As one of the world’s leading practitioners of New Classicism, John Simpson has revolutionized the combination of durability, functionality, and beauty within his projects. John Simpson's design philosophy centers on the idea that architecture is a public art, shaping the character of streets, squares, and civic spaces to influence our collective cultural experience. In this lecture, Simpson will highlight small-scale residential apartment designs, country houses, large-scale institutional projects and more that exemplify functional design.
Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.
As one of the world’s leading practitioners of New Classicism, John Simpson has revolutionized the combination of durability, functionality, and beauty within his projects. John Simpson's design philosophy centers on the idea that architecture is a public art, shaping the character of streets, squares, and civic spaces to influence our collective cultural experience. In this lecture, Simpson will highlight small-scale residential apartment designs, country houses, large-scale institutional projects and more that exemplify functional design.
Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.
Good evening. Good afternoon, our speaker is John Simpson. I would like to, offer a double introduction if I could. The first is slightly stiff and I'm going to read it. Because I would like you all to know, particularly the ones who are not as old as some of the faculty in the room, what kind of work John has done and perhaps where to find it. both where to find it on the internet and where to find it in person. So, I have to read this smilingly because this is, John's return home. This is a home of sorts, perhaps more than home because we're living inside. his, his mind, you know, it's a bit of a complicated relationship we're having with John, not only tonight, but on a daily basis. So, John Simpson Architects came to prominence in the 1990s with a master plan for Paternoster Square by St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He pioneered mixed use urban planning long before it was adopted as government policy in the UK. And these are very radical issues, I think, to appreciate and understand. Ideas that are very routine today used to be just This is extraordinarily unusual, a short time ago. Through his work, he has had considerable influence in bringing the classical tradition to prominence, with buildings such as Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, his buildings at Poundery for the Duchy of Cornwall, Kensington Palace for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, and the National Defence Rehabilitation Facility for injured service personnel near Lowborough. Loughborough? Loughborough, sorry. Loughborough. Within academia, his works include buildings at Gonville and Caius College, at, and at Peterhouse, the University of Cambridge, at late Margaret Hall, the University of Oxford, and the new McCram Yard Quad at Eden College, at Windsor, his addition of music rooms at the Royal College of Music in London, and of course, the Walsh Family Hall School of Architecture here. The work is extraordinary, it's broad, it is beautiful, it's well conceived, executed, acclaimed. I remember in 1995, 1999, 2000, when I first saw, Queen's Gallery in London, it was astounding. It was astounding because only 25 years ago, there was so little new classical architecture built in the world, that a building in this location, by a new architect, in a new form, was completely new. unanticipated and pretty thoroughly unusual. Happily in 25 years, an awful lot has happened, and yet, John's work still remains standing, beautiful, proud, and although so much more has happened, his contributions already, seriously written up, in the, in the history of architecture with, with very bright words, and will continue to be, in the future. Now, your presence here, John, is very unusual. And I'll return to the question of this being your school. the most beautiful thing about architecture, about architectural design, is the fact that ideas get born in the mind. And, they're born about this size, maybe. maybe, it's a piece of paper. maybe this size. Right? As a diagram. And then they grow, and they grow. And then, one day, one walks through a frame, right? And this enormous thing in place that has come out of that magical seed. And so for you to be here and to be through a building that has gone through this transformation from seed to final place is a remarkable thing. It must be a really exhilarating thing. But for us it's also exhilarating because we live here every day, we love this place, it is our home, and so to invite you to be with us today is an unusual and unique pleasure. Thank you for being here, and the rest of the afternoon is yours. Pleasure. Join me in welcoming John Simpson Holmes.
John Simpson:Thank you, Stephanos. it's such a, it's being here, It's just so nice to come back. it's, yeah, and it's, after so long, and to spend, you know, spend the afternoon with the students, looking around and talking to the students, and it's so wonderful to see the place sort of being used so well, and come to life the way it is. before I left London, I was at a gathering where everybody was talking about all these schools of architecture which were popping up everywhere and, this whole insurrection that I think the, the, Scandinavians have put, have described it as is really quite exciting, you know, where suddenly I think Seeing quite a moment happening in history. and I suppose for me, when I started. There were no schools of architecture teaching classical and traditional architecture. There were no summer schools. There weren't even practices where one could intern doing anything like that. But I was lucky. I really was lucky. I had The Soane Museum, and the Soane Museum, because today you think of the Soane Museum, and it's a place run like a museum, you touch everything, everybody wears white gloves, taking out all these drawings, but it wasn't like that then, it was the way Soane left it, and what He created it as the place to learn all about classical architecture. That's why it's got all those amazing casts and pieces of old buildings in there. And he's got his whole archive of drawings. He bought the archive of the Adam brothers. And that's all in there, as well as Henry Holland and people like that. It was an amazing place to, to learn. And that's where, and I owe everything to John Soane from that point of view. and then at the end of all that, I had to go out, and there was nobody I could work for. It just had to be done. so, there I was in 1980, out there, building buildings. and it was a terrible time to start a practice. Margaret Thatcher was fighting the unions and everything was going on. The economic situation was dire, but we found some work and, I suppose we had quite a bit of time on our hands, so me and a few friends organized This is an exhibition of the work we were doing, which you see here, an exhibition called Real Architecture. the real thing, you see. And we managed to raise 500 pounds and we, organized this exhibition at the building center. And you know what the building center is? It's where brick companies Sell fabrics and where you go and you choose a carpet because you're thinking of what kind of carpet you might use to, to, to, for an office building. And, to our astonishment, it was real astonishment, I can tell you. our exhibition. Hit all the main newspapers at the time. The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Sunday Papers, everything. You