Date: 10 December 07
Author: Caroline Ednie, Web Editor
Email this Article
| Click to Print
Bob Allies and Graham Morrison founded the practice of Allies and Morrison in 1984. The London based practice - currently employing over 240 people - has built a large number of buildings in the UK and Ireland, including the British Embassy in Dublin; the public landscape at Tate Britain; a public archive for the Guardian newspaper; the new HQ building for the BBC at White City and perhaps one of their highest profile projects to date - the recent restoration of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank.
The practice is currently working on a wide range of projects including the redevelopment of Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium into residential accommodation; new arts and humanities buildings for the University of Cambridge; a large office development in Bankside; and masterplans for Kings Cross, Cricklewood, Winchester and Oxford. The office has also played a key role in masterplan proposals for the London 2012 Olympics and regeneration of the Lea Valley.
Allies and Morrison’s recent work and development was rewarded at the 2007 Building Design Architect of the Year Awards with the overall “best of the best” Architect of the Year Award, as well as winning the Public Building and Masterplanning categories. The judges said: “Allies and Morrison can take on projects at any scale and, because of its experience, delivers buildings that are never forced, but are quietly impressive and hugely popular with both clients and the users.”
Bob Allies, who was recently in Scotland to deliver the keynote lecture at The Lighthouse Achievement Award 2007, spoke to Web Editor Caroline Ednie about life at the helm of one of the country’s most consistent and successful architectural practices
Caroline Ednie: Congratulations on your recent Architect of the Year Award at the Building Design Awards 2007. A series of recent accolades and high profile projects seem to suggest that Allies and Morrison is very much the ‘practice du jour’? Do you agree?
Bob Allies: “It never feels like we’re the architects of the moment because there’s always so much going on in the practice. I would say that there’s a lot of good work going on at the moment, more than at any other time in our career, but we don’t feel central at all. We have always had our own approach and we just get on with it.
What is true about the practice is that we’ve always been interested in working across a very broad spectrum of building types. We’ve never wanted to be specialists in a particular building area. We feel that all buildings merit your attention, so in a way it’s good for the practice to receive recognition for this with awards such as the recent Architect of the Year 2007.”
The word ‘consistent’ seems to continually crop up when the practice is being described. Are you flattered or irked by this?
“Consistency you can look at in two ways. It could mean predictable, which is something we wouldn’t want. But in a positive sense there is consistency in our sense of responsibility and reliability. We do take a serious view about this and have very serious responsibilities to our clients. We also take seriously our obligation to the public. We do feel a responsibility to make the world better with every building, and see our buildings as being part of a great piece of a city or a landscape. It’s not enough to see a building on its own – we always think that it’s got to make everything else around it better as well.
The other thing that we would welcome about consistency as a description is the fact that we are desperate to try and maintain the standard of work that we produce. Over a period of time practices change size and different people come along and as a result your method of production changes and you have to respond to that. So, if people think that the language and quality of the architecture we make is consistent then that’s a great thing.”
Do you feel that this ‘consistency’ can be achieved with a practice comprising more than 240 people? Architect Renzo Piano once maintained that: “It’s my belief that (my) office should never be bigger than 100 people. That’s my magic number – it’s the maximum number that allows you to recognise, talk to and get to know everybody.”
“One thing about our practice that I think is a bit unusual is that the first people we employed have stayed with us. We have just made seven other people partners and they have been with us for around twenty years now. We’ve all grown up together and we have a common culture between us, we’ve learnt a lot jointly.
We’re a partnership, and design for us has never been about an individual sketch, it’s always to do with a conversation, of putting ideas on the table and discussing, scrutinizing and agreeing on them. The discussion is always open. We like the idea of there being strict rules that apply, but once they are clear then anybody can participate in the realisation of a project. I think that this layered approach to designing can help engage people in the idea and bring a lot of people together.”
So, does this mean that the practice operates as a democracy?
