Master Thesis

GRAFT: AN IDENTITY DEVICE

From the old Smithfield Market to the New Museum of London

Students:

BIANCAMARIA DALL’AGLIO FRANCESCO DE NIGRIS

POLITECNICO DI MILANO Scuola di Architettura Urbanistica Ingegneria delle costruzioni Tesi di laurea magistrale A.A. 2015-2016

Supervisor:

Massimiliano Roca Co-supervisor:

Camilo Rebelo, Flavio Vida

GRAFT: AN IDENTITY DEVICE

From the old Smithfield Market to the New Museum of London

Students:

BIANCAMARIA DALL’AGLIO 822800 FRANCESCO DE NIGRIS 822796

POLITECNICO DI MILANO Scuola di Architettura Urbanistica Ingegneria delle costruzioni Tesi di laurea magistrale A.A. 2015-2016

Supervisor:

Massimiliano Roca Co-supervisor:

Camilo Rebelo, Flavio Vida

On the front page: Medieval graft on Marcello theatre, Rome

Index

Abstract

1.

Smithfield Market London

Smithfield area

Smithfield Market building

General Market and Annex Building 2.

3.

Museum of London City museum Museum of London nowadays Typological evolution The competition Graft Evolution of architectural graft Reasons of graft The project as a research tool Case studies

4.

New Museum of London Strategy

The project

Bibliography

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Abstract

In the long history of our cities the relationship between new and old and the challenge of designing on and with the existing environment is an everyday issue. Nevertheless the theme of grafts at the architectural scale has only been introduced, for clear reasons, in the post-war years. This curious matter is probably related to the complexity of defining methods of action and clear rules on such a vast and differentiated area of intervention, which make the issue difficult to manage and generalize. The subject is slowly raising the interest of part of the architectural discipline and, especially in the last twenty years, has been deepened more carefully generating interesting debates.

This work starts from the research and study of the roots and reasons of graft in the architectural discipline in order to clearly define, on one hand, the motivation of the action as a tool for the preservation and subsequent renewal of cultural heritage buildings. On the other hand to highlight how, through the intervention, it is possible to return to the stakeholders the social and historical values held by architectural works re-including them in the city’s everyday life.

To experiment the design process on an existing structure and enhance our knowledge about the theme of architectural grafts we then exploited the occasion of the stimulating competition for the redevelopment of the old Smithfield Market as the host of the new Museum of London. Through this work we experienced how every intervention must be considered in its specificity and how every action should be deeply tied to the existing structures and environments. In this frame the project has been the best research and consciousness tool.

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1. Smithfield Market

London

on the previous page: Rooftop view of Smithfield Market

The city of London is an interesting case study about a system in continuous regeneration and development. Walking across the city centre and the main streets it’s possible to observe sequence of historical buildings interrupted by contemporary ones and vice versa. This aspect is nowadays defining the identity of the city that reflects its craving will of development and its tireless soul. Following this idea it’s clear how the city is hosting a huge amount of features determined by this regenerating power.

The way old or new important buildings fit in their surroundings is an interesting way to observe how the city and its urban pattern behave during the development. The new building could be hosted by a big void, giving it importance and letting it reorganize the shape of its surroundings and, in some cases, also the viability structure. In another case the new intervention could perfectly fit in the urban structure and, according to its scale, be absorbed by its surroundings or generating its inner subdivision.

A similar reasoning could be done on the green spaces that, in the city of London, assume an important role in the urban structure. In fact a big amount of London’s green areas are carefully drawn to recompose and complete the urban asset and, as real green squares, give unity and balance to the public spaces. Also the big parks are an essential character of London, opening huge green public spaces and giving breath to the dense city structure. A third kind of green space, as important as the previous, is the residual one. The residual green areas are public spaces that accurately fill the drawing of the city designed to give order to the urban setting and enhance the average quality of the space.

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Clear witness of the evolution and regeneration of the city is the urban pattern that, in some areas of the city of London, clearly represents the aim and the will of its developers. It’s possible to recognise three main patterns that during the history melted, influenced each other and organized the spaces of the city. In the downtown, around St. Paul and the Bank of England, could be read a kind of medieval pattern characterized by high density, irregular street pattern and courtyard buildings. The pattern around the British Museum date back to the Victorian Age urban interventions and it’s made up by high density organized on an orthogonal street system. The third urban structure known as the urban sprawl is characterized by a low density and an irregular set of streets and buildings. This third kind of urban pattern surrounds the city and starts its expansion mainly from the street ring around the city and the railway system. The latter has a strong impact in the urban organization of the city while it runs in different ways comparing the North side and the South side of the Thames River. The railways in the South side of the Thames run parallel to the river physically cutting the city and generating a separation even legible in the urban pattern development. Instead, to the north, railways have a radial development, setting the main stations on the street ring surrounding the city and decreasing its impact on the urban set.

on the left: London urban analysis

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Smithfield Area

Fun at St. Bartholomew’s fair

Early history Smithfield area lies in the northern part of the City, historical core of London, in-between some of the most important roads of the city, such as Holborn, Farringdon and Aldersgate street.

Right outside the old walls of the roman city, Smithfield area development has a long history, strongly related to the city growth, to the market activity and to the evolution of St Bartholomew precinct.

Originally known as “Smoothfield”, because of its flat grassy appearance, it became during the Roman occupation, between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, one of the several location for cemeteries, banned by the law inside the city walls.

In the early and mid-Saxon period the walled City is considered to have been largely unoccupied, and there is little archaeological evidence between the early 5th century and the mid-9th century AD recorded in the area.

By the time of the Norman invasion Smithfield area appears to have been reverted to agricultural use. In the area is also notable the large presence of institutions and activities which have been associated with the area for several centuries and that have left their sign on local streets and places which name still remember them nowadays, such as Hosier Lane, Giltspur Street, Bartholomew Close, Cock Lane, Cloth Fair, and Cloth Court.

In 1123 Henry I granted permission from a monk to found a priory and hospital at Smithfield.

The location of the priory was already noted for its horse fair and the priory grounds included part of the Kings Friday Market.

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In 1133 the monastery under royal charter established Bartholomew Fair, an annual three day fair held on the eve of St Bartholomew’s Day. The area immediately to the north of the priory, as far as Long Lane, is recorded as fair ground until the 16th century.

The fair continued annually for over 700 years, sometimes lasting even two weeks, until it was suppressed in 1855 for debauchery. It became the greatest cloth fair in the country, was known throughout Europe and the priory received substantial income from the tolls of the fair.

on the left: Representation of the relation between private and public spaces

Medieval Smithfield continued to be well known throughout the medieval period for horse-trading, which was distinct from Bartholomew Fair. Tracks to the north of London formed part of a series of drove ways along which stock was taken to and from the markets at Smithfield. These formed a framework for the subsequent pattern of roads in the area.

The area was known, also before the founding of the priory, as a location for public executions, but was highlighted in the medieval period with the putting to death of Sir William Wallace in 1305. Smithfield remained a location for public gallows until the 18th century.

However the open space was also put to more festive use including tournaments, pageants and plays to entertain the Kings of England and their guests.

In 14th century the Corporation of London granted with a formal charter a weekly market at Smithfield; this together with the banning of slaughtering within the City walls in 1381, contributed to the development of the meat and livestock trade in the area.

As the roles of the monastery and the hospital increasingly diverged, the institutions became distinct precincts bordering the public space of West Smithfield.

In 1546 Sir Richard Rich purchased St Bartholomew-the-Great from the crown and sub-divided much of the priory buildings and land. As part of this process he laid out tenements in the area of the previous fair ground, encroaching upon the site of

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A view on the Smithfield open market

the priory nave and building against the remaining parish church.

Newbury Street, Middle Street and East Passage were laid out for housing, which was typically 31⁄2 to 41⁄2 storeys high. It is important in the local context because the more formalised configuration of the streets laid out by Rich is in marked contrast to the sinuous alignment which is characteristic of many medieval thoroughfares within the area.

In Braun’s and Hogenberg’s map, published in 1572 the area is largely built up with West Smithfield fully enclosed, their survey is important because it indicates that the 16th century layout of street blocks and network of major thoroughfares is very similar to the present day.

Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries The open space at the centre of Smithfield was paved and drainage provided for the first time in 1614-15 and in 1638 the Corporation formalised the collection of market tolls by royal charter.