know, they picked up on this. And the building centre didn't know what hit them. They'd never had an exhibition so well attended. The whole world sort of came down to this exhibition. And it really took the world by storm. I mean, we had people coming down from pop stars like Bob Geldof to the Prince of Wales. And, that's how I got to know the Prince of Wales. And he was determined to champion what we were doing. and it also happens at the time that the, a rather horrendous scheme was put forward. to redevelop the area around St. Paul's Cathedral that the Prince of Wales was particularly horrified about. And I agreed to do a counter scheme for that, which you can see here, which was really to demonstrate what was possible if one was going to do and redesign the whole area around St. Paul's and do it in a traditional manner. he championed it at the, what was called the, that is now known as the Luftwaffe speech. And, the counter scheme was, got overwhelming public support. And the Evening Standard paid for the planning. Permission which went in, and it was interesting. the comments in the comments book, we fell into two categories. Public absolute support for the whole thing. Architects. Pastiche was the word they keep shouting. that's what it is. But it is interesting looking back at the posters, right? Our public presentation. And it's interesting to see, this was probably the first time the principles of traditional urbanism were given a true public hearing. And you see the slogans, on the exhibition, of, posters. You know, it's creating streets and squares, urban, walkable, urban spaces. A mix of uses in the traditional manner. This was soon followed by, Poundbury and Leon Krier's master plan for that. And we, were commissioned to design the first public building, at Poundbury, in Pummery Square in the first place. First phase, of Palmbury and that was followed by designing houses, creating row houses and streets of houses, mixed use buildings, individual houses as well, creating arcades and public spaces and squares of this type. And it was really the whole drive towards sustainability which helped us a great deal after this because what happened, politicians got interested in the whole thing and, the whole idea of reducing the reliance on the motor car became very significant, certainly in England. as, and the idea of using. Designing urban extensions like this, like Newcastle Great Park that we did, all modelled on traditional towns, was, became very much the rage. And we were commissioned to design Fairford Lees, which was just outside Aylesbury, and it was conceived really very much as, a series of neighbourhoods, each planned within sort of a radius of a five minute walking distance. And then, most amazingly, we were actually hired by a local authority, and this is working for a local authority where, at Solihull in Birmingham, where we designed and got this whole idea of a new settlement through the planning process, et cetera, for them, Public consultation, all that, and then designed the, master plan and the whole center for it, which you can see here. And it was amazing, you know, everybody then was saying, you can't have shops, you can't have mixed use. And here, you know, this Small settlement, not very big at all, it's about 3, 000 units all together. And, you know, there was 16 shops, a supermarket, you know, a pub, a library, health center, schools, social housing, etc. And it was all in there. And all this done much in the face of institutional resistance, and it was not just so much in the planning system, but the, all the rules, all the basic rules, highway rules, regulations, et cetera, were all against this kind of thing. It was an almost very almost impossible to do it, without finding clever ways around it. And of course, that's without talking about the ingrained commercial prejudice against, developments of this type. And of course, in addition to that, the idea of the design codes was developed, which was really done with each of these things describing the local architectural vernacular and was used for these developments. So it's to make sure that they had a sense of place about them and a sense of belonging to the area in which they were built. And as Stephanos was saying, this was all conceived in the last century. It was in the last century. And looking back, you can see that there was a moment of dramatic change until the profession fought back. And I think we're seeing a similar moment now. With the rebellion and it's going to change and really shoot out Until of course the Empire strikes back again. There we are. Hopefully it won't but anyway going on from this the whole idea of design etc is Continues to be a major strand of the work of the practice. These are some I just thought I'd show you some more recent work in that a vein. This is in Paris, just outside Paris, in fact, and France. And you can see the very French characteristic, of the buildings. And buildings designed so they look like they've been there forever. this is another development, which is just on the drawing boards at the moment. at Cambridge, and, it's a development, an entirely new settlement of about 10, 000 new dwellings with a very significant mix of uses, which has been incorporated and all designed to fit into the Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge, vernacular. The other of the Prince of Wales's influence was his institute, and the School of Architecture, where I began my This is an example of one, a project that we did with the students exploring the origins of the Doric order and how that all came together. But although the school didn't survive, the legacy for our office of this school was really very significant. I mean, all the key people in my office, Joanna Wachowiak, who actually, is now a key person, my right hand person in, in, in practice, were all trained during this period. It's the same, Hugh Petter at Adam Architects. Ben Pentreath. The last year's Driehaus Laureate, were all from, the, and as a result of the, Prince of Wales school. And that was vital to us as a practice, and I can't overstate, too, the significance of This school, and we had, I mean, the number of staff we had from this school, is, was actually very important to us and was a significant, a means which allowed us as a practice to be able to develop and design many of the buildings that we did. These are some pictures of the office, just in case you're interested. some of the more fancy parts of the office, rather than the drawing office, which you can imagine what that's like. But the principles that were significant to me as a practice, were, in the first place, making sure that we didn't end up Finding ourselves specializing in one type of building. It was quite important to me, I felt, that we actually designed different types of buildings where each building, every time you did a different building, it informed the next and you got a good overview of things rather than ending up with a very myopic view of architecture. And that's pretty difficult to do because once you design a successful I don't know, restaurant. You find everybody comes to you for more successful restaurants, and you really have to work hard to get, make sure that this is not what's happening. And you have to twist things and pretend that the restaurant is not a restaurant, but it's actually a library! And convince them that you can do it. So, we, I think we've been fairly successful. We designed, galleries, we designed, academic institutions. Academic institutions are very useful because they incorporate lots of