TWO SQUARES AND A THEORY OF THE BEIGE HOLE

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BY TIM WATERMAN

HIS ARTICLE attempts a tricky critique of two new London squares (privately owned T public spaces) in a very fine-grained part of the historic West End; of processes and prod- ucts of development and real estate speculation in a wildly distorted market; of place and non- place, and taste and non-taste. The first project, completed in 2016, is GROSS.MAX.’s design for Fitzroy Place, and the second is Gustafson Porter + Bowman’s Rathbone Square, completed in September 2017. These two squares are only a block apart, though “block” is a term that doesn’t quite apply to the irregular knot of streets that is characteristic of the area. A further complicating factor is me. I live a block away from Fitzroy Place and two blocks from Rathbone Square, and as a landscape architect, urbanist, and resident of the area, I have some fairly strong opinions.

86 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 / 87 Rathbone Square and Fitzroy Place (so named to him about the developments: They are “the as much. “The market has changed,” he says. “All Fitzrovia because there is already a Rathbone Place and a kind of generic could-be-anywhere development the public work in London now is with private HE NEIGHBORHOOD of Fitzrovia fails to Fitzroy Square) are both developments that are that sucks the life out of Fitzrovia,” he said. “The clients.” And further, “Landscape is a commodity.” T appear, for the most part, on most people’s responding directly to market forces. They are, developer claims to be giving back to the public, mental maps of London, which might seem sur- as the title of Carol Willis’s 1995 book suggests, by opening up a space in the center of the site that Of course, it can be argued that landscape has prising once one finds out just how central it is. results of the fact that “form follows finance.” has long been off-limits, but the residual canyons always been a commodity—certainly when it is It is bounded on the west by genteel Marylebone, Each plays games with elevations and massing have clearly only been designed as a ‘visual ame- employed as the scenography of power and pri- on the east by leafy , on the north by to hide its excessive bulk and deep, dark floor nity’ for the well-heeled residents above—it is vate wealth, as it has so often been. It is an irony, the thundering Euston Road, and to the south plates. Fitzroy Place even went through the acro- not the kind of space where anyone would want though, at a time when our profession is more by all the hubbub of and Soho. It batics of hiring two architects (Sheppard Robson to dwell.” Of the development at Fitzroy Place, he focused than ever on themes of sustainability and has, in the past, been known as North Soho, and and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands) to provide says it feels like “a bleak promotional computer- ecology and social benefit, that the most lucrative briefly in the 1930s, as the Old Latin Quarter, but differentiation between the blocks. In both cases generated image.” work for Britain’s best landscape practices is root- since the 1940s it has taken its name from the the distribution of the buildings on the site and ed elsewhere—and nowhere. The scenography Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street. Fitzrovia is a their massing were determined by the architects, I also spoke with Anna Minton, a journalist and of contemporary capital demands a virgin space fancy sounding name, but the Fitzroy Tavern (still with the landscape architects brought in later in the author of the recent Big Capital: Who is London so that its business logic is not disrupted by the standing) is a good emblem for the neighborhood the process. For? and Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in ethical obligations that the real city demands. The and its history. the Twenty-first-century City. She agrees. “Fitzroy late Zygmunt Bauman put it so well in his essay In each, no expense is spared on the landscape, as Place and Rathbone Square are the sort of devel- “City of Fears, City of Hopes”: that the goal of The Fitzroy Tavern sits on a corner of Charlotte these landscapes are what will drive the sales of opments that are ripping the heart and soul out such development is “to raze to the ground the old Street, which has long been home to exotic res- the apartments on overseas speculative markets, of London. There is nothing about this sterile, ABOVE ABOVE quarters of the city; to dig up a black hole in which taurants, and which has even longer been home Caption to go here .... Caption to go here along with images of the interiors. All aspects of privately owned, high-security enclave that con- Map of neighborhoods and caption goes here old meanings sink and disappear, first from view to artists, artisans, actors, writers, socialists and the design are geared toward their imageability nects it to the wider area—it could be a high spec and detail of two sites caption go here caption and soon after from memory, and to fill the void anarchists, gays and lesbians, immigrants, and, on real estate websites and in glossy brochures. development anywhere in the world.” Indirectly, in Fitzrovia being go here caption goes with brand new logic, unbound by the worries of as the town planner Nick Bailey notes in his book Wainwright doesn’t pull any punches when I talk Eelco Hooftman of GROSS.MAX. acknowledges ordered from Dolly. here caption. continuity and relieved from its burdens.” Fitzrovia, “the eccentric and impecunious.” Bailey

