COOL TECH IN A HOT CLIMATE

摘要

When Nick Grimshaw made his winning presentation in the competition to design the British pavilion for the Seville Expo, he didn't mince his words. "The essence of this scheme is to provide cool, clear, well-structured architecture, and to avoid the elements of Disney and razzamatazz often associated with this type of event," he told the interview committee. Instead, Grimshaw set out to reclaim the tradition of the Crystal Palace, the Dome of Discovery, and the Skylon. In the context of the Department of Trade and Industry, who are the paymasters for Britain's Expo 92 effort, and tend to adopt a certain vagueness when people ask them if the Expo is simply another trade fair, it was an approach that could have cost Grimshaw the job. As it turned out, however, Grimshaw's stand wasn't that risky. The competitors had been drawn from the ranks of architecture's great and good. Grimshaw's most pressing rival was Michael Hopkins, who was unlikely to suggest building a fun fair either. For once, playing the high culture card worked, even in the dark days of Lord Young. But then Margaret Thatcher had already spoken: Britain was jolly well going to have the best pavilion of the whole Expo, and that was all there was to it. Britain's choice for its pavilion was between different architectural solutions, and not between architecture and something else. Whether or not Grimshaw's view of the nature of the Expo is an entirely appropriate one is another question altogether.