different kinds of spaces, etc. this is the, debating chamber at, at Eaton College, which you can see here. We designed museums, we designed a chapel, which, recently finished in the perpendicular style in Chelsea. we designed cottages, we designed country houses, we designed, residential buildings in cities, let's see here. We, and also, I was, for me, if it was an interesting job, nothing was too big or too small. And again, looking at things at different scales is really quite significant, quite important in, in, in the development of the practice and the development of the architecture we did. This is just a small, garden pavilion at Sheringham in Norfolk. And at the other end of the scale, this is, the, Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre in Leicestershire, which is 400, 000 square feet of medical rehabilitation space, which we designed in, in, into a parkland sitting, you can see there with, a lake down at that end and the parkland. which all belonged originally to, to a country house. and the idea that we did is to really design it as a series of smaller buildings which were all linked together, around cloisters, courtyards, and internal gardens. So you created the kind of space that was particularly conducive to the rehabilitation of patients. And this was Extended out into the surrounding, parkland. And then there's furniture. It's always good to design furniture. Bob, say yes. and there's amazing, you know, furniture, fittings, etc. But there's always things that People haven't done. I mean, I was shocked nobody designed a stacking klismos chair. there you are. You know, this is my take on Lutyens Napoleon chair. all using, Ancient, Roman precedent, looking at it, this is why I call it the Caesar Chair, and variations of that, looking also at patterns in, in, fabric, et cetera, and designing things of that ilk. But the most important thing, for me, was really the whole idea of designing buildings so they fitted in and were part, and extended the sense of place in which they were. I mean, all these buildings here are new in Chelsea. These buildings are new in Westminster. And to do that, you really have to widen what you're designing. You can't just decide to design in one particular way. So you have to design sometimes a medieval building with a thatched roof, or perhaps a Renaissance, a Romanesque. Building in this manner, and this is a war memorial for the Royal Artillery. Or, indeed, a Gothic building, where the necessity arises. And also, updating the tradition. It's such an important thing. Making sure that what you're doing is within the tradition, but updating it. Using everything here, for instance, that fountain you see there. is also not just there for decoration, but actually uses a process of evaporative cooling to cool the interior of the building. and of course, solar collectors, the most ugly things you can ever come across and stuck all over buildings, but you can design them in so they don't ruin the architecture of your building as we did here at Lady Margaret Hall. And the other thing, that we really had to do is the whole business of how you built and construction, because veneer construction is no good, it just isn't any good for traditional architecture, and you, that's what, I mean, it's so insubstantial, just can't keep the water out, which is why these buildings, these modern buildings that use, cavity walls, et cetera, end up looking like that, and we all know The traditional building relies on the moldings to actually control all that, uh, aging. so that you actually get a patina happening on there. But of course if you insist on building everything load bearing like that, you probably end up with half the number of clients. so we had to come up with a way which would allow us to build proper. Real traditional walls, which actually behave like traditional walls, but do it at the sort of speed that people expected to see in the modern age. So what we devised is a means of actually building the buildings that you took. the external wall of the critical path. So you could build the building using a frame, going right up, the building, the whole building could actually continue being fitted out, etc., while you sort of slowly built up a solid, self supporting wall on the outside and doing it in your, at your own leisure, doing it properly and building it properly with the skills that you really need. And then you can design in the traditional manner, but you don't necessarily have to design something which has been seen before. You can always put it together in a different sort of way so that it appears fresh. And you really have to do that, because every generation Wants to feel and wants to make the tradition their own. so it needs to be put together and here you've got, really archaic columns of the Queen's Gallery, the entrance hall, and yet the way it's put together and the way it comes across is not as a build, as an interior or as, that you would have seen before. And that's, I think, very important. But having said that, it's also sometimes very important to make sure that, you're being very faithful. I mean, for instance, this, this, debating chamber was designed very much to revive It's sort of an architectural form, which most people don't know anything about unless they're really interested in their history books. And it was really designed very much based on the council chamber at ancient Praheni, complete with the altar right in the center which there it is, providing a lectern in the middle. And of course, architecture is there also to educate. the Portico, the Queen's Gallery was specially designed as it was an entrance to the, to an art gallery as a celebration of the origin, origins of Western art, and architecture. And it distinguish, and that's what distinguishes it as entrance to a gallery to the Queen's Gallery, which is different to all the other entrances at Buckingham Palace. But more significantly, I think it also prepares visitors. for what they're about to experience inside, and it helps them, and reminds them of certain things so that they can appreciate, the art that they're about to see even more. I mean, that's why, for instance, it uses these great archaic Doric columns from the Temple of Hera at Bistum. And the earliest known form of Doric, why the open impediment reveals the construction of the Doric roof as described by Vitruvius, and it's complete with the embellishment you might expect to find in an ancient building. And of course, the disposition of the elements is clearly recalls. The e, the Eric, the at the Acropolis in Athens. I particularly enjoy projects that requires something of impossible in them. And I'll give you an example of this. This is, Peter House, in Cambridge, Peter House. The historic part of, Peter House has two, courts, old court and gizzard court here. and one of the things about the Cambridge courts that makes them difficult from the different. from the Oxford quads is that they're usually three sided, either with a screen across one end, as at King's College, or as you can see here, the old court at, Peterhouse, where you have The chapel positioned in there, giving you an open sided or partially open sided, third side to the, court. And of course, Peterhouse being old and being of the age it is, grew incrementally and has significant elements, particularly of old court, which are medieval. But that was all refaced in the 18th century. So one of the characteristics of Peterhouse, and of course, just to show you Gisborne Court, this is 1830s Gothic. and the range you see here is