“It’s not exactly democratic, we still have a degree of power, but everyone is part of the practice. Certainly anybody can contribute and we will listen to ideas, but Graham and I still cover a very high percentage of projects and work together on things. We don’t send people off to design things, we work with them and we discuss it together.”
Do you believe that the current high profile of the practice is perhaps the result of a backlash against so called ‘starchitects’ and their ‘statement architecture’?
“We would like to feel that the serious aspects of architecture aren’t forgotten about and if that means a backlash against statement architecture then that’s a good thing. I don’t think there’s necessarily a backlash yet, but I think there will be. But some statement architecture isn’t all that bad. You do need buildings like that, buildings that are prominent and have a high profile and can change the way people think about cities. That’s always been part of what architecture is. Our argument has always been that of course this has to happen, but at the same time what we must also do is make the everyday buildings better. They don’t need to be statement buildings they just need to be good buildings.
I wouldn’t shirk away from a brief or competition for a statement building – not if the meaning of the building was sufficiently significant to justify having it as a statement or a landmark or whatever. Some buildings have to stand out and if it’s appropriate then that’s great. What we don’t really like is building something like a cinema on a relatively important site and saying that this should be a landmark building when it shouldn’t necessarily be so. Content and significance justifies a landmark. But if we were invited to build a landmark building we’d jump at it, probably.”
The observation was recently made that “Allies and Morrison seem to be designing half the buildings in London at the moment.” How has this come about?
“I don’t think anyone plans how their practice is going to develop. When you start a practice you have so little confidence. The idea that you could somehow plan this would be absurd.
For whatever reason we haven’t been asked to do lots of projects abroad, although saying that we are working on two or three at the moment (for example in Bangalore and Hamburg). For a practice of our generation and our size it’s rather odd in a way that we haven’t worked abroad before. And in a way we probably would have loved to. But we’ve always been interested in place and the context of buildings. That in itself is unfashionable but we’ve always put a value on that. We’ve always been interested in places - like Glasgow - where there’s an inherent architectural culture which is modern but that has also evolved out of its historic past. We’ve always felt that in London it might be possible to work in this way. We’ve been lucky as we seem to have been caught up in so many projects, particularly public buildings and we’re also involved in these three big masterplans at King’s Cross, Cricklewood and for the 2012 Olympics.
The 2012 Olympic Masterplan is currently something of a contentious issue not only in terms of spiralling budgets, but also in terms of the displacement of many local industries and communities to make way for the development? What are your thoughts on this grand scale project?
“I have absolutely no doubt that the Olympics will have a hugely beneficial impact on the area. Whatever sacrifices have been made, and yes some people have been displaced, but I think that the majority of industries that have been moved are flourishing in their new sites.
If the Olympics hadn’t happened this area would still have been developed but it would have happened in a completely ad-hoc way. There would have been no real investment into what is a hugely complicated site involving waterways. The landscape would have been very fragmented. We identified huge strategic benefits in terms of creating a linear park right the way through from The Thames. There was previously a disconnection between the west and east of the valley, whereas this scheme draws these two sides together for the first time ever, and also plans to give people real amenities. The beneficiaries will not just be the people who move in, but all the people who live immediately adjacent to the area. It’s incredibly complicated and challenging.”
Are these new masterplanning challenges where your heart now lies in design terms?
“Masterplanning is dear to our hearts in the way that we believe that the spaces framed by buildings are as important as the buildings themselves – this is something that we firmly believe. A masterplan is a way of giving this idea significance, so in that way it is important.
Lots of our current building projects such as our office at Bankside; the BBC HQ at White City; and our buildings for colleges and housing actually involve a series of buildings where a lot of the thinking goes into the disposition of each building and the relationship between buildings. I like those sorts of projects.
I also like it when we’re asked to look at a building type we haven’t thought about before. I’ve always thought that this is one of the most fascinating aspects of my job, when you have to learn about another building type and talk to the people who use it and know how it works, and find a way of accommodating their needs in the plan of the building.