88 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 / 89 goes on to comment that the area has always for different uses: a tailor or a lampshade maker essary to everyday life in urbanism are ironed out, A whole generation of architects and landscape ar- been marginal though at the heart of the West below street level under a mansion block; a stu- and the Jeffersonian grid manifests itself as vast chitects have, as students, read Marc Augé’s 1995 End. “The explanation for this must lie in the way dio over an embroiderer over a café. Tiny mews floor plates: office space and lateral apartments. book-length essay Non-Places, and yet find them- the area was developed—mainly by piecemeal streets filled with work spaces are capped at their The ideology rationalizing these tyrannical spaces selves trapped in a system that endlessly replicates speculation over many years—and the resulting ends with cozy pubs that become raucous as visualizes them as “open,” “democratic,” and the model. The non-place is defined as a place of medley of different ownerships, tenancies, and Friday approaches. The scale and grain of the “free” “spaces of engagement” just as the colonial transit, a space that defies acts of dwelling, and is leaseholders.” area is changing fast, though, as it “modernizes.” grid was spuriously theorized as a guarantor of exemplified by the modern airport. “The space spatial equity. As the grid of extensive capitalism of non-place creates neither singular identity nor The philosopher Walter Benjamin could have worked a mutation upon rural land, so the grid relations; only solitude, and similitude.” “Since been writing of Soho and Fitzrovia when he says The Beige Holes of Modernization of intensive capitalism now skews the space of non-places are there to be passed through, they of the dense, fine-grained urban landscape of OBERT FITCH, in his 1993 book The Assas- the city. As Darwin saw, however, mutation rarely are measured in units of time.” the city in the title of his famous essay “Naples” R sination of New York, wrote of the postindus- leads to evolution. that “Building and action interpenetrate in the trial city that it “is a mutation masquerading as a The beige hole is a type of non-place—a place of courtyards, arcades, and stairways. In everything, modernization.” The industrial city in the exten- The urban spaces within which these vast grids transit. In this case the beige hole is a place of the they preserve the scope to become a theater of sive phase of capitalism, in which labor, resourc- are being realized are a phenomenon I have come transient wealthy and of money in transit—the new, unforeseen constellations. The stamp of es, and thus “surplus” wealth were extracted from to think of as “beige holes.” Like black holes in units of time with which these spaces are mea- the definitive is avoided. No situation appears far-flung empires and agricultural hinterlands, the universe, they have the power to attract, com- sured are amortized in mortgages, counted in intended forever, no figure asserts it ‘thus and could afford the illusion of “inevitable” progress. press, and trap money in the financial system as leasehold years, in annual contracts, in fluctua- not otherwise.’ This is how architecture, the most Earlier a more agrarian extensive capitalism had black holes consume all matter in their supergrav- tions of boom and bust. They are the relics of a binding part of the communal rhythm, comes declared vast stretches of land “empty”—as terra ity. Beige, though, because driven by real estate financial system in which transience itself is the into being here.” Like Soho and Fitzrovia, Naples nullius—to justify colonialism, simply erasing imageability they must be styled to be sleek, tidy, operative factor. If money in the current system is “anarchic, embroiled, village-like in the center,” lives and cultures in the process. The Jeffersonian and generic; currency which, like the Euro, must ever stopped for long enough, it would only take and all its nooks and crannies were haunts for a grid is an emblem of that ideology of emptiness. be all things to all people and therefore nothing. a moment’s examination to discover its value is who’s who of 19th and 20th century luminaries: Now the postindustrial city is driven by intensive Beige because they reflect the non-tastes of the baseless and placeless, a fiction in motion, of mo- Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, Oscar Wilde, Ar- capitalism, which is forced to transform itself elites in the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) tion. As Augé says, “the user of a non-place is in thur Rimbaud, Aleister Crowley, Dylan Thomas, from within, shaping itself around markets and sector. Beige because they must place the power contractual relations with it (or with the powers Virginia Woolf, Quentin Crisp, Roger Waters, services that cannibalize the city. LEFT TO RIGHT LEFT TO RIGHT of the transaction over local distinctiveness. Real- that govern it),” and these contracts are temporal. Siouxsie Sioux. Caption to go here Caption to go here tors and developers themselves call these places Beige holes are non-places that exist as records Asset stripping in colonialism gridded vast terri- to go here caption to to go here caption to “safe-deposit boxes in the sky” or “concrete gold,” of transactions and contracts, as intangible and go here caption here. go here caption here. Fitzrovia’s urbanism is both the result of and tories, mapping them for exploitation. Now cities Caption to go here to Caption to go here to which clarifies their function as financial instru- impermanent as flickering numbers on a stock the reason for its particular sociality. Everywhere are turned inward, and the new terra nullius must go here caption to go go here caption to go ments rather than as places for living, working, market screen. different floors of the same building yield space be found within. All the nooks and crannies nec- here caption. here caption. or playing, or for dwelling.

