ARTS
Architecture
The late Big Jim
Gavin Stamp on how James Stirling turned him into a fogey The unexpected death of James Stirling leaves me with a sense of loss, for criticis- ing his architecture has sustained me for almost a quarter of a century. I feel strangely diminished by the departure of this enemy. Although we never met, mes- sages were relayed to me that if he ever encountered me he would punch me on the nose. My crime, of course, was to disagree with the British architectural establishment that promotes careers and recommends knighthoods and to suggest, in this organ and elsewhere, that Stirling was a deeply flawed architect who did not deserve all the praise heaped on his work. That he was a creative artist of considerable originality I do not doubt, but architecture must be more than the production of seductive images of buildings in glossy journals. It also involves a responsibility to the client and users of a building, and in this James Stirling was singularly deficient. But de mortuis nil nisi bonum: the question I must address is whether functional failures should prevent a very talented artist from being regarded as a great architect.
In his touching tribute to `Big Jim' in the Independent, Mark Girouard notes how, `young fogies, at the mention of Stirling's
name, turned crimson. ... ' I fear he means me. Yet, when I first encountered one of Stirling's masterpieces, I was, in fact, predisposed to like it. In 1968, as a second-year Cambridge undergraduate and after a year spent, enjoyably, working in a Neo-Classical library by the great C.R. Cockerell, I was looking forward to experi- encing Stirling's brand new History Faculty building. Like Mark Girouard (who, I think, influenced me), I saw its angular, aggressive forms made of engineering brick and cascades of patent industrial glazing as a creative protest against blandness and mediocrity — analogous to the vigorous work of mid-Victorian Goths like Butter- field and Teulon reacting against Georgian good taste.
How cruelly was I disappointed! I soon realised that Stirling's masterpiece was a brute. The library was not comfortable to work in: the three giant coloured fans which powered the much-vaunted air circu- lation system vibrated too much to be turned on; the structure leaked and the lec- ture rooms were almost unusable owing both to noise and to the heat generated through the single-skin external glazing. The pseudo-industrial aesthetic was a fraud. Above all, the details were coarse and crude. Here, it seemed to me, was the work of an architect who was only interest- ed in being avant-garde, who simply did not care how his creation was used and had no interest in the details which humanise architecture and raise it to the level of high art. Eight years after it opened, John Casey gave me the chance to write about the building in the Cambridge Review and so contribute a tiny counterpoint to the pro- fessional hagiography of Big Jim; eight years after that, all the external tiles were stripped off the building and the University seriously considered demolishing it alto: gether. In the end, only economics dictated refurbishment instead.
It is not an exaggeration to say that this experience of one of Big Jim's master- pieces formed my whole attitude to archi- tecture — perhaps Stirling's real crime was to make me into a fogey. Today I hope I am more tolerant and I find myself seeing the point of, if not actually liking, much of the more considered architecture of the 1960s. I recognise that all architects make
mistakes, even great ones, and a really beautiful building can succeed as a monu- ment despite functional failings — as with the Sydney Opera House. But I still must make two qualifications with regard to Stir- ling. First, I remain unconvinced that the History Faculty was as wonderful an object as the architect's admirers maintain. The structure is miserable in scale externally and the overall glass roof sags between the extended wings. It is altogether a feeble thing in comparison with the earlier and celebrated Engineering Building at Leices- ter University — a really remarkable, dynamic composition influenced by Rus- sian Constructivism designed (I think sig- nificantly) when Stirling was in partnership with James Gowan. Mr Gowan once told me that he was amazed that Stirling contin- ued with the same problematic pseudo- industrial style in two more projects despite its inappropriateness. But, more to the point, the failure of the History Faculty was not an isolated case but part of a pattern: coarse, thoughtless detail which demonstrates a contempt for the human user was all too evident 20 years later in the Clore Gallery. Stirling seemed to make the same mistakes over and over again. The Leicester building was once memorably described by Martin Fawley as a heap of oxidising geometrical junk'; the Florey Building for Queen's College, Oxford caused such problems that it was closed to visitors and became the subject of lengthy litigation; the Southgate housing at Runcorn New Town has now been partly demolished.
Yet Stirling had genius — at building images that photograph well. I went to see Runcorn shortly before the end: it was grey and drizzling; there were burnt-out cars lying around and the enclosed concrete staircase towers stank of urine. Yet, as I lifted my camera, I knew that these forms would look dramatic and powerful in the resulting colour slides. They did. It was Stirling's ability to supply such images for books that resulted in his admirers, who are legion, claiming international greatness for him (usually without seeing the build- ings for themselves) and that the absence of commissions in his native land after the 1960s was a national scandal. But what sen- sible client would go to an architect with such a record? It would be vanity to sup- pose that anyone was influenced by the handful of critical articles I wrote: the record spoke for itself. Big Jim's serious claims to greatness rest, I think, on one building: a seminal building of its time which stands, significantly, not in Britain but in Germany. This, of course, is the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, which I found myself praising in The Spectator of 1 October, 1988. It is the supreme product of the architect's remarkable shift from industrial and space-ship imagery to a cre- ative reinterpretation of Neo-Classicism. This, at Stuttgart, was combined with an extraordinary plan which resulted in pow- erfully resonant pure forms and voids faced in stone. I still think the work is flawed it has no proper façades and is full of gim- micks — but it is memorable, haunting and genuinely popular. Remember that televi- sion advertisement for Rover cars, which was filmed in front of this masterpiece by a `britischer Architekt'? For once, a Stirling building was well made — by Germans. Vorsprung durch Technik!
But I do not think this promise was sus- tained. When the opportunity came to build in London, at the Tate, the resulting Clore Gallery proved to be a vulgar assem- bly of crude clichés with little relevance to its purpose of housing paintings by Turner. As for the over-scaled office block designed for Lord Palumbo to replace eight listed buildings in the City of London, few of Stirling's admirers can find much to say in its favour. We must hope it is never built, though I fear Lord Palumbo has a penchant for realising the designs of dead architects. Nevertheless, I now sincerely wish that Stirling had won the National Gallery Extension. Unlike the pretentious conceit that now smugly addresses Trafal- gar Square, the Stirling building would have been properly monumental and pro- vided a coherent rectilinear plan.
So I shall miss Stirling. He was a big man, in every sense; a captivating maverick who could always be relied on to surprise. Despite his arrogance and his indifference to the necessary practical aspect of his pro- fession, he was at least in the central tradi- tion of European architecture in that he was interested in shape, form and colour unlike those other much-vaunted knighted architects who seem to think architecture is a matter of structure, services and technol- ogy: pipes, wires and gaskets. Although he never said he was a Glaswegian because he was brought up in Liverpool, I see that Scottish newspapers are now claiming Stir- ling as one of the many great architects that Scotland has given to Britain. Perhaps he was; perhaps I was always wrong except I still do believe that a responsible `My conscience is clear — I didn't create Michael Jackson.' architect both creates beautiful, powerful forms and is concerned with detail and practicality — as were those supreme Glaswegians: Thomson, Burnet and Mack- intosh.
So I think I prefer to leave the question of whether Stirling was a great architect for posterity to answer. It is just sad that I will not now meet him and so will never know if he would have punched me or not.
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