actually a medieval range, which on one side is Refaced in, to be classical. On this side, it's refaced to be gothic. and so a key feature of Peterhouse is these three sided courts. Which are all uniform in style, And then, what happened in the 1930s, thinkND was, is this, screen here was knocked down, and they built an ugly bathhouse here. And the college, needing more accommodation, decided, It's time they put that right, and we were commissioned to design a new building to complete the court here. So we designed and had a look at designing something which really took and was reminiscent of the old screen that ran across there and provided the new accommodation very much in the manner of the chapel. In old court, as you can see here with a, a junior common room, which runs in that significant, location there. And then, hey, presto. That's your building. You know, it's quite straightforward. we used a brick, which was similar to the gaunt brick, which you can't get anymore, in, in, in Cambridge'cause it's not made. And, a stone which matched the stone of the rest of the court and building on the gothic detailing there so that it all worked in, and worked as part of the college itself. But beyond the calm of this exterior, there is a great, there was a great deal more that needed to be resolved. The site is triangular shaped, you can see it there. Between historic buildings, this, these are grade one, landmark buildings, these are, this was grade two. And then we had on the third side, an ancient wall, which was that green ancient wall. And if that wasn't enough, we had a service route, which ran right through the middle of the site. These were the kitchens over here, and they used to take everything across there. So all the deliveries and all the rubbish was taken out right through our site. So we had to devise a way of dealing with this and have to reroute that and run it underneath the building, bringing it in. Not underground, but in a passageway, which actually went through a ramp underneath the building. As you can see there, and, so the building was actually made up of three elements that you can see there, with a passageway underneath, which all had to be reconciled, and this is the view from the back, looking across, there's the, across Fen Court, this is the ancient wall, there's the passageway underneath the building, One part of the building over there, two stories high, running through. and then of course we had to reconcile the geometry to make that work using this circular stair which runs up through the center of the building, in this manner. But then, another thing that I am a great believer in, is that when designing a new building, you need to take cues from the buildings. around you, designed by your predecessors. This is essential to some extent in ensuring, it is, in ensuring that the work of many hands that's done over sometimes hundreds of years Results in something which is coherent. I also believe that you, as the designer, need to consider what cues you need to leave behind and build into your building to make sure that future architects also adhere to what you're intending to do. And they can pick up on that. So you get that continuity working across generations. And this is an example, this time at Oxford rather than Cambridge. This is Lady Margaret Hall, the first college for women at either Oxford or Cambridge. And you can see the college itself. It's an amazing collection of, 20th century classical buildings. Except. For these two buildings here, and then you could see, look, it, the college started in 1875, it was extended by Basil Champneys, then by another architect, Reginald Blomfield, and then Gilbert Scott over here. And they were all building, curiously, extremely, you know, orthogonal buildings, all designed. And you then realize, when Raymond Areth builds his bit, that they were all trying to design it to set the foundations in place to build a series of quadrangles. And it's not until the 1960s, which is almost a hundred years later, that the first quadrangle gets built. So it takes that long, and here's one of Raymond Ereth's drawings showing the way he was exploring even further, quadrangle. and of course, all this happens well into the 60s, 1970s, when the college decides to take on a modernist architect who is determined to ignore all the cues. And look what happens. In one fell swoop, a hundred years of work by a whole succession of architects. Is lost. It's the story of the 20th century, isn't it? So there you are. And happily, they were going to build, there's two point blocks there, they were going to build three more, running all the way across there. Happily, the college saw sense and decided to abandon this course and we were commissioned to come and repair this damage. But they weren't going to make the job easy for us. no, you couldn't knock those buildings down. We had to design something so they could be subsumed into the natural development form of the college. Which, of course, was a whole series of quadrangles. So, we designed these L shaped buildings, which you see here, so that by doing that, we could subsume these point blocks, so that you could then still define a quad on this side, and you were defining quads behind, and to make it all work. And I was very anxious that, when we designed these, that this all connected through and linked to any f Future, buildings which were going to be designed and built as at the front of the college. This is the main front of the college, the main approach. so we considered what would happen here and considered how the whole thing should work so as to connect through, as we were designing it. And, So, we picked up, and how did we do this? We picked up on the architecture of the existing buildings. This is one of the buildings by Blomfield. this is the library by, or part of the library by Raymond Ares. So our buildings are really red brick buildings, with simple stone dressings, very much picking up on the architecture and the level of architecture that the other buildings that were existing there had, but also incorporated, arcades, as you can see here, which is a common feature of Oxford Colleges. And then in doing so, you can see here where we've, built in and subsumed the blocks into these, sort of these, this facade. Luckily, they, the modern buildings were built in red brick, so we could do this. and created, more quadrangles, around, The back of these blocks and of course the buildings were three story buildings. The upper stories are really student accommodation with teaching accommodation at the ground floor such as this lecture theater cum recital room that you see here. All these dining spaces and breakout rooms. And the college seemed to be so, so happy with what we did that they did, give us the, uh, commission of the, to continue the whole thing across the front of the college, which was left this way, sort of unfinished since Raymond Harris designed it. So the space outside was neither. Part of the college, nor part of the street network outside, just a leftover car park, as you can see, which we, transformed with two new buildings, and these, gatehouses, which you see either side, which were designed to complement Raymond Aerith's great arch at the end there. One of the curious things about Raymond Aerith's building is this, Very windowless, blind top storey. And that, top storey there could have benefited from windows there, because it was just a corridor behind there. But it all made sense when you realized that Raymond Ereth had designed this, very much inspired by the Porta Maggiore