Gordon Cullen recorre las calles del Lloyd's

En los tiempos en que el respeto al entorno urbano y a su cultura reaparecía en los tableros de arquitectura, Gordon Cullen se destacó en las páginas de la Architectural Review con sus análisis sensibles y pormenorizados que incorporaban las visiones secuenciales en los espacios urbanos. Sus croquis reflejaban el espíritu humano de la época, la calidez y el reconocimiento hacia nuestro mundo cotidiano. En el libro "TOWNSCAPE" DE 1971, se desarrollan todas las ideas en forma ordenada, transformándose en una guía imprescindible para el diseño. Fue publicada en español por la editorial Blume de Barcelona en 1974 con el título "PAISAJE URBANO, tratado de estética urbana". Los croquis y los textos que adjuntamos, sin embargo, no pertenecen a ese libro. Son una verdadera curiosidad. Pertenecen al artículo"A Tale of Two Cities" de la Architectural Review nº 1076, de Octubre de 1986, donde Gordon Cullen analizaba el impacto urbano del Lloyd's Building, proyectado por Richard Rogers para el corazón de la city en Londres, recien inaugurado y estrella principal de ese número de la revista. Espero lo disfruten.

A view with a Room
The City is a collection of great institutions and the traditional centre of London for the businessman is the Bank Which together with the Royal Exchange and Mansion House forms a critical node in the city.From this point of advantage Lloyd’s building can be seen conveniently situated on a bend of the Leadenhall Street so that the significant profile is exposed against a slot of sky and this is emphasised by the higher elevation of the ground in the area.But from the Royal Exchange there is no hint of the Room, only the eminence etincelante. The story is incomplete.If the sky vault symbolizes the Room (it coincides with this axis) then it should register in this the most significant vista-honestly to the interior is a scruple if it involves concealing the essential truth. The answer, taken from the book of gambits, is to build a transept as respectfully suggested here.

Eminence Etincelante
If nothing else this building sings out the truth that architects should enjoy themselves when they design buildings (if you don’t like doing it for God’s sake go and bore somebody else).Just as the squinch arches of the Gothic Revival grated tnrough the miles of genteel eighteenth-century terraces, so here the sea anemones writhe upward out of the rocky pools trapped below the turgid masonry of EC3 to flower in the upper sunlight, polished, shining, lyrical and remote.

The Hidden Room
The best comprehensive view of this construction is form the middle of Tower Bridge but the pictorical impressions on these pages show the biomorphic struggle for local recognition. And then one begins to wonder…Will the real building please come out with its hands up. What’s it all about anyway? Lloyd’s …The Bell…the Room. This is the fabled presence.

Editado por el arq. Martín Lisnovsky