architectural dialogue

Yesterday we thought we’d spend our Saturday afternoon catching up on a couple of new buildings, including CZWG’s new library building at Canada Water, in Surrey Quays, on the south side of the River Thames. “Where? And did you say ‘new library, in London?”

Eva Jiricna's Canada Water bus station, sitting opposite the Library. In the background you can see 1960s housing blocks and, further away, the City of London.

Surrey Quays was one of the first areas of the east London docklands to be redeveloped – which, in the 1980s, meant filling in most of the enormous docks and building suburban housing – an aspect of Po-Mo that attracts little interest because it ill-fits with the kinds of urban renewal values that magically appeared on the UK agenda after we emerged from the 90-94 recession (after which everyone was suddenly into other than Po-Mo/Hi-tech concerns, the masses discovered Modernism and we were into a prolonged boom period). London architects turned their backs on what remained a peculiarly remote area paradoxically almost within spitting distance of Tower Bridge . Then, in 2000, the Jubilee Line Extension arrived at Canada Water and, more latterly, the upgraded Overground train has boosted traffic at Rotherhithe station. The Olympic Park or, alternatively, the heart of the West End are equally about 20 minutes away. Suddenly, this island of suburbia is not quite so lost and, being a reasonably cohesive area, it has proven to be ripe for maturing into a cohesive area of desirable homes.

So, here we were, years later, parking the car in a large car park next to Eva Jiricna’s bus station that sits upon the top of the Jubilee Station ostensibly designed by Ron Herron ( a name architect was attached to each of the new stations), stepping out toward the pond of Canada Water itself, Decathalon in the background , Saturday shoppers cruising toward the supermarket… etc. And there: the angular (‘stealth’, as they say), dark grey and  brooding hulk of CZWG’s latest creative endeavour in London.

The upbeat gloominess of the new library at Surrey Quays – looking brown, but actually expanded steel.

CZWG have been quite a success story over the last 20-30 years. “Did he say success?,” I hear the skeptics mutter: “According to whose criteria?” OK: that ‘success’ has been as novel as their buildings. CZWG has always exhibited a predilection for a gratuitous, one-line approach to architecture that purported to be the fun, witty and inventive end of the game … except that wacky jokes in architecture rarely work. They linger, go stale and somehow never quite escape a mildly scandalous note of juvenility. Architecture still sits oddly within an entertainment culture. (“You can joke all you want with the likes of Expo pavilion, but not with my home or local library, thanks.”) But Piers Gough, the most salient partner in the practice, is an affable, character written up in the media as ‘an English eccentric’.

“So, surely, the practice’s work must be good? Certainly, if this man is a notable affable chap, we should never make a critical comment, should we?” Yes, well that’s the usual media rule …

Of all CZWG’s less-than-memorable architectural jokes, only one gesture has struck me as having anything more than passing merit: a lower level balcony on a riverside building (China Wharf) at the east end of Butlers Wharf – a balcony that is actually a boat projecting out, as it awaiting a rising tide to allow the building’s inhabitants to get out the oars and paddle off … Who knows why, but it appeals to me … possibly because it has something of that mischievous quality one sometimes finds hidden away in good architecture – something quietly slipped in. Slipped in, that is, but never rudely ‘in-yer-face’. (Humour of any kind, never mind in architecture, has tasked many a philosopher and so there is no way I’m about to attempt a quick venture in that direction!)

The boat-balcony at China Wharf

China Wharf, new and fresh in 1988.

The robust, expanded steel cladding to the Library: tough, bold, no messing ...

Against such a background this new building is a breath of fresh air. Well, in the first place, it’s a new library for godssake! … in London! And, for Gough, the library is a special place: “A library is not just an extension of the public realm. It is a release from the intensity of school and work, a place to come and discover and dream. It is a portal to the discovery of other worlds.” But, surely, whether the local library is a ‘portal to other worlds’ or not, it is a community gathering place? By its existence it helps to consolidate and define a community. And that, by definition, is ‘public realm’ in my mind.

Anyway, public, communal or portal to ‘other worlds’, this is a worthy work. Upon making our approach we could already sense architecture was ‘going on’: someone was sticking his/her neck out, making some bold gestures, fighting the budget and the builder and the rest … One can smell these things out immediately, before rationality kicks in, noting the references: inevitably, to Alsop at Peckham; not, it seems, to Adjaye’s ‘Idea Store’ in Whitechapel, but perhaps to his nearby pitch-black house conversion in Shoreditch; maybe to the staircase at AHMM’s Westminster Academy (or is this the stair at Adjaye’s other ‘Idea Store’?)… although I can’t think of a London reference for the building’s strongest internal feature: the central access drum. One drops into a vague discourse and starts to makes such guesses. There’ architecture going on. And from CZWG. of all people.

And the Chinese? Well, Surrey Quays, after all these years and with its new transport links is suddenly a rather pleasant, nicely maturing place to be. (Yes, I know: I’m not supposed to say that (i.e, ‘nicely maturing’), but its true.) The Chinese seem to love it and are flocking to make off-plan purchases of new apartment blocks that are bringing a new density to Canada Water.Its strange how these things seem to experientially take place overnight, even though hindsight tells us we’ve know it was coming for years. Well, finally, they are hear, with lots of cash in their pockets. “One apartment? No, don’t be silly: I am buying three!” We joined in, Brits pretending to be equally eager to throw money at Barratt’s new housing, getting the sales pitch, apartment plans … and prices, of course.

Welcome to a home for your investments ...

Then we took a stroll around the area and came across the hosting CZWQ did in the late-1980s. And you know: it’s no longer that bad! How strange. It’s a London thing: the city somehow loves to have quirkiness missed in, helping to form a mature, idiosyncratic character of placeless that one finds dotted all over the metropolis – a peculiar modernity that obviously perplexed OMA when they had to comment upon it in their recent exhibition at the Barbican.

Like Peckham and Adjaye’s efforts, the library gives over the ground floor to a cafe and reception area. At its heart is a surprisingly generous circular drum faced in acoustic timber panelling and sporting a stair that draws one up to the principal, galleried library floor. here, the external canting that seems to be a gesture to cope with a mix of solar gain issues and the need to find a simple branding statement makes practical sense (although rows of computers along the windowed, south side is a but daft). Clearly (at least on a Saturday), the place is a success: providing just the kind of services the local community needs in order to help both service it and bind it together. Community. Yes, that is becoming a Surrey Quays keynote. How often can you say that of housing developments? (A rumination that returned when we later went to look at Haworth Tompkins’ Peabody housing in Pimlico.)

Some of the first housing in Surrey Quays – late '80s pavilions from CZWG.

The library has a constrained site – between water and the Rotherhithe Tunnel beneath it. Apparently the local Southwark Council wanted a single storey building – put site constraint and the Council's criterion together and,purportedly, one gets a building that flares out from its foundations to an area approximately twice the size.

So, overall, welcome back CZWG. Some people might think you’re a trifle late in maturing into architects who want to do real architecture rather than take the piss out of most design opportunities that come your way, but this building manifests a welcome game shift. Dreary? Well, perhaps now is the time to reintroduce that humour? Not as an irreverent poke in the eye or gratuitous piss-take … Anyway, Piers Gough should know that – it was in the ’80′s that he successfully curated an exhibition of Lutyen’s work at the Hayward Gallery.

Canada Water station on a more sunny day, about 10 years ago, just before the new station opened as a part of the Jubilee Line extension. The woman? Victoria Thornton, my partner.