Despite the enormous destruction caused by the Great Fire in the City, Smithfield was saved by the proximity of the City Wall and ditch, together with a fortunate change in the direction of the wind when the fire was close to Holborn. Therefore most of the buildings Smithfield area and St Bartholomew’s Hospital survived largely in their medieval form.

on the left page from the top: Pre-Victorian Age; Victorian Age; XX Century

Nineteenth century During the nineteenth century, St Bartolomews hospital, founded in 1546, flourished, Henry VIII Gate was remodelled and new buildings were constructed, some changes were carried out on Smithfield square, such as the replacement of the well at the centre (constructed in 1809) by the present fountain (Philip Hardwick, 1859), the introduction of four decorative lamps (1890), and four timber shelters (1895).

From the mid-18th century, concern had been expressed about the location of a livestock market in the centre of the metropolis.

Increasing market activity within a confined site ultimately led to a Royal Commission being set up in 1849: the market had to be removed because of public nuisance. In 1852 the Smithfield

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Market Removal Act resulted in the livestock market being relocated to the north in Islington. The Central Meat Market was subsequently constructed at Smithfield, by the Corporation in the 1860s, to the design of the City Surveyor Sir Horace Jones.

The market building was connected to new railway sidings beneath it by a large circular ramp around the central rotunda of West Smithfield. This enabled deliveries to be transferred efficiently between the market and the rapidly expanding railway system.

Significant railway infrastructure was developed concurrently with the new market complex. In the 1860s an extension to the Metropolitan Railway was constructed, using the cut-and-cover method, between Farringdon and Moorgate. The line runs through a tunnel under the west and east market buildings, with its substantial cutting open to the air south of Cowcross Street and Charterhouse Square. The line branched south from Farringdon through the Snow Hill Tunnel, built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway to form a critical new north/south rail link from 1866 to 1916. The line was re-used by Thameslink from 1986.

In 1873 Smithfield Market was enlarged to the west by the construction of Jones’ Poultry Market and, in 1879, the General Market which extended down to Farringdon Street (formerly called Victoria Street) and was also served by the railway sidings. By 1880 the street pattern had effectively become what we see in Smithfield Area today.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries During First and Second World Wars, London was bombed causing substantial damages to Smithfield area, sites in the area had been cleared after the bombing and lied empty for a subsequent decades.

The market buildings at Smithfield have changed in the postwar period. Following damage to Smithfield General Market by a rocket in 1945, Hart’s Corner was remodelled in a simple, though largely sensitive manner. Subsequently, Horace Jones’ Poultry Market was destroyed by fire in 1958. The replacement building was constructed by the Corporation to the design of Sir

Smithfield area nowadays

Thomas Bennett in 1962-1963, incorporating a clear spanning dome roof of 225 feet which was notable when first constructed for being the largest of its type in the world.

The main changes to the Smithfield area in the 20th century are the introduction of large, bulky buildings mainly in the south east of the area and the creation of an impermeable ‘canyon’ along Farringdon Road.

During 1970/80s the City of London undertook a study of this area with the purpose of developing planning policies aiming to enhance its unique character. This framework influenced the emergence of creative industries, the successful regeneration of many historic buildings and the emergence of a 24 hour urban village in this area.

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Smithfield Market building

The origins of the present settlement of the market’s buildings lie in the planned expansion of those facilities at Smithfield during the XVII century. Nevertheless, in this location, as we said, there had been a market place since at least the X century.

Meat market corner tower

1 Sir Horace Jones has been from 1864 to 1887 the Architect and Surveyor to the City of London. His most recognised work is Tower Bridge designed in 1884.

The general shape of the new building was established in 1860 in the indicative plan drawn by the then city architect J. B. Bunning who will charge of the task of developing the detailed design to his successor Horce Jones1. Two main factors characterized the site: the London Dover and Chatham Railway’s lines running beneath the area and the road layout. The street pattern, arising from Victorian improvements to a basically medieval layout, included two of the major new metropolitan thoroughfares: Farringdon Road and the Holborn Viaduct. The site also benefited from a rationalisation of certain roadways carried out for the Viaduct and the initial phases of the evolution of the market, most especially Charterhouse Street and Snow Hill. All those aspects had great influence in all the subsequent steps of the expansion of the market, but, in the other hand, guaranteed its commercial success.

In 1872 started the first phase of expansion of the market with the construction of a new building dedicated to the poultry trade (Poultry and Provisions Market), with the aim of starting a process of centralization of food trades in one locality on a much-enlarged site. Following this will, in 1875, was signed the “London Central Markets Act” which provided for the closure of the Farringdon Market, opened in 1830 for the sale of fruits and vegetables.

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After that, a few years later, in 1879 started the second phase of development with the erection of the third building of the markets complex, then called London Central Fruit and Vegetable Market, but later to become the General Market. Through another Act of Parliament, the “Metropolitan Markets Act”, in 1882, the purpose of the new building changed2 in the new Fish Market and finally opened in 1883.

In 1885 the Corporation decided to further expand the market with a fourth building on the triangular block to the south of the last erected market building, firstly assigned for use as a flower market, later it became the new Fish Market and the building currently serving that function returned to its original purpose.

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Meat trade in Smithfield

Just one year later a fifth market was approved for the site on the corner between Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Road: The London Central Fruit and Vegetable Market. The building, designed by Horace Jones’s successor as city architect Alexander Peebles was opened in 18923. In the meantime the “old” Fruit and Vegetable Market changed finally its name in General Market, converting its trade from vegetables to meat.

In 1899 the Fish Market was modified for use by the colonial meat traders and was known henceforth as the Annexe. It’s interesting to observe how rapidly either The General Market, either the Annexe Market changed their trade from vegetables, fish and flowers into the meat and poultry trade: this fact is indicative of a thriving business directly connected to the introduction of the frozen-meat trade in the market environment.

This kind of trade touched and influenced also the brand new structures of Smithfield Market: the voulted basements of the Poultry Market were converted to refrigerated storage and a new cold store building, called the Red House, was erected on a site partially separated from the adjoining Annexe Market by the uncovered Metropolitan Railway lines.

With this final change, after an expense of nearly two billion pounds on new buildings, the London Central Market reached its current layout.

2 Several problems occured on the old Billingsgate Fish Market.

3 This finally enabled the closure of Farringdon Market.

During the first decades of the XX century the whole Smithfield Market complex stabilized its role in the city as a hot spot for all kind of food trades with no substantial changes in its functions and layout. By contrast from the Forties the complex has been subject to huge changes, all consequences of wartime bombs damage and a devastating fire. On The 11th May 1941 a rocket hit the General Market and its North-East corner was destroyed causing serious damage to the main roof too. Worse fate for the London Central Fruit and Vegetable Market, which The 8th March 1945 was completely razed to the ground with a great loss of life. In 1958 a huge fire burnt down the Poultry Market.

1941, Rocket on the General Market

The restatement and repair works of the General Market were carried out in 1953-4; involving the replacement of the tower at the north-east corner and the central dome. With those two interventions there was no attempt to reproduce the original style trough the insertion of simplified replacements. The site of the London Central Fruit and Vegetable Market was redeveloped in 1965-8 with a two-storey market in a podium block and seven-storey speculative office/showroom block above, called Caxton House. The Poultry Market was rebuilt in a contemporary idiom. The new building was designed to host the largest clear spanning dome roof in Europe; one of the first works by Arup.

Besides the shift from rail to road had a strong impact on the London Central Market in Smithfield. In 1968 it was decided to convert the basement so of the Meat Market, the General Market and Annexe into car parks. Nonetheless market trade declined in the following decade. Those matters, along with other factors such as issues of maintenance and modernisation related to the new food hygiene laws made by the European Community, prompted a reconsideration of the future of the whole complex. In 1985 the Corporation decided to close the Poultry, General and Annexe Markets and to start a programme of redevelopment for the Meat Market carried out from 1993-6.

Poultry Market Dome by Arup

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General Market and Annex Building

General market view from W Smithfield st

1 Opened in 1877 has several similar details compared with the General Market in Smithfield as windows, louvred roofs and a big hall for trades.

