccadilly Gardens, presenting one long curving blank wall of concrete to the south side. The concrete, under the steady British drizzle, did not wear well: it started to stain with dark streaks, to look like the depressing and crumbling masses of postwar brutalism, exactly what Manchester was sick of."
8 Comments
I see that there's dark staining, but look at the shadows in that light slot! The building reveals the weather and time passing, isn't there poetry in that?!
I guess poetics of seasonal change aren't "leisure-led" enough.
What really annoying about this situation is zero attention to the carbon implications and sustainability issues from the local authority. Instead of creating a competition for remodeling the design of existing structure and avoiding the costly demolition work, they prefer to build a new building which scale is exceeding the current one.
Interesting story. I wish they would have had more information about the new design.
The Ando design is pretty stark, not only the building, but the whole park. It's the antithesis of public space design today which is more focused on "placemaking" than architectural object-making. I generally support historic preservation of good design, but I'm not sure this qualifies.
A stone veneer on the wall (and veneer can be up to 18 inches thick) would wear well and the appearance would improve with time. A rain and soot-streaked concrete wall just looks unattractive.
.
Wabi sabi.
Ozym-ando-as.
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