Poor Piers and Benevolent Charlatanism

I would agree with Dublin Gal that Heneghan Peng's proposal is the least worst of the shortlisted entries for Dun Laoghaire's Carlisle pier but find it hard to work up much enthusiasm for any of them. It is a very interesting site and surely deserved better. Perhaps the worst of all, belying his international repute, is Daniel Libeskind's whose "cultural component" is a [groan] "Diaspora Museum".

At heart, Libeskind is a benevolent, or unintentional, charlatan. He is very intelligent and thoughtful, an accomplished concert pianist as a child, who came to architecture late in life but the elaborate nature of his contrived explanations for his designs is in marked contrast to the crudeness of those designs.

Brian Micklethwait notes that Libeskind's Imperial War Museum in Salford Quays, isn't really much of a war museum at all, with little for anyone interested in military history, unlike its sister institution in Kennington, and a lot of agit-prop on why War Is Bad. Brian also suggests that Libeskind's exuberant Gehry-esque architecture may be inappropriate for such a sober institution. He is almost right. There is no reason why a Gehry-esque building couldn't be an appropriate War museum. The problem with this building lies deeper in Libeskind's approach to architecture which almost inevitably generates buildings perfectly suited to hollow empty rhetoric.

The Salford building is composed of a number of curved shards. This form arrived, not after a Gehry-esque process of sculpting and refinement until the most pleasing composition was reached, but because it represents - get this - pieces of the globe which have been "shattered by conflict". It is the most deadeningly literal parti with all the sophistication and none of the charm of the celebrated Tail of the Pup hotdog stand.

Libeskind's modus operandum is to contrive a method for generating forms* allow this to happen and then weave from this an elaborate post-hoc justification for the scheme. Little of this effort is expended on the actual architecture.

* For his celebrated Berlin Holocaust Museum he drew a series of lines on a map of Berlin which connected the addresses of people with jewish names, obtained from an old phone book, until they formed something approaching an elongated star of David. This arbitrary design formed the basis of his plan.

I don't think there is any malice in this charade, which is why I describe him as benevolent, but the ersatz-architecture he creates is that of a charlatan.

Comments

[Edmund Burke]

Whatever proposal is finally chosen, Carlisle pier should be the natural home of the National Maritime Museum, and none of the other silly cultural ideas.
Regarding the architecture, I agree that none of the finalists are particulary inspiring. Surely a Victorian influence would have been more appropriate instead of lower Manhatten.

[Frank McGahon]

A Maritime Museum would be good, but so would an acquarium. The acquarium in Lisbon for the 1998 expo is quite spectacular.

As for the style: I don't know if it's lower Manhattan or just simple boiler-plate quayside architecture. I wouldn't agree with you on "Victorian influence" if you mean a literal pastiche. If you mean inspired by Victorian architecture and, more importantly, Victorian pier construction I'd readily concur.

I love both Brighton piers: the contradiction between the solid seeming forms and the elegant construction beneath which holds them aloft. When the west pier, now gone, was "unmoored" and derelict it had an even more tragic quality.

[Abiola Lapite]

Not too keen on Liebeskind, are you? What was your take on Norman Foster's entry for the WTC, by the way?

[Frank McGahon]

My problem with Libeskind is really a philosophical one about architecture and design, I just don't think he really knows how to design. Some of his buildings, rather like "hopeful monsters", turn out ok but that is despite, rather than because of, his philosophy.

Foster has created some great work and some fantastically bland work too. I think he handles transport buildings best of all. Stansted Airport was really great when it first opened but it has become a bit of a muddle, the train platform is still good. His tube station for Canary Wharf is also very good. I have never been to it, but I like his museum in Nimes. I was very disappointed by the bland airport-lounge-like quality of the British Museum courtyard: I had expected better.

As for Foster's WTC scheme, I am unmoved but it is better than Libeskind's. My preference was to rebuild the Twin Towers - and then knock them down!