90 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 / 91 says Eelco Hooftman of GROSS.MAX. land- where many Fitzrovians both came into the world scape architects as he and his part ner Nigel and left it (those leaving it including Rudyard Sampey show me the small site at the center Kipling and Peter Sellers). It is now home to Estée of the large new development at Fitzroy Place Lauder’s London office and some of London’s in London’s Fitzrovia. “This is not a statement most expensive apartments, starting at about $1.5 project.” Indeed, it is luxurious understatement million for a one-bedroom flat (in Britain, price as a cipher for a certain moneyed sophistication is calculated more by number of bedrooms than and the financialized non-taste that character- by square footage). TOP RIGHT izes the project. I have written scathingly about Caption to go here to the architectural style of these developments All that is left of the hospital is an exquisite chapel go here caption to go in the past, which the architecture critic Owen by the architect John Loughborough Pearson (de- here caption here. Hatherley has described as “pseudomodernism” signed 1891, completed 1929), and a street-length ABOVE RIGHT in his 2010 A Guide to the New Ruins of Great facade along the west side of the site, both exhibit- Caption to go here to Caption to go here to Britain and which I have derided as blang—a ing on their exteriors the very high-quality bricks, go here caption to go go here caption to go mix of bland and bling. Fitzroy Place, launched brickwork, and stone and stonework lavished on here caption here. here caption.

92 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 / 93 early 20th-century public projects in London. ends that could have been avoided earlier in the placed as obstacles, as effective deterrents as beefy rather, a grim postal sorting office and a barbed- The chapel juts into the new square, but because design process. bouncers to physical and visual access into the site wire-frilled parking lot were the pre-existing con- it is so dwarfed by the scale of the surrounding from the surrounding neighborhood. This is a dition. It was a palpable relief when they were buildings, it was clearly not possible to use it as The plantings in the square have suffered since clear statement that the pretensions to publicness demolished. the square’s focal point. A Cor-Ten steel colonnade they were installed, and this may be the result expressed in the planning applications were the and pergola, developed by GROSS.MAX. with the of further tricks by the architects to appease usual whitewash. Here the gravest planning error was committed architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, helps the planners or the clients. It is my hunch that early on, with a failure to provide a direct east-west to step down the scale of the surrounding build- renderings of sun and shade might have been Rathbone Square pedestrian connection at the very north of the site ings to the chapel. Then the chapel is shrouded overly optimistic, and that the physic-garden ATHBONE SQUARE, just completed in that would have created ease of passage for locals behind a screen of evergreen Magnolia grandiflora plants chosen to reflect the site’s medical history R 2017, has become the new London headquar- as well as new small retail possibilities. Instead trees. A stone sculpture (The One and the Many simply aren’t getting enough sun. The plants that ABOVE ters for Facebook as part of a mixed commercial/ the route jogs south, frustrating access in the by Peter Randall-Page), suggesting a neolithic have flourished most are graceful multitrunk Caption to go here to residential complex. Its central gated square was same way the Amelanchier planters do at Fitzroy standing stone, and etched with polyglot letter- Amelanchier lamarckii, which have been placed go here caption to go designed by Gustafson Porter + Bowman, and Place, and the passage is constricted through ing, echoing the Rosetta stone housed at the in giant gunmetal-gray containers, and which here caption. the surrounding buildings by Make Architects. verdigris-green ceramic-clad gated tunnels. These nearby , serves to refocus the all receive angular shafts of light longer into The square, like Fitzroy Place, opens up impor- do have the effect of squeezing the visitor just a bit OPPOSITE square, while further stepping the scale down the afternoon, placed as they are on the pedes- Caption to go here to tant east-west pedestrian access in an area with a so that the square appears to open out generously to the human. These are deft tricks, exercising trian lanes that serve the square. Elegant as they go here caption to go pronounced north-south grain. Here no beloved after they issue forth into the space. Inside the the designers to new levels of virtuosity, but to are, their body language is aggressive. They are here caption. community building was cleared to create the site; space, the building massing is more successful