in Rome. and of course, with its great big Claudian aqueduct across the top. Which also, of course, explains the reason for his blind top story. But what I was very interested in was this kind of curious small little monument that you've got here outside, which was outside the walls in ancient Roman times. And it's Embellished with these rather curious circular devices that turn out to be ancient Roman kneading machines for making bread, because this was a monument to a baker. And I thought we'd use this embellishment for the tympana of our pediments to the gatehouses. As an appropriate way to continue the architectural narrative of the entrance that Raymond Aerith started. So, effectively, what we're doing is responding to the development form of the buildings, the nature of the materials, as well as the architecture of the buildings and the narrative that supported that. And by doing that, ensure that we got a continuity between the old and the new, so that the difference is almost imperceptible on the ground. And just while I'm on this, I thought I might sort of explain, some of the spaces as well. But the lesson to learn from this is just how it, how important it is to read the cues. And to set up your own queues for future architects so that they can design their buildings and make it possible for that continuity that I was talking about earlier to carry on generation after generation. this here is the, Porter's Lodge. And you can go through, whoops. so that's the interior of the Porter's Lodge. the graduate building on the other side. And, some of the, one of the interior spaces there. And of course the view you get of, the main entrance now of Lady Margaret Hall as you approach from, the theater from No of Gardens, which runs straight up towards that entrance there. This is another example. and this is the Royal College of Music. which is the main conservatoire in London. I mean, there are two. It's the main, this one, and the Royal Academy. and this is in Kensington. You can see, the Royal Albert Hall there. and this is the area where the, museums are. The Imperial War Museum, the Science Museum, the Imperial Institution, the BNA here. And this was one of, prince called Prince Consorts, projects, that he and, was very connected with, and he was particularly the, involved with the role culture of music, which is why it's positioned Sue centrally. Right in the middle there, the whole complex, right opposite, the, Royal Albert Hall. And you can see it here, this is the view that you get from the main entrance looking towards Royal Albert Hall, with the grand steps leading up to the hall, as the ground drops towards, the RCM building. And that's the RCM building. You can see designed along that axis with two symmetrical towers either side and the central space, of course, becoming quite significant and important in there. Looking back, at the, Royal Albert Hall. And of course, when this was designed by, Arthur Blomfield, who has no relation to Reginald Blomfield from, and he designed this very much. based on that, that main axis running through the building, which was later extended with a new concert hall, which was also put on axis, quite understandably. And then in the 1970s was extended even further with a new opera house. Which you can see here, which was put in to the west of the concert hall, parallel to the concert hall itself. And we were brought in, a few years ago, a couple of years, about seven years ago, to add some new facilities. on the other side of the concert hall, which included, a number of recital rooms, practice rooms, a museum, recording studio, various teaching spaces, and to add in much needed breakout spaces which were really missing from the original building because the original building was never designed to have as much, going on in it as it now has. And also to provide a sort of a center for the students. to sort of just a social center for the students. and what I was very anxious to do is to return back to the simple plan that, that Arthur Blomfield had first put in, because what had happened once the Opera House was put in, is that they didn't address that at all. So you basically got an opera house in there. And then all the circulation routes, because of the changes in level, went up and down stairs, became very complex and very tortuous. So it became very much, sort of, Rabbit Warren. And, the simplicity was lost. which we reintroduced here, so you came in the middle, made the most of this central space which was so significant to the building, and then had a whole circulation zone, which then fed into the various performance spaces that ran along there. this is the entrance hall as it was, quite, an ornate. Entrance hall, but really quite small, which we opened up, moved the, wall memorial from there. And also, behind that, opened up the space so as to make something a lot more spacious that would work there. And extend it onto the east side where our whole, commission was really based. So you had. a, all your spaces on this side, which because of the drop in the land, we were able to put the, performance spaces underneath an open courtyard here, so you ended up with an open courtyard at the entrance level with, a great sort of, foyer space across here with a cafe in place for people to socialize, a green room on this side for the performers, dining room for the students and so on. So they could use that, and, this is the sort of, courtyard space that we created. There wasn't a lot of external wall on this building because of, the nature of it. so we could really go to town with the brickwork here. And, that's, you can just see the, courtyard behind there. this was the, foyer space going through here. And then the space between that and the old building, was taken up with, roof lit. a hall, with a staircase leading down to the facilities at the lower levels that you can see here. So at the lower level you've got the, um, recital rooms here, a museum at this end here, a recording studio and so on. And this is at the bottom, and through here is the museum, where they have a remarkable collection of, instruments. Probably the best in the country, in England. And then the recital room, or the major recital room itself that you see here, which were really designed with quite a sophisticated acoustic system, with, banners, acoustic banners behind this transcend eye screen, which could be retracted up and down to change the acoustics, so it could be used both for performance and as a recording studio as well, which you see here. And of course, What we really did here is really set up the organizational and architectural structure that underpinned the way the building would work. And although we were unable to, on the, unable to build the other side of it, which related to the, opera house, effectively, it was a compelling thing that we knew, we'd given them a legacy that they could implement in the future. And in a way, although this is all dealing with an existing building, in a way, it's even more important, I think, sometimes, with a new building, to make sure that you've put in a legacy of cues that could be picked up. and I thought a good example of that is literally Walsh Family Hall here. and I went back to some of our design drawings that we had. And of course the thing about Walsh Family Hall is that it was really designed to be shared, or the block was really designed to be shared with the School of Art on the other side. So effectively, what we have here is only two sides of the court. and it's quite important as to what happens on the other side