Recently I was staying at a swanky hotel. It was one of a chain and had that just add water to get a complete hotel feel. The architecture - if you could call it that- was ugly ; a classical-styled facade with a glorified box behind it, the obligatory large glass walls and a generally non-descript ambience that is always present in these kinds of spaces. I wasn’t too bothered by the whole place as it sort of washed over me in its mundaneness. However I found myself irritated by a detail - one which I have since noticed in a number of new build offices in the town centre at home. Basically it is when a building has a curved sweep either inside or out, that extends over a number of metres - it could be a whole section of the front or as in the case of the hotel the whole reception area was a curved wall. In the ceiling ran the heating duct. This was obviously a pre-made unit, about eight feet long and a foot wide. It ran with the curve but in straight sections and completely undermined the shape and sweep of the wall beneath it, its train carriage clunkiness chugged around the bend, further adding to the vulgarity of the place. This may sound harsh, snobbish even, but it really annoyed me - vast sums of money had clearly been spent on the place, yet they couldn’t sort out this feature - could it have been set into the ceiling with a curved opening added over it? or what the heck why not manufacture ducting in curved sections - every room had a complimentary bottle of pricey wine so I’m sure there was plenty of margin in their budget.
One of the office buildings in my town has a roof which is circular in the middle section - looking out onto a corner of a street - it probably looked “neat” on paper , but the materials used to finish the roof looked remarkably like the felting found on a garden shed and it was not laid down with the same neatness that it possessed on paper - against the skyline it looks ludicrous - almost a torn silhouette.
So many new buildings have that D.I.Y. materials look and finish. What kind of legacy is that creating in our social spaces? It is not about being pedantic with details (well it is actually), but attention to the feel of the building should be paramount. Too much garnish is to blame, with horrendous looking interiors that are simply tarted-up domestic spaces with a bigger budget behind them, though the same sense of domestic space and use of that space in domestic terms prevails. Every one of these buildings is a form of kitsch hotel and we are conned into thinking as we stroll by in ipod oblivion that these new developments are acceptable as they slip under the critical radar on the “regeneration” ticket.