Public Space(s)

As a somewhat migrant student this semester that has found coffee shops with outlets a more suitable way of working than sitting in a hot and stuffy studio with 3 foot high partitions, I am on the constant prowl for my own piece of public space.

What is fascinating to me is the variety of public spaces available to the nomadic architecture student, depending on his/her affinity for the big and bustling, small and quaint, commercial and dependable, business minded, or the "just plain funky." Just the other week I found myself on a Monday listening to a young man's interview for a computer company near Bloomsbury, countered by a Tuesday of soul music and a couch full of cushions at a cafe on Brick lane.

So far I can confidently say I have probably worked in over forty cafes, each found randomly as I decide each day to explore a new neighborhood in search of motivation and an excuse to people-watch when my computer graphics and architectural antics become too tiresome.

Therefore, on my visit to the Royal Festival Hall last week, I was shocked and inspired to find a huge lobby filled with a variety of public space that did not require the purchase of a capuccino (or a pint) in order to sit and enjoy its warmth, ambience, and electricity.

Built in 1951 as part of London's Southbank Centre Development Plan, the Royal Festival Hall (designed by young architects Leslie Martin, Peter Moro, and Robert Matthew) was one of the first arts centers in London to boast a concert hall with 3000+ seats. Designed with a careful blending of Scandinavian modernism a la Alvar Aalto (manifested in the wooden detailing) as well as traces of the Suprematist movement (planes hovering in space), I would argue that the Royal Festival Hall is a success not only in its legibility (colors on concert-goers tickets correspond with colored entrances to the auditorium, etc.), but in its use of compression and expansion in space to reveal function through form.

Regardless of what space a person stands in on the ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall, there are two things that are always apparent:

1) They are on the periphery of what has been called an "egg in a box," or better yet, an all-important concert hall surrounded by a wide range of impromptu, "found" performance/public spaces.
2) They are in a complex arrangement of layered space, revealed through a vision of multiple levels within the building at any given time, indicated by switchback stairs and glass windows revealing multi-story spaces.

After a thorough tour and sketching session in the Royal Festival Hall, my classmates and I proceeded to walk outside to explore the other gargantuan buildings made in an effort to revitalize the Southbank post World War II. While Queen Elizabeth's Hall and the Hayward Gallery is a depressing vision of Brutalism at its best (and subsequently, its worst), the National Theater's geological strata provides an unclear understanding of public space and cave-like dwelling places.

Thus, in a comparison with its neighbors, the reason for the Royal Festival Hall's 60+ years of popularity became obvious: despite its large scale, its use of both vertical and horizontal layering as a means of hovering various elevations at different points throughout the building gives the viewer a sensation of compression that is quickly countered by weightlessness and release.

While the Hayward and National Theater simply impose, the Royal Festival Hall has found a way to create public space that appeases rather than opposes. In its variation of intimacy and quiet countered by large, open spaces, a range of details such as acoustics and environment are carefully considered. These elements become easily navigable upon entering and exploring the building, thus attracting a wide range of clientele ready to experience a user-friendly diagram.

As I ended my afternoon in the RFH's cafe, sipping tea, people watching along the Thames path, and listening to a jazz rehearsal, I decided to add this public space to my list of hot spots for being both architecturally noteworthy and as a productive work environment: two roles that are usually (but should never be) exclusive of the other.