The blog Standing Ovation, Seated takes a look at the “innovative” new work of architect Richard Rogers, who is going round pimping out what he calls the “shellhouse idea” – basically cheap, prefabricated, garish, plasticy-looking constructions, modular in form and “stackable”. I suppose in his mind this is revolutionary and never-before-attempted. In my mind (and I am at pains not to sound too much like Prince Charles here – I love the new skyscrapers and commercial buildings transforming the London skyline), this looks like just about every new residential building popping up in towns and cities across the UK. Cheap, bland, thoroughly forgettable and almost certain to age badly, just as the brutalist concrete architecture of the 1960s and 70s is doing. Still, a fascinating blog post well worth a read.
Richard Rogers RA is an innovative architect who is behind the shellhouse idea. In short, this is IKEA concept extended to building houses. Pre-fab, cheap, fast, waterproof. And it can be stacked up to have more floors.
This weekend, the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts was turned into a construction site for a sample shellhouse.
The house is meant to be completed by tomorrow, the 13th, when it would become a colourful pendant to Joshua Reynolds’ somber monument, and RA visitors would be able to appreciate its beauty from the inside as well.
The building must be easy-to-assemble, for I’d not seen much of constructing going on in those few hours I spent there popping in and out of the RA for alfresco coffees (though “al cemento” would be a better term).
During all that time, Joshua Reynolds was sadly trying to reach the semi-erected house with his brush…
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Semi-Partisan Politics 