The Brits Who Built The Modern World & New British Works - review
RIBA, London Until 27 May; Review by Pamela Buxton
It's staggering: a quarter of the biggest architecture practices in the world are based in the UK, and a fifth of RIBA practices' workload is overseas. These statistics alone make examining the global influence of the British practice a valid line of enquiry even without the hook of BBC's recent series The Brits Who Built the Modern World. The RIBA exhibition of the same name, the first in its new ground-floor gallery space, is a worthwhile spin-off for both a general audience and architects alike.
The RIBA and its architect Carmody Groarke have done well to carve this 135 sq m area out of what was back-of-house space by the reception at 66 Portland Place.
Already, on the show's busy opening Saturday, the new gallery was doing much to animate the august building, although in itself the new space is not particularly distinctive. The interest lies in what's on display, and for this, curator Mike Althorpe had rich subject matter at his disposal - the disproportionate and continuing influence of British architects around the world over the past 50 years.
It's a big subject, which could have done with a bit more space to breath. While the television programme was tightly focused on the architectural journeys, collaborations and rivalries of the leading five British architects of this period - Norman Foster, Michael Hopkins, Richard Rogers, Terry Farrell and Nicholas Grimshaw - this show has a much broader, less peoplefocused range. As well as these central figures, there's work by BDP, Trevor Dannatt Architects and Farmer & Dark among many others, as well as more recent projects by David Chipperfield and Zaha Hadid.
Nevertheless the final message of the show is clearly the impressive global reach of the Big Five, graphically underlined through dots representing their projects on a world map.
The core question is how did UK architects come to have so much influence post-war overseas? This is kicked off with a run through the Festival of Britain and the success of the British take on modernism all over the world, in particular Africa and the Middle East. Trevor Dannatt's King Faisal Conference Centre in Riyadh (1973) looks particularly impressive.
Material on the huge influence of American culture, British radical Archigram and emerging building technologies pave the way for the rise of Foster, Rogers et al, and their development of what became known as High-tech, with its emphasis on legibility of structure and services. This show is a reminder of how radical these now establishment figures once were, with the futuristic Willis Faber & Dumas office in Ipswich and Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership's aluminium-clad Mercury Housing Society flats in central London.
High-tech's evolution into the defining international style of the late-20th century is the key stylistic story of the exhibition. There is some great material here - models and drawings of Rogers & Piano's Centre Pompidou and, in particular, the story of Foster's Hong Kong Shanghai Bank headquarters and Farrell's Peak Tower in Hong Kong, plus footage of the architects discussing their work and Prince Charles' famous 'monstrous carbuncle' outburst against the National Gallery's extension plans.
Emphasis is given to the role of the government, both as client of embassies and international pavilions and as cheerleader of British talent abroad in trade missions and promotional material. Temporary pavilions seem influential, illustrated by projects such as Grimshaw's pavilion for Seville Expo 92 and Heatherwick's for Shanghai 2010, and with a quote from Basil Spence likening them to hothouses where new seeds are planted and forced. This success story is by no means over. Upstairs in the accompanying New British Works exhibition, showing models of forthcoming and proposed work by UK practices - from David Adjaye's diamondpatterned high-rise in Shanghai to Zaha Hadid's sleek Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan.
The emphasis is on work in China and the Middle East, reflecting the shifts in the global economy.
And why be held back by global boundaries? Foster goes one step beyond global domination with the practice's Lunar Habitation project, a proposal to use lunar earth and a 3D printer to 'print' a building on the moon.
