St Pancras - belatedly righting wrongs
Nov. 24th, 2014 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_jackoOne thing that annoyed me during my degree was that some of my architecture tutors would only award good marks for regurgitating their own views back at them. Anyone forming a different opinion, no matter how well argued, inevitably got a lower mark. That didn't seem to be what university education should be about.
To my shame, there were times when I really needed the marks and caved. One of those times was in part of my final year dissertation, when I went with the prevailing academic view that St Pancras station is somehow "bad architecture". It's a Victorian folly in every sense, go the claims. The design is dishonest; form doesn't follow function. It's a disjointed hotchpotch of old and new. It's a rose-tinted gothic throwback when it should be celebrating the new industrial age of the time.
Firstly, I would like to apologise unreservedly to St Pancras and to Sir George Gilbert Scott. Secondly, I would like to state for the record that the above argument is complete and utter bullshit.
A building which routinely shows up in lists of Britain's favourite buildings is not "bad architecture". It couldn't matter less whether or not it panders to particular design ideologies which only other architects care about.
Even on it's own terms, the argument fails. So what if it's a mish-mash of different materials and techniques? I hate to break it to you, my tutors, but walls and roofs do different jobs. Why shouldn't they be made of different materials and look different? It's the modernist desire for bland uniformity that's structurally dishonest. St Pancras doesn't care about that, but there's still a lot of common principles on show. Look at that roof - It's a pointed arch, for heaven's sake! A pointed arch on a massive, industrial scale, using the latest materials and techniques of its day, and buttressed against huge masonry walls. When built it was the largest roof span in the world. This isn't some unimaginative throwback; this is a statement of Victorian confidence and extravagence; this is gothic dragged right up into the industrial age - a cathedral to the railways.
Form following function? The pointed arch is just about the most efficient structure for carrying loads across a span that there is - far more efficient than a rounded arch or a "modern" flat roof. With its pointed arches, pillars, vaults and buttresses, gothic architecture is the epitome of form following function. St Pancras has all of those features. Even the ornamentation serves a purpose beyond the aesthetic - whether it's protecting masonry joints from wear and weather, or elaborate holes to lighten the weight of iron arches without losing rigidity. The design is clever, strong and beautiful at the same time.
St Pancras: brilliant. End of. And the 21st-century bits are pretty cool too. :o)
Had I actually been re-writing my dissertation, I'd have put that more eloquently, but you get the point. This little rant was driven by my getting to see rather more of St Pancras than usual last Wednesday, when I was down for a work conference in the Renaissance Hotel. More Victorian gothic grandeur, including Scott's famous Grand Staircase (which again showcases gothic stonework alongside elaborate wrought iron). Shame I didn't get to stay the night!
To my shame, there were times when I really needed the marks and caved. One of those times was in part of my final year dissertation, when I went with the prevailing academic view that St Pancras station is somehow "bad architecture". It's a Victorian folly in every sense, go the claims. The design is dishonest; form doesn't follow function. It's a disjointed hotchpotch of old and new. It's a rose-tinted gothic throwback when it should be celebrating the new industrial age of the time.
Firstly, I would like to apologise unreservedly to St Pancras and to Sir George Gilbert Scott. Secondly, I would like to state for the record that the above argument is complete and utter bullshit.
A building which routinely shows up in lists of Britain's favourite buildings is not "bad architecture". It couldn't matter less whether or not it panders to particular design ideologies which only other architects care about.
Even on it's own terms, the argument fails. So what if it's a mish-mash of different materials and techniques? I hate to break it to you, my tutors, but walls and roofs do different jobs. Why shouldn't they be made of different materials and look different? It's the modernist desire for bland uniformity that's structurally dishonest. St Pancras doesn't care about that, but there's still a lot of common principles on show. Look at that roof - It's a pointed arch, for heaven's sake! A pointed arch on a massive, industrial scale, using the latest materials and techniques of its day, and buttressed against huge masonry walls. When built it was the largest roof span in the world. This isn't some unimaginative throwback; this is a statement of Victorian confidence and extravagence; this is gothic dragged right up into the industrial age - a cathedral to the railways.
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Form following function? The pointed arch is just about the most efficient structure for carrying loads across a span that there is - far more efficient than a rounded arch or a "modern" flat roof. With its pointed arches, pillars, vaults and buttresses, gothic architecture is the epitome of form following function. St Pancras has all of those features. Even the ornamentation serves a purpose beyond the aesthetic - whether it's protecting masonry joints from wear and weather, or elaborate holes to lighten the weight of iron arches without losing rigidity. The design is clever, strong and beautiful at the same time.
St Pancras: brilliant. End of. And the 21st-century bits are pretty cool too. :o)
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Had I actually been re-writing my dissertation, I'd have put that more eloquently, but you get the point. This little rant was driven by my getting to see rather more of St Pancras than usual last Wednesday, when I was down for a work conference in the Renaissance Hotel. More Victorian gothic grandeur, including Scott's famous Grand Staircase (which again showcases gothic stonework alongside elaborate wrought iron). Shame I didn't get to stay the night!
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