94 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2018 / 95 “each time becoming more real.” Visitors to the port actual activity,” says O Shea, and time will tell square reflexively dabble their fingers in the placid whether Rathbone Square, with its alluring water water as they pass, and it sheets elegantly down features, actually comes to serve as a community the fountains’ convoluted stone sides. space or whether it merely serves as a place for the building’s workers to perch at lunch. Seating is similarly refined, stepping up and down at right angles to provide a maximum of A World Less Beige than at Fitzroy Place. The buildings step down sittable space and defining a dark grid against HOPE I have not portrayed GROSS.MAX. to allow generous light in from the south, so the the light grid of the Canadian granite paving that Iand Gustafson Porter + Bowman as villains or prognosis for both the success of the plantings establishes a rhythm with the building’s facades. failures. They are neither. Indeed, they are two of and the square’s actual and emotional warmth Here, though, the richness of the square’s materi- Britain’s most illustrious landscape architecture are better. als is at odds with the building cladding, which, as practices, stuffed to bursting with talent, ambi- does the cladding at Fitzroy Place, appears to be tion, and verve. If there is villainy or failure, it is Donncha O Shea, who along with Mary Bow- stretched as thinly as cling film across the surface systemic, and bred in the bone of development man designed the square, spoke proudly of the of the buildings. Windows are set into metallic processes that are conceived of first and foremost oblong rectangular fountains that organize two of panels at Rathbone Square that possess the dull as extractive and profit-driven. These forces also the entrances to the square. “They celebrate the luster of a disposable aluminum turkey pan. militate against artistry and urbanism, catering entrances and pull people in with the reflections to generic international non-tastes and imageable and the sound of water.” Gustafson Porter + Bow- At the center of Rathbone Square, curving into outputs. William Morris, whose famous furnish- man may well be the finest designers with water the edge of Facebook’s offices, a crescent of lawn ing company was located near Fitzrovia on several in Britain, and these fountains are no exception. has been provided. Lawn is de rigueur in London sites, diagnosed the same problems in his time Each was tested extensively. “You have to test squares, and in heritage squares is often a statu- in Hopes and Fears for Art, and the words are water—you can’t wait for day one,” says O Shea. tory requirement. Here it is intended as a catalyst still true: “Only we must not lay the fault upon Testing began with foam and moved to stone, for activity. “Private squares in London don’t sup- the builders, as some people seem inclined to do:

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they are our very humble servants, and will build what we ask for; remember, that rich men are not obliged to live in ugly houses, and yet you see they do; which the builders may be well excused for taking as a sign of what is wanted.”

If we want a world less peppered with beige holes, then we will have to work with other pro- fessions and political and economic processes to transform development. There is hope here, with cooperation and communication improving year-on-year between architects, planners, and landscape architects, and with new models for development emerging in forms such as commu- nity land trusts. Then, perhaps, we can begin to make our cities more in ways that are genuinely wanted by those who authentically live in them.

TIM WATERMAN TEACHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH AND AT THE BARTLETT, BOTH IN LONDON. HE IS COEDITOR OF THE RECENT BOOKS LANDSCAPE AND AGENCY: CRITICAL ESSAYS AND THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF LANDSCAPE AND FOOD. FIND HIM ON TWITTER @TIM_WATERMAN.

Project Credits FITZROY PLACE CLIENT TK, TK, TK, TK, TK.LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK, TK.RATHBONE SQUARE CLIENT GREAT PORTLAND ESTATES, LONDON. LAND- SCAPE ARCHITECT GUSTAFSON PORTER + BOWMAN, LONDON. ARCHITECT MAKE ARCHITECTS, LONDON. STRUCTURAL ENGI- NEER AKT II, LONDON. SERVICES CONSULTANT HILSON MORAN, LONDON. COST CONSULTANT ARCADIS, LONDON. PROJECT MAN- AGER BURO FOUR, LONDON. MAIN CONTRACTOR LENDLEASE, LONDON. LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR MAYLIM, LONDON. SOFT LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR WILLERBY LANDSCAPES LIMITED, FOUR ELMS, ENGLAND. WATER FEATURE CONSULTANT THE FOUNTAIN WORKSHOP, CHATHAM, ENGLAND. METALWORK KENT STAINLESS, WEXFORD, IRELAND. TIMBER BENCH FABRICATION WOODSCAPE, BLACKBURN, ENGLAND.

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