The general market The elevation of the building is mostly of two main storeys, with the third one that is hosted by the roof structure with oval shaped dormer windows with ornamental stone surrounds. The main building’s materials are red Fareham brick and Portland stone arranged in a loosely French Renaissance style following the earlier market building in Smithfield. There are ground floor shops to all sides, some fully glazed, separated by square castiron columns. This feature is carried through the upper storey by pilasters with foliate capitals. The upper storey windows have shouldered stone architraves with keystones copied by Horace Jones’s Billingsgate Market1, built five years before.

The western elevation fronting onto Farringdon Street, with its central section raised to three storeys, is the least altered even all its decorations and embellished pediments. The southern end of this elevation is slightly angled back and has a three-storey polygonal tower at its corner originally completed by an octagonal spire, replaced with a flat roof in the middle 1900 restorations. At the opposite side of the facade there is a four-storey five-sided tower, set at an angle back from the building line. It’s part of the arrangement dated 1954 that included also the north end of the west elevation and half of the north one. The extent of the rebuilding is clearly indicated by a change in the colour of the brickwork, the simplified decoration and concrete canopies.

The north and south sides are stepped down in stages to accommodate the fall of the land towards Farringdon Street and have carriage entrances at the eastern ends. The entrance at

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the north and south elevation are both set back from the building line. The south elevation has also a pedestrian entrance at the west end right aside the entrance road to the basement.

Spanning the steeply inclined roadway is a two-storey block, which originally housed the market offices.

The eastern elevation is half obscured by a concrete roof spanning the roadway between the General and the Poultry Market.

Functionally and spatially the building is divided into three distinct sections: a basement car park, the central market hall area and the outer shop units.

The basement extents beyond the General Market building under the West Smithfield roadway and the Annexe building as far as Snow Hill. There are two-storey vaults under the outer shops fronting Farringdon Street and Carterhouse Street, and single-storey vaults under Snow Hill.

The square-shaped market hall has shop units on its perimeter and in the central area, encircled and divided into two halves by access roadways. There are carriageway entrances on the north, south and east sides, the latter aligned with the central roadway through the Poultry and Meat Markets. The pedestrian entrances with steps leading down to the street level are located in the north-east and south-west corners.

The two-storey market shops facing onto the market hall are open-fronted at the lower level and enclosed above. The shop units on the east and west sides were brought forward and single-storey extensions were made to the shops on the north and south sides. The present arrangement of the central area is the consequence of several phases of alterations. The original intention was for an open space but soon the space gained a quartered arrangement, with four rectangular first-floor office buildings carried on cast-iron columns. Above the centre of the area rises a shallow concrete and steel dome, part of the restoration works carried out after the war damages.

The annexe This tall single-stored triangular-shaped building, of dark red brick with a granite plinth and Portland stone dressing, has two elevations, to West Smithfield and Snow Hill, similarly treated

Inside view of the Fish market

Annex building on Snow Hill st

Red house main front on west Poultry st

2 Designed by W. H. Wagstaff & Sons, has a slightly different treatment in therms of materials and decorations.

in an Italian Renaissance manner. The most prominent feature is a two-storey corner tower with a pyramidal roof and channelled arches to either side of the ground floor. There are arched gateways on both elevations, both with round-headed stone pediments. In addition the northern entrance has statues of boys riding dolphins flanking the pediments as an allusion to the building’s purpose as a fish market. The elevation are both composed of blind arcades with stone pilasters.

The interior of the triangular market hall is lined with shop units on all three sides and has similarly shaped island block in the centre encircled by an access roadway entered from the north and south sides. The shops are open-fronted on the ground floor with an enclosed top-lit attic storey faced in bricks with wooden sash windows that reach almost to the roof-line. The upper level is supported on square-section cast-iron columns with classical pilasters to the outer face.

The roof spans over the roadways have wooden trusses that spring from the upper level of the shops, supporting glazed pitches and louvred ridge lanterns. Despite two decades of disuse, the interior of the Annexe retains a considerable amount of its original form and character.

The red house 2 This trapezoidal-shaped building is formed of two parts, a high two-storey range to the east and a mainly one-storey block fronting Smithfield Street. The whole is build of red bricks with stone dressing and has a classical treatment, inspired to the other market buildings.

The east wall of the two-storey block is effectively blank, relieved by blind arcading of stone to both levels. The lower level has a high plinth, part rendered brick and part stone, with three tall narrow doorways and a segmental-headed carriageway in the northern bay. Extending along Smithfield Street there is a long, predominantly single-storey range. For most of its length it repeats the arcaded arrangement of the eastern block, with four irregularly spaced tall doorways. On Smithfield Street the ground floor has a central doorway flanked by windows with an ornamental band above and two windows in the first floor.

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2. Museum of London

City Museum

Museum of London entrance

on the previous page: Ancient royal coach

A city museum is a relatively new museum type, the definition of which is neither unified nor fixed.

Steven Thielemans gave one of the most significant definitions of the city museum: “a city museum is a museum about and in the city. It is connected with both the strategy of the city and with its citizens”.

This kind of museum its not defined by the type of objects it conserves, as its collection usually include heterogeneous objects, sometimes strictly related to the city’s history and identity.

Originally city museums were built to conserve and display city’s history, but nowadays their mission and purpose are being developed towards a more didactic and active social involvement with the contemporary city and its communities.

The birth of the city museum in Europe can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century when the largest cities, involved in the urban, economic and social transformations of the time, attempted to preserve documents, stories, and memories from their past. These museums were usually hosted in ancient, iconic buildings of the city, and were conceived as repositories of civic treasures and places where the history of the city should be conserved. The collections were meant to represent the city, tell its story and celebrate its glorious past; consequently they were very heterogeneous and included several kinds of objects, usually organised according to typological or chronological criteria.

At the end of the 1990s, city museums again became the subjects of attentions; their mission and their role have been rede-

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View of the “people’s city” gallery

fined from one of merely preserving and displaying the city’s glorious past, to representing and interpreting the city’s present, as well as imagining and debating its future. Among their new tasks they are understood on one hand as urban marketing tools for city promotion, on the other hand they are asked to carry out a social role, being more involved in urban and social issues, addressing difficult topics and contributing to fostering dialogue between the different ethnic, religious, social and generational groups of the city.

Building a city museum means including the city in the museum and the museum in the city, considering one as an inseparable part of the other, also from an architectural and urban planning point of view. The opening or renovation of a city museum can provide an opportunity for the restoration and rehabilitation of a city neighbourhood or a significant historic building which has its own history and identity, and which can thus return to the city and itself become part of the museum’s collection. The construction of a new museum, on the other hand, offers the possibility to work on urban planning, rehabilitate or enhance an urban area and create a new iconic city symbol, which can act as a new, cultural, and physical reference point within the city.

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The Museum of London nowadays

Recreated shops in the museum

The Museum of London was born as an amalgamation of two earlier museums: the Guildhall Museum, largely archaeological and the London Museum, more interested in modern objects, paintings and costumes. With the Museum of London Act, in 1965, the two collections were merged giving birth to the actual Museum of London. The current building, designed by Powell & Moya, is located on London Wall and forms part of the Barbican complex of buildings crated in the 1960s and 1970s.

Since its opening the Museum of London has operated as a social and urban history museum, and maintains its archaeological interests. It’s designed to tell the story of the city and its people through all kinds of everyday objects, videos and mostly archaeological evidences (its archaeological archive is the largest in the world). As well as documenting London’s history, the museum looks also to the future, imagining what London will look like in years to come, and encouraging debate about the issues affecting London today. The museum currently comprises a series of chronological galleries with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city, urban development and London’s social and cultural life, with interactive displays and different learning activities. The galleries include: Prehistory; Roman London; Medieval London; The great fire of London; a reconstruction of Georgian pleasure gardens; a Victorian Walk with recreated shops, public buildings and sections on the West End; and World City, a gallery which tells London’s story from 1950 to the present day. Everything is arranged and shown with a pedagogical purpose with accurate attention on the involvement of the visitor through several interactive platforms.

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The competition

The present work has taken the move from an international competition promoted in year 2016 by the City of London and the Greater London Authority, aimed at the proposal of a research plan to re locate the Museum of London from its actual location into the old West Smithfield Market. The initial driver for this relocation was the urgent necessity to accommodate the rapidly growing number of visitors of the rich and high quality collection of the Museum. The opportunity was therefore given to substantially re-think the infrastructure, engaging more audience, showing a larger portion of the collection, improving the area dedicated to research and dynamically involving the surrounding area of West Smithfield, giving it a new impulse of cultural life and opportunities.

