always, to inform the very particular characteristics of very particular architectures in very specific places. In our case in London where the history of architecture continues to be of making different Architectures for a Unique City. As use is always uncertain and ultimately, in time, unknown, we continue to be intrigued by an architecture that offers an existence in Space over Time. An architecture that is universally ‘of use’ but no more anonymous than the larger than life personalities and events that called it into being. So as architects designing now in London, and elsewhere around the world, we continue to be engaged in conversations about both an understood distant and more recent global architectural h istory. It is clear to us that the trend towards globalisation in architecture is no more a twentieth century tradition than architecture itself is. Globalisation in architecture is at least a second Millennia tradition. In England, since the building of the great Romanesque, Norman, and Gothic Cathedrals, and no doubt before, as since, ‘national’ architecture has clearly reflected both local and international influences. For those who we now call ‘architects’, who we once referred to as ‘masons’, have forever travelled hopefully to new locations in search of ideas and opportunity. In England this idea of a continuum is demonstrated by the influence of the ‘Grand Tour’ on English architecture, where books, art, objects, ideas and architects were imported and then made or re-made locally. One only has to look more closely at the classical Holkham Hall to see its rustication, columns and entablature are made of local Norfolk brick! So our contribution to this Biennale’s conversation is to use a number of our current projects to respond to the theme of ‘Fundamentals’. These demonstrate our contention that globalisation has a long, noble tradition; that situation and place has always localised the global and thus constructed what we now look back on as ‘national’ architecture. All of which can be
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presented in an annotated visual record of our experience of making architecture in London in the twenty first century. These related but different architectural histories, illustrated by a suite of twelve photographs, reflect the constant and continuous importance of time, inherited ideas, occasional insights and the collective spirit on architecture. Only those who pursue the concept of innovation for novelty value and their own vanity would fail to recognise that the fundamental architectural continuum is one of merzbau, palimpsest and collage: all three constructed in the context of the recent past yet also rooted in the memory of the distant past. An architectural history awaiting the judgement of use.