January 22 2010

We shouldn’t knock it or mock it, for it’s a rare, rare thing to see a story from the world of Scottish architecture occupying the front pages of the nation’s press. Yes, of course I’m talking about the RMJM announcement that it has appointed Sir Fred Goodwin as a consultant to the firm. Now whilst the news may have come as a surprise the actual news itself wasn’t so surprising, if you get my drift. This after all, is the firm whose staff, during the construction of the Scottish parliament building, liked to characterise themselves as the Millwall FC of UK architecture, i.e. nobody loved them but they didn’t care.

The politics of constructing the Holyrood edifice unquestionably distracted the practice from its other work, as did the subsequent inquiry into the whole tawdry story of the project’s gestation and completion. This made it possible for a palace revolution to take place, led by Peter Morrison and his father, the latter having sold the family construction company and bought heavily into the ownership structure of RMJM. Regular Wrap readers will have followed the inexorable rise of the practice since then, with young Peter’s ambition to take it into the top international echelons of the profession accepting no geographical boundaries, even to the point of employing ex-army colleagues to go out and find new business in countries run by regimes that some might consider to be a tad insalubrious.

The same highly-leveraged approach has been taken to finding the kind of design talent needed to compete at the highest level in these environments and last year’s announcement that Will Alsop was joining the RMJM team could only have surprised those who’ve never met the man. The appointment immediately consolidated the practice’s high placing in la Liga Amoralista, the Wrap’s ranking system for those firms that succeed at the highest level whilst stoically enduring the ravages of ethical dyslexia. In its own publicly expressed view, RMJM is now a top five team internationally and up there with the Foster’s and Hadid’s of this world.

This monoscopic – some might even say ruthless - ambition to reach this stratospheric level can be likened to that which pervaded RBS under its previous chief executive and which ultimately saw it globally toasted rather than warmed. No one could possibly argue that Sir Fred Goodwin didn’t spectacularly overachieve at what was formerly Scotland’s largest company, and bringing his extensive knowledge and experience of how this was done to Scotland’s largest architectural practice has clearly been a no-brainer for Peter Morrison. True, the appointment brings a shipload of luggage with it, but remember the practice’s leitmotif: nobody loves us but we don’t care.

Let’s face it, for a firm that issues press releases on an almost daily basis, this week has produced the kind of publicity you simply can’t put a cash value on: if the general public previously had no awareness of RMJM, it certainly does now. And Morrison pere et fils have surely factored in a short-term diminution in the number of publicly funded projects the company secures since it is still too early for UK public bodies to appear to be propping up the fortunes of persona non grata ex-bankers. For Sir Fred, though, this is the first step on the road to redemption and RMJM is certain to find his eternal gratitude expressed via the pages of his international contact book.

So, will RMJM take over where RBS left off and claw Scotland back up the world order of small countries housing mega-successful global operations? And will this be good for Scotland and good for Scottish architecture? As regards the latter, public affection for the architectural profession is highly unlikely to rise as a result of this appointment, so presume guilt by association and much derision directed towards you at dinner parties; as regards the former, only time will tell. But based upon the evidence so far there’s an absolute banker on the horizon that we should all place bets on now: as an aid to its imperialist charting of new opportunities around the globe do not be surprised if the RMJM battlebus stops off in the Spring somewhere near Downing Street to pick up a suddenly available and little used moral compass.

Green with energy
Those of you with some knowledge of the history of the architectural profession in Scotland – or who are just getting on a bit – will recall that the Johnson Marshall half of the original pairing with Robert Matthew that became known as RMJM subsequently separated himself to form the Percy Johnson Marshall Partnertship. It too was quickly reduced to acronym status, generally being referred to as PJMP. For those who haven’t yet made the connection, the latest incarnation of the latter practice is JM architects and it is its Glasgow office under the leadership of Ian Alexander and Henry McKeown that made what proved to be a very smart move in teaming up with US archi-star Steven Holl for the Glasgow School of Art competition.

And, having won, Steven came to Glasgow to talk about his part in the design to a throng that had queued around the block to hear his pearls of wisdom. Not that he was actually allowed to speak about the architecture of the new building to be constructed opposite Mackintosh’s masterpiece, you understand: in the time-honoured tradition of architectural competitions in Scotland, Steven was prevailed upon by his client not to spell out any specifics since a planning application is to be made in June and it wouldn’t do to get the public onside in advance when it’s so much more entertaining to get them to react negatively afterwards.