The area, chosen for its historical value for the City, is nowadays becoming always more central in the wider plan of London Cultural Hub and is soon going to host the Crossrail interchange at Farringdon. Smithfield is a neighbourhood full of history but, at the same time, projected to the future as a nevralgic point in the development of the City with a fashionable, sociable, design loving and ever-changing character.

The founding idea of the competition was the transformation of the area of the Smithfield Market, from a location of physical exchange into a place of cultural and knowledge exchange, generating inspiration, opening attitudes to interaction, motivating the desire to discover the roots and developments of the City, and therefore strongly connected to the very intimate soul of London.

The specifications required to conceive a museum character-

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ised by a so high charismatic identity as to impact the entire landmark of the Smithfield neighbourhood, using 21st century elements integrated into the historical landmark, thus generating a memorable and vital architecture. The historic and civil significance of Smithfield and surroundings, full of valuable heritage, should be fostered highlighting foreground craft and details combining exemplary and visually stunning contemporary interventions and additions to create atmosphere and presence, reflecting the site’s evolution from a place of physical exchange to a culture and knowledge exchange.

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The main program expressed in the competition purpose include: - Administration and Back of House: flexible offices well inserted and dwelling with the historical environment to encourage a flexible way of working and providing project spaces where people can work together across departments.

- Centre for Research: the museum shall consider public engagement with its collections not on display and show how a research facility, as much a learning experience as an academic facility, could be a viable component of the museum’s work.

Ideally, this space should be contiguous with the collections storage.

- Collections Storage: a specialised storage facilities should part of this scheme, including roller racking for a range of material, such as costumes and paper.

- Commercial facilities: such as retail and catering are part of the museum system. These should be well located, highly visible, attractively disposed and functional.

- Front of House: is one of the most important elements of the visitor experience is the transition from outside to inside as visitors enter the museum. The Front of House therefore needs to be an inspiring and exciting space, open-to-all, and providing a taster of the treasures within the museum. At the same time, it should provide clear wayfinding through the logical organisation of space, and the allocation of operational functions such as reception, ticketing and cloakrooms.

- Galleries: the basement spaces are closer to the black box

spaces more commonly used for museums. Galleries should be flexible, contemporary and well-proportioned.

- Public Realm: particular attention needs to be paid to approaches, thresholds and entrances, and their connection with the public realm.

- Theatre and Public Engagement Spaces: the museum requires a theatre seating 240, alongside accompanying break out spaces and supporting facilities. Educational activities require some dedicated spaces or classrooms, but should also be integrated into the gallery journey.

The final phase of the competition has been reached by six architecture studios, some of them already known at international level. The 28 of July 2016 has been announced the winner of the competition: Stanton Williams. The jury justified the choice describing their proposal as a concept with a strong sense of cohesion which honoured the original market buildings as well as having a passion for the project. The early stage concept includes: a new lifted landmark dome to create a light-filled entrance to the museum; two innovative spiral escalators transporting visitors down to the exhibition galleries in the vast excavated underground chamber; flexible spaces serving as a new meeting place for London and a centre for events and debate; a new sunken garden and green spaces.

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Stenton Williams - winners

BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group

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Diener & Diener Architekten

Caruso St John Architects

Lacton & Vassal Architects

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Studio Milou Architecture

Typological Evolution

When an architect works on a new project, more often than not, he works on the transformation of something that already exists. Every new project is the result of the evolution of ideas earlier there in previous projects, as a result of an endless research, of the constancy of goals and of the connections between experiences.

The project is the outcome of a personal path traced on an already travelled land: the architectural discipline, as the collection of knowledge.

This leads us to the concept of typological sequences, well explained by Carlos Martí Aris1 as “a set of examples that refer to the same formal structure and are formed by operations of transformations of the existing examples”. These sequences can derive from different situations and times.

Our interest in them is related to the simplification of the project to a persistent structure capable of multiple development.

Following our interest in the memory of Smithfield General Market and its square curtain circumscribed to a circular dome, our interest felt on the analysis of the typological sequence of the “round figure inscribed into a rectangular curtain” altrady leaded

by J.A. Cortés in La caja de Pandora2 and from Martí Aris3 in The variations of the identity.

Both the articles presents a comparison between the projects of the Altes Museum in Berlin by Schinkel (1828), Le Corbusier’s Palace of Assembly in Chandigarh (1963), Stirling’s Neue Staatgalerie in Stuttgart (1984); to these Martí Aris added Asplund’s Public Library in Stockholm.

Even though the rotunda or circular space may attract the at-

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on the left page from the top: K. F. Shinkel - Altes Museum, Berlin, 1828; Gunner Asplund - Stockholm Public Library, Stockholm, 1928; Le Corbusier, Palace Of Assembly, Chandigarh, 1963; James Stirling, Neue Staatgalerie, Stuttgart, 1984.

tention on itself, those constructions can’t be classified into the central-plan buildings, since in the typological sequence we are analysing there is no subordination of the parts to the central volume.

In the articles mentioned before, Asplund library is presented as a semplification of Schinkel’s formal structure to its essence: a U-shaped perimetral volume and a cylindrical one. Although the rotunda is no more and inside space, but it is reveled to the outside; the soppression of the portico reverse the entrance system.

In Le Corbusier project the portico appears again, but this time as an additional, indipendent element. In line with his way of thinking architecture the architect freed the rotunda from the U block letting it free to find it’s place in a big hypostyle hall. The portico has the role of complete the U-block giving back to the building its unity.

According to this reasoning process, also Stirling museum in Stuttgard is presented as a trasformation of an already exhisting formal structure, with two main design choices: the removal of the front portico and the soppression of the rotunda covering.

Cortés refers to the first act as “the opening of Pandora’s box”, because it reveals the inside of the museum to the outside.

Meanwhile uncovering the rotunda reveals its public role, without although loosing the formal identity of the building.

From the analysis is clear how any step of the typological sequence represent an evolution of the previous formal structure and, at the same time, its modification. We are therefore considering the modification of an already existing formal structure, without making the structure unidentifiable, conserving its identity.

However we wanted to go a step further in the analysis of the buildings and investigate which is the relation of their formal structure with the circulation and with servant and served spaces.

Schinkel Altes Museum presents one of the most interesting plans, viewed through the lens of servant and served space, Schinkel created a masterpiece. The primary spaces are easily recognizable as the Portico, the Rotunda and the Galleries.

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Trying to study the relation between the served spaces and the servants ones we can see that every primary space has access to every other and that they also have at least two connection points, therefore no part of the museum is isolated.

In Stockholm Public Library we can classify as primary spaces the lending area inside the Rotunda, the reading and the study rooms; the servant spaces such as the main staircase, the librarians’ rooms and the offices are instead circumscribed to the Rotunda. As it was for Kahn, also for Asplund the walls are not a constraint or a restriction, but an opportunity to give hierarchy between the spaces for the technical areas and those in which prevail a more open and free space. The similarity between Schinkel’s and Asplund’s served and servant spaces organization is clear, however Asplund plan presents something new.

Turning the U block from a rectangle to a square, Asplund was able to locate the entrances in the three tangent points, creating a cross figure able to organize the accesses and organize the main reading room.

In Le Corbusier’s plan the main change comes with the hypostyle hall where servant and service space somehow merge and the rotunda seems to float inside it. In this central space the ramps and staircases come out from the rooftop declaring themselves as independent elements.

Contrary to the other projects we analysed, where one plan can easily describe the project and the same reasoning can be re-applied to the other floors, to truly understand Stirling’s project and its internal organization complexity it’s not possible to consider just one floor. We choose however to analyse the first floor plan as it better describe the relation between the U-shaped block (not readable at the entrance floor), the rotunda and the public walkways.

The entrance floor present a treble plan, that recalls Schinkel’s museum, that presents three primary spaces: a temporary exhibition space, the auditorium and, in the middle, the sculpture garden in the rotunda; the remaining part is dedicated to servant spaces such as the entrance, the info point, the museum bookshop and the restaurant. However is just at the first floor that we can read the U-shaped block as a new served space,

where a sequence of fifteen exhibition rooms are organised with the staircase and elevators blocks located at the start, end and in the middle of the museum path.

