Designer, writer, and television presenter Kevin McCloud leapt into our consciousness with his vastly successful Grand Designs show on Channel 4. This month, the affable architectural business owner reveals some of his favourite buildings.
It’s a funny thing when being asked for a list of favourite buildings, and I think, over time, most people will struggle to stick to a top three because our passion for architecture can really depend on what sort of mood we are in.
There are certainly some days I wake up and crave the blunt, smooth, contemporary elements of the Tate Modern. Other times I might be minded to cross directly over the Thames and take in the majesty of St Paul’s Cathedral and all its ornate splendour.
I think it’s important we allow ourselves that level of variation without getting too focussed on one path. It’s the same reason we can bask in sunshine one day and love the feeling of rain on our faces the next – humans, by their very design, sway between emotions and preferences, and the places in which we live and work and exist should do likewise.
That’s why I think King’s Cross station – and, indeed, some of the surrounding area – is such a perfect blend of architectural styles, of personalities, of eras, all blended so elegantly into one.
The incredible side extension to King’s Cross envelops the existing station and all its Victorian architecture in a way that flits between different styles. It probably shouldn’t work, but does.
King’s Cross also represents the classic architect’s secret – namely that you don’t always have to build something to make it better. Sometimes just removing a building – or in this case, the 1970s front canopies – can reveal all the existing splendour lurking underneath; to re-present to a generation for whom it was lost under concrete and plastic.
Elsewhere, I’ve always loved the Royal Festival Hall on Southbank. I know people hate it for its brutalist, modernist concrete exterior, for the mass and maze of concrete that surrounds it on all sides, and for the fact it feels like a big, aching open space once you step inside; but those are actually all the things I love about it.
It’s a building that represents a time when we were being conditioned to create space, and it succeeds!
For something more traditional, so many of the buildings around Greenwich – from the observatory to the university – are very special indeed. The way they sprawl out onto the Thames speaks wealth and intense discovery, and you can see that within the devilish detail of the brickwork.
For a newer building, The Gherkin is astounding. I can’t think of a single piece of architecture that feels as engaging and lucid as this. It guides the eye and glistens in the early morning sunlight. It’s very special.
Finally, I would probably return to the King’s Cross area and talk about St. Pancras. What I love about the station is so much about regeneration. The Midland Grand Hotel is a fantastic example of a space being brought back to life, and the station that spills behind it has been totally reinvented from the sad, dark, dilapidated terminal that it was in the Eighties.
This is really the point about favourite buildings, just as it would be about naming a favourite song. What you are bringing forward is not necessarily the look of a building, or the sound of a verse – it is the relationship you have with it, personally, and how that building, or song, or person even, makes you feel now or has made you feel in the past.
That’s why we shouldn’t be in a rush to change everything, because we risk losing the connection we had previously. Sometimes imperfections are there for a reason, and very often, our favourite buildings are imperfect!