for the School of Architecture. We know if we're not careful, something could happen there. So, when I, which would be totally detrimental to what you've got. So, one of the reasons why the tower is positioned where it is. is so as to articulate the court and the spaces within the court. So you've basically got a series of spaces, a more formal space on this side, a more private space at the back, a yard space down here where you could have, sculpture studios. It's opposite the Bob's Furniture Workshop and so on. And you got that working in there, but what was more significant is that tower was really designed, it's got an elevator in it, and was really designed to provide a core, a circulation core on this side, so you could link through. to, the, future building on that side, on various different levels. It also meant that you could actually extend the architecture school on this side of the, of the terrace. So you could get, I mean, you, can't build a building without extension space. So, so you could extend that on that side and then tie it all in, in a manner which would actually work. And possibly even on this side, because you can connect through at different levels, you could probably have some shared space at this end, which could be shared between the two schools. And the most important part about it was to actually make sure that you got the enclosure eventually of the different parts of that courtyard. I mean that, a ramp, for instance, was actually deliberately put in there so as to distinguish that. space and set, get people used to that space as being one proper space so that it wasn't then encroached upon in the future. And you could then get the new building to actually have its own entrance on this side and perhaps also relate to this space and provide the enclosure that you really needed. So you could turn this. into a much more defined urban series of urban spaces. So, having said that, I think I'm going to move on to one of my final points, which is really to say something about the fourth dimension. Because architecture, everybody knows, is three dimensional, but you've also got A sense of time to it. Something that people don't do much of these days, because, and it's probably a result of the hangover from the indoctrination of the modernists and the modernist era, the 20th century, where you really weren't allowed to have architecture. If it wasn't of its time, but we all know one of the ways that are one of the things that makes traditional towns and cities so attractive is the variety of architecture that you get with each era of development having its own distinctive features. In a town, this helps you and helps us all find our way around as we know that the older buildings. original to the development, are more likely to be where the center is. And as human beings, we're very good at recognizing pattern. And by having a logical pattern like that, it ties the whole place together. So they actually, the variety that you put in, is actually also giving you the unity. Which is quite the opposite to, say, a suburban estate because although we know the variety is put in there, which each house is, wants to be different from its neighbor, but because it's completely random and there's no pattern, what that variety does is make it disparate rather than unifying it all together. And this is something which we use frequently in urban design, but it's also the same in buildings, because where you've got buildings which have had additions, Added to them and changes that have happened over a long period of time. You see, and you see this in many country houses in England. You can build up that sort of unity even though you've got a variety of different spaces within it. And this is something we had to look at when we were designing a new house. in, in this village of Werewell. And Werewell has really got all, it's actually got 60, listed buildings. Most of them, are dating from, the early 1500s, mid 1500s. They're all buildings like this, sort of half timbered. Thatched roofs, that sort of thing. And it seemed appropriate if we were adding a new building that it really should sort of be part of the village, which we've done here. And of course, buildings of that period are all quite straightforward. They're very long and thin, due to the construction method that was used. And also have a particular feature because most of these buildings belong to an era before. Fireplaces and chimneys were common, and the only way you could heat a house like this was to have a brazier here. With a fire in it, the smoke then sort of went up and went out through a vent in the roof. And if you had a lower ceiling than that, the house would catch fire. So you didn't really have much choice but to do that. And as part of all this, there was a very sophisticated system, to do with the way the hall was vented. So it was to make sure that the air came in here and you didn't get a negative pressure happening there. So You had what was called a screens passage, which you see here, which had doors on both sides. and what happened there was, because by designing it like this, it didn't really depend on which way the wind was blowing. You still got You wouldn't get a negative pressure and you get the ventilation air in and that was controlled with a series of smaller doors in the, screens passage. this is a view looking inside, the great hall that you see here and the building is all built out of green oak, which is, with mortise and tenon joints, as you can see there with pegs, which will. Create this hammer beam roof, which you see there. And of course the great aureal window lights the space there from the west. But if we look the other side, you can look back and you begin to see the, Screens Passage on this side and the entrance, which you saw earlier. And this is the first place where something begins to happen. Of course with, once the chimneys are invented and the chimney was built into the house, the whole Screens Passage lost its function. You didn't have to have small little doors. you could have a nice big opening so as to make it look much more spacious and grand. And of course that would have been done in a Later Renaissance period. So you would end up with Jacobean classical details for the screen, built in front of what is an older, gothic structure, which you can see back there. and, just to make it even more convincing, what I decided to do was to build it so it was slightly off center, so it looked like, It was definitely an addition, it couldn't have been built like that in the first place. And of course, the vent at the top gets converted into a lantern because it's not needed anymore. and of course that has a, a weather vane at the top and I can understand why people always have the direction arrows underneath or outside. And I decided to put it on underneath because that way you could actually see which way the wind was blowing before you went outside. So you knew whether you needed to wear your thick coat or not. and of course, once you've got chimneys built into the building, you've got a lot more flexibility in terms of, the planning of the space. And, from that point of view, areas have been added on as extensions on the outside so that the old spaces could actually be upgraded into, as you can see, into an elegant drawing room, as you can see here. And of course would have been done in a sort of 18th century style because that's what it would have had. And then out it goes and you go out into a regency. conservatory, built into the garden, which of course is an Italian garden, which