Analysing the circulation of the building is not possible to overlook the public walkway ramp that connects the two levels of the city, passing through the rotunda space and allowing the public to have a look at part of the exhibition. The public dimension of the museum is certainly one of the main features of Stirling project, and one of the characters that the architect deepened the most, designing a lot of axonometric views to deeply understand it.

This analysis of the typological evolution, of the circulation and of the relation between servant and service space, in this typology of buildings, was one of the starting points for the organisation of the spaces and paths in our project for the New Museum of London.

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3. Graft

Graft: process of cutting a piece from a living plant and fixed in a cut made in another plant, to form a new growth, finer, more productive or younger.1

1 A.P. Cowie (chief editor), Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, Oxford University press, Oxford 1990 2 S. Brandolini, P.-A. Croset (a cura di), Strategie della modificazione, in “Casabella”, n.498/9, gennaio-febbraio 1984, pp. 18 on the previous page: C. Scarpa, Castelvecchio Museum, Verona

Main theme of the Italian Pavilion at the 14th Biennale in Venice, curated by Cino Zucchi, the integration of contemporary architecture in strengthened urban contexts has been a central topic in the European architectural debate since the last 60 years.

The graft, as architecture instrument, has its roots in the history of architecture since the Middle Age period, it has changed during the different centuries focusing on different scales and approach till the second half of XX century where the theme has become more focused on the block and architectural scale and closer to the contemporary idea of graft.

The decade following World War II provided fertile ground for a nuanced design approach to additions and transformations in Europe. The buildings that had survived were charged with a deeper cultural and emotional value, whether they were whole or just fragments. These important symbols of national identity had to be restored, but they also provided the opportunity for architects and patrons to affirm their commitment to the present and their belief in the future. From a theoretical point of view this theme is a constant, new and fruitful, full of interesting variations, which has characterized the architectural culture in the beginning of this new millennium.

The architect focus is closer to the quality of relations between the parties, or between the existing components and the new ones; this is the main field of action of an architecture of the modification.

“This occurs naturally as a change of direction of all the parts with the introduction of a new element, on one hand as the will of assimilation of the new to the existing adopting a mimetic principle with respect to the stylistic conditions or settlement dates, on the other hand by fixing the measurement of quality of difference.”2

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Evolution of architectural graft

on the next page: Basilica of San Francesco, Bologna

The concept and practice of architectural graft find their origins back in time, i.e. during the medieval era. In that context graft was mostly linked to the reuse of stone and bricks extracted from architectural practice (i.e. demolished buildings), damaged classical sculptures or, more generally, from stone made crafts.

The fall of the Roman empire and the end of paganism outdated several buildings that fell into ruins from disuse and lack of maintenance. These buildings were real quarries of stone and construction material offering to the new builders already finished pieces, ready to be used in new religious or civil buildings.

A long selection process of shapes and materials took place, characterised by the gradual demolition of old buildings or their reuse based on different grounds and cultural perspective. Columns and capitals, for example, were taken from pagan buildings and used to build and decorate the new churches. Pagan iconographic pieces were recycled with new meanings, better adapted to the new context. Reuse was not limited to materials, shapes and structures: it also applied to entire buildings: several old churches were refurbished and consecrated to the new religion. Basilicas were reused by Christians adapting the structures to their purposes and liturgical traditions: the pagan approach, mostly undifferentiated and multi-directional, was turned into the Christian approach, characterized by a strong directionality, with the church’s entrance on the shorter leg of the cross and the positioning of the altar in the apsis at the opposite side of the building. Maintenance and renovation of buildings was always carried out focussing on a very practical approach, considering the building to be “restored” as a continuous “work

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in progress” to be developed with new forms and new materials.

The new roles assigned to the various materials and architectural portions and elements changed the essence of the elements themselves, even though the shape remained the unchanged.

These portions were presented to and perceived by the observer in a very different way with respect to their original situation, being now separated from their original context and functions.

The way of recycling and reuse evolved with time: in fact, in the early centuries of transition to the medieval era, although dedicated to new buildings, materials and portions maintained their original construction function and logic, while later on, the final use was often very far from the original one, dramatically changing their functions and their exposure to the observer. Finally, starting from XI, but especially from the XIII-XIV centuries, the reused materials and portions, were considered as “antiques” and were no longer manipulated, but carefully preserved and displayed like relics, whose recognized value was set in evidence to enrich and ennoble the new construction. According to the interpretation of Salvatore Settis: “a first phase of continuity with the past that started during the sixth century, was followed by a second period of practical focus and detachment from the historical value, lasting until the twelfth century, and finally by a period of preservation, study and consciousness of the value of the ancient (XII-XIV century) 1”.

Plan by Sisto V, Rome

In the Baroque period that followed, a real scale factor occurred, projecting the concept of graft from the single building to entire city parts. The main changes in urban projects occurring in several European cities were generally aimed at creating poly-centric urban plans. Large scale demolitions following straight lines took place to connect outstanding buildings and large squares of symmetrical or radial shape, thus grafting on a larger scale new boulevards and squares to rationalise and revitalise entire portions of cities in very limited length of time, if compared with the conventional evolution dynamics of the city.

These new urban concepts, which deeply transformed the urban environment, were the consequence of the a combination of forces linked with the evolution of scientific knowledge (Co-

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pernican revolution), the conservative celebration of the weight and power of religious symbols, the new emerging power of outstanding families and crowns: all these forces characterised the evolution of life in the central Europe of the XVI century. The newly born heliocentric theory had disruptive effects on the entire society and approach to the world: a new definition of cosmos settled down, with new vision over the infinite, the interpretation of reality as a continuously evolving concept triggered a burst in curiosity, research, creativity and experiments involving all human activities from literature to philosophy, from music to visual arts to architecture. The consciousness of the limiteness of knowledge had the consequences of a progressive replacement of the strength of belief with the discomfort of doubt. The absolute and integrated system opens towards a dynamic and open approach, accepting transformation and change. In the frame of architecture all this translates into “spatial and mental deliverance from the strict rules of conventional books, elementary geometry, staticity, symmetry and contrast between the inner and the outer space” 2. Infinite becomes a research topic at urban scale and down to the architectural perspectives: the very long perspectives of the straight lines generated by the large avenues is no longer the result of a rational reconstruction of the ‘400, but becomes the object of a deliberately induced feeling in the soul of the viewer in a new urban spatial structure. The Baroque urban concept claims to “generate” a new space, instead of acting on a pre-existing space, thus violently and quickly grafting new vital organism onto the existing framework. The urban plan of Sisto V, in 1685, is an example of this concept: through the connection of the main religious buildings of the city along major road axes the plan re-characterizes the reading and the development of the city and indicates its limits and growth trajectories, thus emphasizing the role of Rome as the Holy City. It was noted by Paolo Portoghese in “Roma Barocca” how the large scale of the new axes grafted into the urban organism produces an expansion of the urban space – in agreement with the “poetics of the distance that permeates certain contemporary landscape painting” - to finally convey a sort of exhibition of infinity which “is closely linked the rise of

Baroque straight avenues

1 Researches displayed in Futuro del Classico, Torino, Einaudi, 2004.

2 Bruno Zevi, in Saper vedere l’architettura.., cit. pp 92, Torino, Einaudi, 1948.

optical values to a structural role in the artistic work”. In this frame, Rome becomes a kind of capital of Baroque, as well as the main centre of artistic and cultural development of the Christian Western world and acts as the reference to a series of similar urban grafting and transformation. No wonder that such an urban plan is unanimously appreciated by the powerful families and crowns always interested in the celebration of their own authority on the sparkling scene of the growing cities. Countries’ capitals such as London, Paris and Vienna are the best known examples of this grafting new urban concepts to quickly transform entire portions of the city for a given scope: with the plan of post-fire reconstruction of Christopher Wren, the famous parks designed by Le Notre included in the plan Colbert and the consistent Viennese urban development in celebration of the Hasburg power, respectively.