Nevertheless, born in Washington State and educated in Seattle, Steven should be no stranger to the hard driving horizontal rain that conditions the design of buildings in the west of Scotland. So it is with some concern that I have to report to you that he seems to be following the Miralles’ path by being keen to impress upon us the need for an urban building rooted in the wilder aspects of the Scottish landscape. Thankfully it’s not upturned boats this time, but his initial project sketches include garden areas he feels could become “machair”, a reference to the shoreline pasture found in the Outer Hebrides and on the north west coast that is thick with wildflowers each spring. An obvious thing for central Glasgow, really and once again we have to thank an architect from abroad for bringing us such an insightful reading of our own culture and landscape.

Green of course is the new black and zero-carbon the new altar we are all required to worship at. Holl has, in recent years, metamorphosed into a passionate advocate of eco-building and, in the absence of specifics, felt compelled to wax lyrical to the press here about the possibility of driving an artesian well deep into Garnethill to power up a biothermal heat exchange system. Hmm...watch this space, methinks. But back to green, because clearly this is the order of the day - or at least until Steven gets a bit more advice from the boys at JM about Glasgow’s particular colour problem – for, in his own inimitable but almost Woody Allen-esque words, “there will be a large part of green that is integral to the project.”

I shouldn’t be too hard on Steven though – he’s a highly experienced man at the peak of his game and has successfully delivered competition-winning projects in almost every part of the world over the past 30 years. More power to his elbow on this one is all I can say, especially as those green with envy have already been trumpeting their disaffection with his selection across the pages of US architectural journals.

Is joined up thinking the way to a new architectural order?
My brief comment in last week’s Wrap about Gareth Hoskins’ OBE drew a few pithy remarks from one correspondent who still feels the Scottish establishment’s most acceptable architectural wunderkind should have done more to merit the bauble than simply taking the Trump shilling. This, I feel, misses the point: as with so many architectural award schemes, these things aren’t actually about merit – they’re given because they’ve been applied for. In the case of the Queen’s Honours Lists, someone needs to have put your name forward, simple as that. It’s just a fact that with the usual horde of bankers and politicians so notably absent from the recent New Year List, three UK architects managed to get themselves mentioned in dispatches and Gareth was the token Scot this time around.

The same criticism could easily be made of David Chipperfield – God knows, he’s hardly built a thing in this country, never mind being associated with anything in the world of architecture that he didn’t receive a fee for and yet he was awarded a knighthood for ‘services to architecture in the UK and Germany’. But then, who in this day and age actually cares about these anachronistic legacies of Empire?

No, more concerning to many is the way in which Gareth appears to be driving his own empire onwards and upwards.  Until now the Trump business might charitably have been viewed as a fleeting aberration, but the news that he has teamed up with Keppie to deliver five healthcare projects in Northern Ireland has raised more than a few eyebrows as to the direction of his current business development strategy. In the jargon of the music industry, the issue seems to be whether or not Gareth has eschewed architectural principle and sold out to the forces of mammon, aka one of Scotland’s big three commercial practices?

This, I think is a bit unfair on Gareth since, as far as I am aware, he never set out to do anything other than build a successful practice and certainly has never sought to impose his views on the profession at large or to lead it from the front. In any case, there are obvious synergies between his practice’s healthcare building experience and that of Keppie, the latter having an established record of major hospital work, albeit none that could be said to have any outstanding architectural distinction - but then, isn’t that the hallmark of so many commercial practices?

In days gone by practices could expect to build their reputations and workload on the basis of hard-won experience of particular building types, but no more. The procurement hurdles to be overcome in order to even get close to the shortlist for a project are now immense and more often than not practices operating on their own are simply unable to tick all of the boxes required. Hence the recent fashion for joint ventures – an established firm with a record of delivery and substantial professional indemnity cover tied to a recognised or up-and-coming design name has become more or less the sine qua non of modern practice life. In this new world order Gareth Hoskins and Keppie are only doing the same as so many others – viz. the recent Glasgow School of Art competition in which three of the seven-strong shortlist and many of the other entries comprised relatively untried marriages of architectural skills and from which group the winning team (mentioned above) was eventually selected.