My regret at the moment is that the selection processes for architects generally - and particularly with PFI projects - are so biased towards people who have done a particular building type before. It’s a ‘sine qua non’ situation and I think this is bad as it disadvantages young practices. I also think it’s a shame for people like us, for example I would love to design a hospital but it’s very difficult for a practice to be considered unless you’ve already done one. This would be a challenge that I would very much like to take on.
I think that people are being a bit misled at the moment in this kind of assumption that in order to do a particular building type you must have done it before. The architect’s skill is to assimilate a brief, listen to people, turn the spoken word into three dimensional form, and then put it all together. I think that it would be a shame if we lost that.”
Allies and Morrison have been much lauded for the recent restoration of the Royal Festival Hall. Your intervention on the project was huge yet your presence is felt quietly, almost anonymously?
“Yes, in some instances that is true of our work. We’ve had a long involvement with this project. We started off as house architects looking after the building. Richard Rogers then won the competition to extend the building and we came second. But that didn’t get built and few years later the lottery applications came in to restore the building. When you go there now, the character and spirit of the place is still there but some things have changed.
I think that you have to show people the picture of the auditorium during construction to really bring home how much it was taken apart and put back together again. So far it’s been very successful in the terms of the acoustics. It was also a great chance to change the relationship of the building with its immediate environment and completely transform people’s experience in and around the building and the relationship to the river. It is now a much livelier place and has led to a general rediscovery of the South Bank.
In contrast to the modesty of the Royal Festival Hall project, we’re also designing some big buildings at the moment that will not look modest if they get built.
One of these is 100 Bishopgate, a tower that is set to be a near neighbour to Foster and Partner’s Swiss Re ‘Gherkin’ building? The issue of tall buildings is a fairly provocative one at the moment, so how do you feel about designing these?
“This is a very big issue in London at the moment. I think that in the city it makes sense to try and provide more space, and I feel that this extra density is appropriate. We’re doing tall buildings in London - two or three at the moment. Tall buildings are perfectly fine things to consider doing, but I think it’s been a bit of a shock to people to suddenly have tall building proposals coming forward in unexpected places, and then having to reflect on what this means relative to their context. The question of whether the disposition of towers is to do with a city design process or the economy is a tricky one.”
Skyscrapers and grand scale masterplanning projects are a long way from your first project as practice which was the public space scheme for The Mound in Edinburgh (completed in 1987)?
“Graham and I both have a strong connection with Scotland - I studied at the University of Edinburgh, and Graham Morrison is a Scot, both his parents are Scottish. At the time of The Mound competition Graham and I had gone our separate ways after meeting and working in the office of Martin Richardson (1929-2002) in London. We were still in touch though, and worked on The Mound competition together. It was a real surprise when we won it because at the time our project seemed very risqué, as this was during the recession. It was due to this project that we formed the practice.”
Is your first project also the last one you’ve completed in Scotland?
“Yes it is. We did a very nice scheme for two buildings in the Merchant City but this didn’t go ahead in the end, which is unfortunate as it would have been great.
I do keep up with Scottish architecture though, particularly people in practice of my generation. I watch the work of David Page and Page and Park; Richard Murphy is always very interesting. I recently went to see Malcolm Fraser’s Dance Base which I think is fantastic. I think there are a lot of very good practices at the moment. I think the degree to which you are a nation helps that to happen. There is definitely something going on in Scotland at the moment that is sustaining this vibrant scene. We’d definitely love to build more in Scotland.”
Image: Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge: Gatehouse & Auditorium
Credit: Dennis Gilbert
Image: 84 Southwark St, London
Credit: Dennis Gilbert
Image: Institute of Criminology Building - University of Cambridge
Credit: Dennis Gilbert
Main Image: Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge: Gatehouse & Auditorium
Credit: Peter Cook
To find out more about Allies and Morrison visit www.alliesandmorrison.co.uk