3 Ambrogio Annoni (1882-1954), has been one of the most theoretician of restoration of the XX century. The importance of his contribution to the theory of restoration is due to his denial of standardized methods

Another scale factor occurred in the end of the XIX century in the heart of the industrial revolution. The concept of industrial city was questioned in its essence, challenged by the accelerated and erratic process of urbanization caused by the population density and by the lack and inadequacy of networks ans infrastructures. Extremely high residential densities were seen in industrial cities, where the population was concentrated within the city centres and “slums” appeared around their suburbs, where living conditions were at the limits of survival). Chronicle inadequacy of all network systems (roads, public transport, communication) resulted in a significant degradation of hygienic and environmental conditions and caused frequent epidemics.

Finally, the level of congestion within the city proved their morphology and road structures inadequate to accommodate increased levels of traffic and new ways of transport. In response to these problems, the very concept of town planning evolved, with the definition of real pan-urban intervention plans. Planning efforts do not focus any more on the mere technical and distributive aspects, but consider social aspects and welfare with the aim to distribute the benefits of progress to all portions of the population. In the second half of the nineteenth century, many European capitals are subject to deep and brutal grafting

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and restructuring efforts to adapt their structure to the new requirements of persons and good flows linked with the industrial production and to the new social needs and lifestyle. Strategic development plans and urban regeneration projects give birth to the urban planning: i.e. strategies to regulate conflicting relationships or continuity of the new intervention to the existing urban structure, thus grafting radically new concepts on the existing city structure, to quickly and deeply transforming its essence in view of a wealthier life and development.

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Much more recently, the concept and practice of graft was re-conducted from large scale city planning to architecture: Giorgio Grassi, student of E.N. Rogers, followed his master’s idea on the architectural object being a “living organism” that changes as time goes on. He pointed out a real and active interest in ruins, meant in the humanistic sense as a witness and as a cultural and historical heritage, but even more as a real lesson in architecture. He compared the ruin to an unfinished architecture, interrupted at a certain moment in time of its construction and waiting for its completion and the completion of its functional value. For this reason Grassi disapproved all forms of “embalming”, fruitless moniumentalization depriving the building of a functional relationship with the reality. The relationship with the city life is the only path to avoid that ruins become an unrecognised effigy. It is of the utmost importance to let ruins express themselves through their original function, using them on a daily base, as this is a necessary condition of every piece of architecture. In this framework, he claims that, through this process of redefinition of the identity, the building becomes an institution and, at the same time, a recognizable form and an “active” part of the city. Grassi refers to the concepts expressed

by Ambrogio Annoni 3 during the conference in Tokyo in 1929: “.. And, as far the completion is inevitable for the purposes of the use, then it is more convenient to follow the more daring, but more sincere and serious and modern concept of intonation [...]. this is, above all, the esteem towards the monument, which refuses the mere conservation as an embalmed mummy and want to appear in its true and vibrant life [...]. But I do not think

Sagunto Roman Theatre, G. Grassi

neither possible nor right to set standards. But there is a rule, which was and is my constant criteria: each monument is the master of itself, i.e. every restoration is determined by itself. “ Aldo Rossi interprets the city as an entity made of different parts or places, each specifically characterized and equipped with primary elements or urban facts around which are aggregated buildings. Some of these elements, thanks to their intrinsic value or to particular historical situations, become monuments or landmarks of their “part� of the city, or, even more, considering them the product of collective human activities, they will be considered among the most authentic testimony of human kind.

When intervening on the existing work, he states that the active intervention on the element must empathize and reflect the urban reality, highlighting the urban character of the surrounding architectural facts which will acquire a broader meaning through the features of the new project. The solution is to imagine and build a homogeneous, coordinated, continuous environment able to present itself with the coherence of a single landscape.

All this, however, is acceptable and consistent only when addressing a part or place in the city. On this occasion there will be the opportunity to establish entire urban facts, able to solve a part of the city completely by determining all relationships that can be established within a certain fact.

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Reasons of graft

After a brief study on the roots of the graft in architecture, we believed that was important to analyse which are the reasons that brings us to choose the graft approach today, putting ourselves in sharp contrast with the more conservative opinions.

First of all we have to define the subject of the discussion as that part of the architectural heritage that seems to have lost its role over time, due to historical events, damagings or transformations, temporarly overlooking ruins and archeological heritage, even if our reasoning could be, at least in part reapplied also to that part of the architectural history.

Porta Ticinese in Milan, C Boito

Suspended palimpsest. The time issue.

The palimpsest is usually defined as a manuscript from which the original writing has been removed in order to create space for new writings.

On the contrary of the manuscript, that could become a palimpsest, the architectural artefact is always a palimpsest, it has been and continues to be subject to changes over the time in a dialectical relationship with the needs of use and production.

The restoration history has seen, since its beginning, a heated debate on the architectural interventions, a frequent dialectic on the validity and the form of the new in respect the old.

From Voillet-le Duc and the stylistic restoration, with the purpose of recovering the missing or destroyed parts of a building with the aim of obtaining a renewed work, to Beltrami and the historic restoration, with its confidence in the scientific method, to Camillo Boito and Giovannoni’s scientific restoration, with the refusal of a selection of styles and periods; a lot of theorists pro-

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moted an intervention on the building to restore.

In contrast with all these theorists, there are also a group of theorist that were following Ruskin idea of preserving the authenticity of the artefact and thus in favour to a mere conservation approach even if that could slowly bring the heritage to distruption.

But, as Amedeo Bellini remark, restoration history is nothing but a series of events in which theorists of different centuries have chosen what to deal with and what not to deal with.1 An intervention, which tends to isolate at present the artefact, does not protect the original condition of the building or its original relationship with the environment, because this relationship does not exist in crystallizable forms.

An architecture is never permanently modified and static, it is always in modification under the effect of climate, historical, economical factors.

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Trasform to preserve. The use value From age to age, from moment to moment, the culture has turned towards their own past with different attitudes. Salvatore Settis in the essay “Continuity, distance, knowledge. Three uses of the old” 2 identifies three behaviors to the old that recur, sometimes coexisting through the ages.

Since the end of the Roman Empire until the fifteenth century, the art lay in ruins, almost a “stock under the house” from which is possible to draw items to be reused, without respect for the integrity of the original work, depending on the practical needs, needs of glory or honor. This is the medieval attitude to the past, which Settis defines as “continuity”, a past infectum on which action can be taken.

The second attitute “the distance” for Settis can be exemplified by the renassence period, in which the architects is also an archeologist, as Alberti, Bramante or Palladio, authors whose works owe a lot to the study of ancient architecture. The look of the Renaissance sees the past, especially the greek-Roman, as a perfectum time, separated from today from centuries of decay and oblivion, a heritage to recover and revive. The artefacts of the past are considered as architecture from which to learn, both from the point of view of composition, typological,

From Athena temple to Siracusa Cathedral

1 A. Bellini, Tecniche della conservazione, F. Angeli, 2003, Milano 2 M. Centanni, Sul metodo: per una archeologia della visione, in “Archeologia e Contemporaneo”, Iuav, 81, settembre 2010 3 F. Venezia, Che cosa è l’architettura, Electa, Milano, 2011

volumetric and, not least, constructive.

Between the end of eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth after the great discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii, born archeology as modern science. Archaeology is a discipline child of the age of knowledge, the ruins become the object of a science that aims to reconstruct the history and art of ancient times through the study of the past remains.

After a century and a half of complex and articulated experimentation on architectural monuments, spread out an ideology contrary to all ancient intervention that was not the mere preservation and consolidation. The absence of the project, however, has often caused a slow but inexorable abandonment and progressive loss of technical knowledge also in the restoration works.

This is the period defined by Settis as the “knowledge” one. The past is seen as remote past, which resurfaces in pieces, offering a monumental heritage to philological study, to be inventoried, catalogued, organized, and then putted in a museum.

It is with the birth of modern archeology that, according to Francesco Venezia3, there is the fatal separation: “this discipline has made fruitful ruins with respect to science, but infertile with respect to life”.

The ruins become the subject of interest of the suprintendences, objects of the archeological protection, preserved in glass cases, under steel and polycarbonate canopies, where they can die again slowly, away from life, barren. Archaeology is thus isolated in ad hoc spaces, places separated from the rest of the social space, isolated from the urban daily life.

After a century and a half of complex and experimentation on architectural artefacts, spread an ideology contrary to all ancient intervention that was not the mere preservation and consolidation.

In the graft approach the architect may be forced to operate surgical cuts that redefine and diminish the value of antiques, that the ruin had, to allow the old artefact to acquire the another value: the use value.