Whether or not this approach produces better architecture is a debate upon which the jury remains steadfastly out, but there’s no question that for many of the participants it is a way of sharpening up ideas or dispensing with jaded approaches irrespective of whether they secure the job or not. For Gareth Hoskins, though, this series of joint commissions takes his practice experience beyond Scotland’s shores and may be the first significant step towards the international portfolio he has long aspired to but for whom the conventional architectural competition route has failed to deliver the necessary return on effort expended. But then, there are other multi-award winning architects in Scotland, some of whom have also followed the JV path, but who remain unbaubled by Queenie. Which, I think, was my anonymous correspondent’s principal gripe.

More tales from Trumpville sur Merde
Meanwhile up in sunny Aberdeenshire the bowing and scraping of local councillors towards Gareth’s most high profile client continues apace. What else can possibly be deduced from their behind-closed-doors decision to negotiate solely with Don Combleone over the sale of a half acre of land currently in the local authority’s ownership? Not for them the usual guff about achieving best value from a sale - all of the other parties who had to date registered an interest in the land have effectively been Trumped before an auction could be mounted.

Clearly Meikle Wartle’s elected best have never had the opportunity to sit at the poker tables in one of their hero’s casinos, otherwise they would understand the benefit of competitive bidding to raise the price of the small piece of scrub land sitting between the first and the eighteenth tees of his proposed golf course. No, despite having an absolutely cast-iron winning hand, these Doric doughballs have not the slightest scooby as to how to play their cards to advantage and have actually convinced themselves that the Donald will offer them ten times the ludicrously low £1000 valuation their officers have put on the plot.

It would be completely out of character, of course, for the man with the marram grass (or maybe mac-hair) topknot to pay over the necessary odds for anything and it would surely be simpler, more honest and hugely less costly just to give the land gratis to the Laird of Louny Links. Let’s face it, the costs of the Formartine Area Committee’s meetings to discuss this sale will add up to more than it is ever likely to receive from the Trump treasure trove. Don’t forget there’s still the conclusion of the compulsory purchase imbroglio to come but, given that the committee’s exclusion of other possible bidders and subsequent affirmative decision on this land sale were made on the presumption of the ‘economic benefit to the area’, who now would put money on the existing house owners at Balmedie being allowed to continue to stand in the way of the Trump Tee Party?

The magnificent seven
Regular Wrap readers will know that I’ve often referred to the Scottish Parliament building as the world’s largest doocot, and with good reason. Since the day and hour the building opened it has been plagued inside and out with pigeons who find its overheated environment a perfect place to raise their families. Naturally this has not gone down well with the building’s managers who have a prioritised list of the types of vermin that can have free access to the place. And so, in the years since the building was opened to those with nesting instincts, huge sums of money have been spent on ways of preventing the doos setting up home in MSP’s offices, but to no avail – the usual spike solutions simply failed. Last summer brought a new approach to the problem – hawks, no less, at a contract cost of £44k. Of course, in the fabulously p.c. world of the Parliament, the specification required hawks that wouldn’t kill any pigeons but simply scare them away to avoid any visiting schoolchildren being upset by the ways of nature. Oh, did I mention that this all happened after they tried another clever scheme that involved relocating the doos to Ayrshire? I still have visions of what a pigeon’s social worker looks like.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Harris hawks turned out to be the species that met the spec and a team of them were drafted in to get scary. Sad to say, it turns out that one of them, Tweed by name, seems to have found little job satisfaction in the task and after six and a half months of living the dream has gone AWOL. In explaining the problem (and believe me, this is verbatim), a Scottish Parliament spokeswoman said: “One of our contractor’s hawks has gone missing. However, this does not affect the cost or conditions with the contractor who supplies this service. The falconry contract is helping us deal with our pigeon problem and seven other birds of prey continue to be flown at Holyrood. In the long term, we fully expect to see a reduction in the money we spend on external cleaning as a result of the pigeons being deterred from the parliament building.” Personally, I don’t share the lady’s confidence or believe the birds are the vegetarians she thinks they are: living nearby I regularly come across decapitated pigeons that the hawks have been gorging on beyond the confines of their contract. I reckon they only go down to the Holyrood building for their post-prandial nap.

And finally…
I could be mistaken, but it seems a sublime form of black humour has engulfed the architectural profession in Scotland over the past seven days. By way of example, one prominent Edinburgh practice has been in touch to let me know that they’re thinking of appointing Chemical Ali as their international ambassador and do I think this will help their p.r?   

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