is what you would do, complete with a, with a canal and a bridge running through there, which looks like it goes on forever. But of course, the reason it does that is because it's been laid out in false perspective. So all the plants get closer together and get shorter. so it looks like it goes on forever. And more than that, there is a water gate which leads you into the, canal, because it's a swimming pool. And there is, and you can see up here, there is a retractable telescopic cover which comes out from the bridge and covers the pool, because in England there's no point in having an outdoor pool, you'd only end up using it twice a year. And that's the 21st century. Port. And as a conclusion, I'm just going to say it's important to remember as the architect that you're not working on your own. You're more like a conductor in an orchestra. There are a lot of other people, there's a whole team of people behind you that you've got to carry along with you. I mean, to be able to do these sort of copper roofs with the great acryterium there, you need these craftsmen and women to be able to make it happen. You need carvers, because all ornament starts as a carving, whether it's cast metalwork or cast plasterwork. Decorative painting, is, will probably have the most significant impact on the interior of your building. Joinery too. And also brickwork. Skilled bricklayers are absolutely important, for a building, including stonemasons. And all stone starts as, starts as, clay molded, models, which are then used by the stonemasons to cut. And as, as you can see here. And of course you've also got people like You know, Sandy Stoddart sculptors, who also need to contribute and you need to make sure that their designs are appropriate and work in with what you're designing. and, for instance, here at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, since Sandy embellished, the entrance hall. Along the lines of the theme that we put in there, which was really to do with the origins of Western art, and he designed a frieze depicting the reign of Queen Elizabeth II using allegorical scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the first known works of literature in Western art. And of course, you're all familiar with this work by Sandy. And I'm going to leave you with this design, which is also just coming off the drawing boards, which is a new master plan for, and buildings, for an expanded, campus at, Buckingham University. which you see here. And I leave you with that, and I'm sure you've had enough of me groaning on. Any questions? I'm always telling the students, you know, when you're an architect, you have to have fun, and you never have to give up, and I think you kind of demonstrate. This kind of playful and really wonderful, intractable way of doing architecture is so encouraging. so much. I think you have to enjoy yourself. Thank you for the lecture. I was actually here as an undergraduate student when it was first announced that you were going to be designing this building. And I think I was in the room with the first presentation, of the design. I was hoping that you could elaborate on some of the challenges and choices that you faced designing specifically within the Notre Dame campus context, how, I guess the choice between privileging, contextual relationships or privileging narrative, which is obviously very important to the school. You're trying to get me into trouble, aren't you? ha. ha. ha. I think one of the things that and it's not unique to, to, to Notre Dame, is designing buildings which are going to be sustainable in the future. Systems are in place, that, have developed for other reasons in the recent past. I mean, for instance, we wanted to design the building so you had openable windows everywhere. and, we were told, you can't do that's not how it works, because if you do that, it's going to cost more money, because people will leave windows open, and all this kind of thing. And we were overruled on that, there's nothing we could do. we designed some openable windows, but that was a negotiation that we managed to get as a concession. but it didn't stop us. I'm designing the buildings so that they were not deep buildings, but buildings which were modest depth so that in the future, in 25 years when all the fans, etc, need renewing, etc, that The building doesn't become naturally ventilated and the windows can then be, openable windows can then be put in. if we'd sort of fallen for the whole thing and they say, we don't need to do that, we can have a very deep building, that kind of thing couldn't have happened. So there are things that you do have to sometimes make concessions on, in the interim, but you make sure that in the long term, the building doesn't preclude doing the sensible thing. So there's the kind of things, but we have to deal with that on every project. because the pressures are because if you design a deep building you have a lot more square footage, you have less external wall. Divide one by the other, and the cost for square footage is of course a lot cheaper. You design thinner buildings, you have less square footage, you have more external wall. External wall is one of the most expensive elements of a new building, so the square footage cost goes up. It's just maths, it's just physics. John, that was overwhelming the amount of work that you've done in, wait, you said about 5 or 10 years? I remember that real architecture, 1988, that's really fun to see that again. I didn't remember it until you showed it again, but that was a great exhibition. I wanted to ask you just a little bit more about, you know, there's 50 buildings to ask you about, but Lady Margaret Hall, and that's really fun that you got to work, add to, buildings by other architects, some of which Blomfield, fairly important. and then Erith, who's so important as continuity. I've never really loved that building that he did, but anyway. other people tell me it's great. why weren't you able to actually, you created quads, I saw that, with L shaped buildings, but you weren't able to attach them. Is there a reason for that? And why wouldn't they let you take out those really nice 1950s buildings? we couldn't attach because they're designed as point blocks. So you've got windows all around the edge, so you couldn't attach. We tried to attach certain things to them, to build something at the ground floor level and so on, you know, this is what happens. It was one of the concessions you end up making. and, The building, they would knock down the buildings because that's a wasted effort. You know, they've got these buildings. They want more buildings. The pressure is to have more space and you come along and say, I'm not gonna give you more space until you take down two buildings. you know, it doesn't wash. And, you just have to do your best. Those buildings might come down in the future. and what you're designing isn't going to preclude that at all. If anything, it makes it easy to add new buildings which will fit in so much better. So, what you have to do is just make it work. and there are ways that you can do that. and on the ground when you're in, Lady Margaret Hall. It just feels like a set of quads, and, the existing buildings just somehow disappear because they're green, they're the same, brick, so they carry through and you just get instead of having two point blocks which stand there like a Two sore thumbs. They become part of a row. A row of buildings. which gives you a facade. Even though they're not touching one another, they still give you that facade. So that's what we did.