The absence of the project has often caused a slow but inexorable abandonment and progressive loss of technical knowl-

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edge also in the restoration works.

The graft allows to exclude those artefacts from oblivion, providing them with new meaning, making them “fit� again and integrated part of city life.

What would it be Siracusa Cathedral without the Norman and Baroque interventions, , what would it be the Malatesta Temple in Rimini, without the wise intervention of Leon Battista Alberti?

Those as just two of a multitude of examples of the past that show their history, that have come back to life, that more than once have restarted from the beginning.

The monuments have to stay alive and so they need new functions, new uses.

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Memory of a past, expression of an era.

The architectural culture has become aware of an ever present in the building tradition phenomenon: to change to innovate, to transform in order to preserve the memory, to overlay to keep all traces of evolution, to intervene sometimes even altering the testimonies of the past to give expressive form to today.

The principle according to which new and alien entity are added to the pre-existing, suggests a modification in which the different stages of stratification in time are all legible and, above all, capable of preserving the integrity of the original so that it may, at least theoretically, be recovered in each moment, by increasing the thickness of the memory stratification to perceive the transformations through signs engraved on the history.

The current design practice shows us many examples similar to the described principles, in every part of the world, with different technologies, scales and even distinct purposes, all still careful to read what is culturally able to persist, to demand attention and care to continue to participate in mans life.

According to restorer and conservators the architecture artefact can’t anymore be source of knowledge and culture, it has run out of its urban role.

The project proposed actions are not always respectful of the integrity of the composition or original morphology, but they are the materialization of the collective desire to preserve and revive the values recognized as living witnesses of their own culture.

R Koolhaas Fondaco dei tedeschi, Venezia

Questions have been asked often on the “style� able to represent their era, the graft in architecture is the form of expression of a civilization born from the coexistence and juxtaposition of styles from different worlds, of a civilization that clashes daily with the great technological innovations and the great monuments of the past.

The graft become the tool to shape the present, to give voice to its age; not exhaustive signs capable of interpreting the absolute need of new, but contrasts and combinations of words which individually would be meaningless and that, together, can envisage a future to live, with a language not noble, that can be comprehensible to everyone.

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The project as a research tool

In the last two decades a movement conscious of the impossibility of promoting great changes within the consolidated and uneven city, and oriented to a modification made of small interventions, of targeted grafts aimed at re-evaluate the existing, has created a planning practice, a widespread and shared methodological approach, multiscalar and with wide purposes.

Additions, parasites, stratifications, aggregations, however you want to define the grafts, at any scale (urban, architectural) or place (the suburbs, town centres, consolidated patterns, voids), is meant to be applied, underlie, however, a new planning awareness derived from recognition of the existing values, the conscience of the recovery, the need for simultaneous presence of ancient and new, from the semantic value derived from the aggregation of discrete signs.

The architectural grafts are interventions closely related to the specific situation on which they act. It was, therefore, decided to study the intervention methods of the graft through the study of some of these projects, selected taking into account grafts that had to deal with exihisting artefacts of different ages, importance for the city history and life to have a more varying analizes. It was although decided to choose projects of museums, in order to have an analyses that could help us afterwards to develope the New Museum of London project.

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Case studies

David Chipperfield, Altes Museum, Berlin The old Neues Museum of Berlin was classical building that date back to the mid of the XIX century designed by F. A. Stuel for the king of Prussia. It had mainly a rectangular plan with two inner courtyards, used one for Egyptian art and the other for the Greek. The centre of the whole complex had a pavilion that hosted the main monumental staircase. During the war the building was strongly damaged losing the north-east wing and part of the south-east, the monumental staircase and the southeast roof, which was connected by a bridge Altes Museum.

In 1997 David Chipperfield took charge of the reconstruction and claimed that his intention was not to preserve the memory of war and the destruction, neither to propose a faithful historical reproduction. The purpose of the project was to protect and empower the ruins survived both the war and the erosion of the time of the last sixty years. The work was carried out on the idea of not showing or reproducing what was lost, but highlighting what had been saved and restoring the spacial memory of place giving maximum importance to the original role of each space. In this sense, both the restoration and repair of the existing was driven by the idea that the original structure should be emphasized in its spatial context and original materiality; the new reflects the lost without imitating it.

Main stair of the Neues Museum

Infact the façades have been rebuilt through a light and careful intervention that doesn’t pretend to reproduce the original but just recalls its proportions and rhythm. The new south-east pa-

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vilion is clearly an abstract version of the original, the windows follow the rhythm of the original ones, but they have been treated in a different and contemporary way. The interior is organized by alternating and dwelling portions of new construction and still intact parts of the original building. The different surfaces merge, creating a delicate and fluid spatial continuous. In this way the materials become the protagonists of the intervention, the combination of the original bricks, plaster and the stone shows the attempt to not focus on a particular historical period, but allows to the audience to perceive reverberations of different degrees of time.

With this approach the architect makes whole spaces out of a mixture of the preserved and the repaired showing how a place could be composed by human and natural interventions, some violent, some exquisite, some touching, some ordinary.

Juxtaposition of new and old

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Peter Zumthor, Kolumba Museum, Colongne The Kolumba museum is situated in the city centre of Cologne, Germany, a city that was almost completely destroyed during World War II. The new building by Peter Zumthor rise from the ruins of the Gothic church of St. Kolumba, destroyed during the war by a rocket. In 1949, architect Gottfried Bohm built the “Madonna in the Ruins” chapel to protect the survived statue of the Virgin; later on, between the 1973 and 1976, archaeological excavations were made on the site reviling the ruins of late Roman houses of the II and III century, a VI century apsis and of a Romanesque cathedral with three nave along with the ruins of the 5 nave Gothic church. In 1997 Cologne’s archdiocese announced a competition for the construction of a new museum that could house the Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s collection of art and that was also able to show the archaeological site including both the Roman, medieval and Gothic ruins.

Relation between new bricks and the old stone

Zumthor won the competition conceiving a building with and older-style architectural stance that would bring old and new together in a new whole geared toward harmony rather than contrast. The museum is an exceptional architecture, that is not just a works of art’ container, it consecrates the dignity of the place. In the chaos of the neighbourhood, the Kolumba has the right proportions, its design, materials choice and spaces are refined. The continuity between old and new is the key theme of the building as a whole, which is expressed through the use of new materials combined with the existing ruins and the juxtaposition of natural and artificial light.

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The building presents a deep bond to the city and its history. First of all with the roof shape that recalls the dimension of the buildings of the city, giving back to the big block the urban scale. The second feature that links Zumthor museum to the city is the choice of the material; both bricks and the light colour of the building are connected to the city history. The ability of the museum to communicate with Cologne is not just held by these two first points, but also through direct views over the historic buildings of Cologne, which brings the memory of the city directly to the visitor.

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Another aspect that is clear from ground floor space is the connection of the project to the building memory, in particular with the Gothic church and its uprightness. Thirteen thin pillars mark the inside space paying attention to the position of the ruins; the light denied at the ground floor, comes in from studied small halls on the masonry at the upper ground level giving the space a mystic atmosphere. As the seasons change, the “mottled light shifts and plays across the ruins”, creating a peaceful ever-changing environment.

The exhibition rooms at the upper floor interchange dark spaces, illuminated by the artificial light, to other rooms where the big windows, set as gems on the walls, bring inside a big amount of light.

The choice of the building material and its pattern has an important role in the building design process. The brick was chosen as the main material of the construction: bricks have a long tradition in the area and were also used for the first repairs made after the destruction of the war.

For the museum project a new slimmer brick was conceived, which made a good join with the Gothic tracery work and the broken-off butts of the walls. These “Kolumba bricks” allowed to build on top of the old walls and to build the openwork, double layered outer wall, permeable to light and air, which surrounds the excavated space of the lost Church of St. Columba.

Inner path between the ruins

Madonna in the Ruins, 1945 Gothic Church, ca. 1500 A.D. Late-Romanesque Remodeling, 13th century A.D. Expansions, 12th century A.D. Romanesque church, 11th century A.D. Roman residential buildings, 2nd century A.D.

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Herzog de Meuron, Caixa Forum, Madrid The Caixa Forum by Herzog & De Meuron in Madrid is a clear example of an active and strong intervention on a pre-existent structure that leads to a clear and simple aim: reinforce the identity of an ancient and meaningful building through its renovation. The project concerns in the requalification of and old power station in the centre of Madrid through its conversion into a museum.

The challenge of the redevelopment of the site is solved by the architects by simple subsequent gestures that completely reorganized the function and the role of the building. The intervention can be schematized in three essential steps: the removing of the roof, floors and all the inner walls of the building creating a brick shell with the old perimetral walls; the “lift” of the building with the surgical demolition of its basement; the addiction of the new and contemporary volume covering and “laying” on the old building. Thanks to those theoretically simple and immediate sculptural gesture the architects, at the same time, created a covered plaza hosting the main entrance, solving the problem of the narrowness of the surrounding street, and gave a new and strong architectural identity to the building strengthening and renewing its appearance.

The void, the old brick wall, the new volumes

The intervention moves from a clever and careful study of the city and the urban area surrounding the site. The covered plaza created by the lift of the building can host the people during the hot Spanish summer and it’s directly linked to an open square

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in front of the building, creating a continue urban space. The floating volume is solidly leaned on three concrete cores, coated in stainless steel sheet polygons that, inside, incorporate lifts, elevators and stairways. Furthermore the new contemporary volume that makes up the crowing of the building, in one hand, recalls the colours of the old building and of the majority of the city centre, on the other hand, it reflects the roof-scape of the surrounding buildings. Another particularity of the top floor is that it rests integrally on the original brick walls, while its metal frame is covered by rusted iron panels, some of which are perforated with laser in order to filter the sun’s rays.

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Schematic composition of the building

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Nieto Sobejano, National Sculpture Museum, Valladolid The architectural interventions in historic buildings are all influenced by a common factor: the relationship between architecture and time. When dealing with the transformation of a complex with a historical and artistic value there’s the awareness of its temporary nature and the historical reality, first of all, related to the process of designing, developing and implementing the project and, second, to the relationship with the original work and with the traces left by the progressive interventions. In the project by Nieto Sobejano in the College of St. George those aspects are clearly expressed by the architects through an accurate intervention according to the different features of the spaces dealing with historical stratifications and new addictions.

Outer facade of “de las Azoteas” building

The College of St. George, one of the most important monuments of Valladolid, an example of late Gothic of the late fifteenth century, has preserved, the formal structure of its main architectural elements: the stone portal of the facade and the adjacent courtyard, the cloister and the adjoining chapel.

The different architectural interventions recompose, with varying degrees of intensity, a complete portrait, understood only when viewed as a whole.

In the main building that develops around the cloister, seen the clarity of the original formal structure and the artistic value of the numerous architectural elements, it’s carried out an accurate conservation with a reduced number of new interventions exclusively linked to the need to insert the facilities and reorganize the museum and exhibition.

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In the “de las Azoteas� building the transformation is stronger: the plastic overlapping of volumes aims to recall the original form that gave name to the building.

The small copper and wood pavilion is the starting point of the museum paths and its character and contemporary materials reveal the conflict with the story that every new building has to deal with.

In this frame the romantic vision of the modern architect, seen as the only intellectual author of a given project, disappears in the very moment in which the architect is called to work on a monument of the past, conceived by others and modified over the centuries. It becomes obvious that the designer’s task is now limited to an investigation of the meaning of the present and the memory of the past and to achieve the difficult balance that temporary nature of the new intervention and its historical reality merge.

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Relationship between old and contemporary

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4. New Meuseum of London

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Strategy

URBAN STRUCTURE

URBAN AXES

ELEVATION RHYTHM

URBAN VIEWS

The approach to the design process followed some of the common features that had been found in the case studies analized, with the aim to concieve an architecture fully integrated with the city, the neighborhood and the Smithfield Market. Through a multiscalar approach, from the urban to the architectural scale, it has been possible to govern the choices referring to their relation with the different systems. This process has been preceded by a punctual and careful study of the main features, characters and structures of the project site’s surroundings. In this way it has been possible to collect all the necessary elements to guide the development process in a more accurate and pertinent way.

At the urban scale, strong importance has been given to the streets network, expecially referring to the axes created during the Victorian’s rearrangement of the city. Those axes strongly influence the structure and shape of the entire complex of Smithfield market setting alignments, directions and rhythms.

The decision to keep those lines as rules also for the new intervention has been driven by the will to keep the urban impact and feeling of the building.

Another element that shifts between the urban and the architetural scale is the scanning rhythm of the elevations stongly present in the majority of the city center and characterizing the Smithfild Market, and neighborhood, itself. Also this feature has been taken in account in the design process aiming to integrate and melt the new parts of the building with the city. This intention drove the decision of having only one landmark, excluding the new façade, visible from the outside, leaving untouched the

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principal character of the identity of the building: its exterior elevations.

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At the architectural scale, after a deep study concerning the fuctioning of this extremely complex building and the physical and scalar relationship between the different spaces, the drivers of the intervention strategy have been identified in three main categories: reuse, memory and connection. Through those three simultaneous approaches it has been possible to identify a program and an integration to the existent building coherent with its current formal and spacial aspect. The settlement pattern of the actual buildings, whit their court-shaped organization, has been identified as one of the main influencial feature, leading the strategic plan to keep this character as a spacial identifying issue. Another way to connect and relationate the old building to its new function has been found in the reuse of its much dinamic and “urban” spaces as interfaces with the people, trying to exploit their spacial appeal to attract the attention and welcome the new guests. As already mentioned, the concept of memory, expecially spacial memory, had a heavy influence on the strategic design process. The strongest characters of the existing building as the north façade’s scan rhythm and its tower, the dome and the pitched roofs drove the whole strategic plan and could be easily recognised in the final design results.

In this way it has been made possible to celebrate and better understand both the old and the new building and their tight spacial relationship. The theme of the connection between the General Market building and the Annexe has been an important part either of the stategical plan either of the concieving of the exhibition path and the presence of a large basement, fool of interesting elements, helped to find the best solution. Another spacial asset that connected the two buildings and influenced the general strategy is the constant shift from compressed spaces to expanded ones highlighting the quality of the glass roofs and their structure.

A third aspect played an important role in the definition of the main projects intentions: the program and the competition re-

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

COURT SYSTEM

REUSE

MEMORY

PUBLIC REALM

quests. The insertion of a museum system into an existing building presents its own set of problems related to the accessability, the additional functional apparatus serving a cultural building, safety, public realm, etc. So all the design choices had to relate with those important features. With this purpose it has been drawn a schematical rapresentation of the “system museum”, relationing all the parts that have to communicate and work 2000 sqm 1350 sqm 1225 sqm toghether. In this way, keeping the public interest parts in the COMMERCIAL COLLECTION CENTRE OF (high visible | accessible) center, it has been possible to organize all the “accessory” funcSTORAGE RESEARCH 2000 sqm 1350 sqm 1225 sqm STORAGE CATERING tions around them, creating a schematically concentric system RETAIL COMMERCIAL COLLECTION CENTRE OF (high visible | accessible) FRONT 9800 sqm that helped also the definition of the paths across STORAGEthe building.

RESEARCH OF STORAGE CATERING RETAIL

1000 sqm PUBLIC REALM THEATRE

(breaking out point) 1000 sqm 240 p

MUSEUM SYSTEM THEATRE

(breaking out point) 240 p

4300 sqm

ADMINISTRATION AND 4300 sqm BACK OF HOUSE ADMINISTRATION AND BACK OF HOUSE

HOUSE FRONT RECEPTION OF TICKETING HOUSE CLOACKROOMS

RECEPTION TICKETING CLOACKROOMS

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

GALLERIES 9800 sqm PERMANENT TEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

GALLERIES PERMANENT

TEMPORARY

LOADING AND UNLOADING AREA

LOADING AND UNLOADING AREA 2375 sqm

PLANT ROOMS 2375 sqm EXHIBITION AND SERVICES PLANT ROOMS

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EXHIBITION PATH

The project

GROUND FLOOR 1

5

10

1

5

10

FIRST FLOOR 1

5

10

MUSEUM OF LONDON

1

5

10

SECOND FLOOR 1

5

10

1

5

10

+6

6%

+6

+6

+6

UNDERGROUND 1

5

10

1

5

10

+6

6%

+6

+6

+6

UNDERGROUND UPPER LEVEL 1

5

10

1

5

10

1

5

10

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