Intro:How do people at an institutional level build in the United Kingdom versus
John Simpson:the us? in, in the United Kingdom, there is a great, tradition of taking the long term view, particularly with institutions like Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. if anything, if you go to Oxford and Cambridge, you'll see there's a hell of a lot of modern buildings there, which is rather sad because they aren't, they don't add to the place, and contribute as positively as a traditional building would. But, that's because There's money there. and a lot of, these institutions, even though they're modern buildings, have been well built. they've been rather solidly built. which is even a worse tragedy, because they're not going to come down that easily. but, So that, that long term tradition is much more ingrained, and it comes from the large estates, they own their land, they are inclined to take the longer approach, it's usually a lot takes, or costs less in the long run if you build properly in the first place. It might cost you more in the first place, but you then don't have to spend the same amount of money later on, either renewing it or refurbishing it or adding to it or upgrading it. So there is that tradition, but it's come under a lot of pressure. probably in, in the years since, I suppose, in the latter end of the 20th century, they came under a lot of pressure to actually do things in, I suppose the way it's, Much more common in this country to build for the short term and, we'll leave it at that. But just to give you another example of Paternoster Square, the buildings, the modern buildings that were built in the 1950s in Paternoster Square, looked like concrete buildings. but they were actually built Portland Stone. Portland Stone was disguised to look like concrete. so they weren't cheap, so they weren't building cheap buildings, and they thought they were doing the right thing. They were just badly advised. It was done by a conservative government who thought they were building next to the cathedral, so therefore they should build in stone. What they should have realized That not only should they have, not built in stone because you wanted the contrast between the stone of the cathedral and the humble buildings around it. So they should have built in, in, in, in brick. But that stone was a complete waste of money because it was built onto buildings which, were not sustainable and had to be taken down only 25 years later. It was 1970, it was in the 1970s that they started thinking about taking them down. It's literally 25 years later.
Intro:On a percentage basis, where would you say that Delta would be between? And the Oxford Cambridge building and this building, budgets wise, final construction, cost
John Simpson:wise? I think probably, probably we would've spent more on an Oxford building. Yeah, we would have spent more on the Oxford building. Here, we were under more pressure. and in a way, we had to come up with clever means to counteract it. I mean, one of the reasons why, for instance, the, and drove the, terrace was because the terrace, you have an L shaped building. You add all that square footage and all you have to build is two walls. So you actually get a lot more square footage for a lot less expenditure on external walls. So by doing that, but being a single story building, it doesn't matter because you can get, you have the roof to use for ventilation and so on, which you can make it work in the long run. and then the other thing that, that we did here is we Designed the whole complex quite deliberately as a series of different types of buildings. And that was partly because we were trying to say, if you've got a school of architecture and you're trying to build, or build something that the students could actually learn from. It was quite important. to build not just one type of building, but build different types of buildings, because the kind of criteria and the kind of, hierarchy of, principles that we, you would use to design something like, a major civic building or a utilitarian building are different. So it made good sense. to do that here, build a whole series of different buildings, like the whole castes is more like a chapel, and then you've got the studios upstairs were much more, rudimentary and much more functional. and that of course, Helps with the whole business of, expenditure because the vast majority of the building you are building at a cheaper per square foot cost. and you are concentrating where you are spending the money on a small part of the building. So you give the impression that you've spent a lot of money, you're not necessarily doing that. So coming up with things like that to make it work one thing that struck me, especially with many of your interventions in existing fabric is how incredibly contextual many of the projects are and that, you know, It's not just simply related to the context, but it seems born of the context, and you show that in a variety of ways. How do your approaches for new settlements, with really only natural context as opposed to architectural or urban context, how does your approach change in terms of, Starting from scratch, almost. you're not, because you're building. If you're building in France, you're building in France. And, the Alsace, vernacular is different from, say, the vernacular down by Toulouse. and although they are related, and you can actually define that, and that's the whole point of a, of a code, because you can actually then develop a code which reflects that. and you make that part of the, master plan. But of course you shouldn't need to do that because in the past people didn't need that and they naturally did it. The only reason we're having to do it today is people have lost the ability to do that. So we have to do that with a master plan to make sure. That you get that continuity. and of course when we're designing our own, and a lot of them, we try to bring in this issue of variety in them. So you don't just have a code which is just flat. You know, a code, that this is the code you have to design for the whole thing. You can break it down into character areas. And then you can give each character area a certain, part of that code. and they can vary. Just like, say, a Georgian house varies from a Victorian house. so there is a variety that's built in, which is in addition to the variety that comes from the different architects who are designing things. But you get a variety which is built in, which then follows a pattern. So that whole idea that I was talking about, where you can get a pattern which is in there, which then also gives you a unity. Because that's the thing, you know, you can put build in variety and then it just looks like a mess. But if you build it in so that it follows a certain pattern, which is a pattern that people can recognize, then you're building in a unity, because then people can actually see how it all works. And as human beings, we love these puzzles. We love to go around and look there and say, Oh, these buildings are different. And then, Ooh, work out how it all works. And some of us just do it, you know, instinctively and don't even think about it.
Intro:Thank you all for being such a wonderful audience.