London

London ('lʌndən ) is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" also refers to the metropolis around this core, historically split among the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised Greater London, which is governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority. As one of the world's major global cities, London exerts a strong influence on its arts, entertainment, fashion,

Thamesplace: habiter et traverser la Tamise (Londres, GB)

Hestia Maillet-Contoz

Thamesplace habite et traverse un bras de mer tortueux dont les courants saumâtres et contraires entaillent Londres depuis ses origines telle une liquid history. La Tamise offre aux londoniens le spectacle perpétuel et discret de ses marées, dont le rythme et la présence scindent la ville en deux rives historiquement antagonistes. Les mouvements lents et répétitifs de la rivière se révèlent par des éléments fixes et mobiles, mus par l'énergie cinétique de l'eau. Thamesplace est une entité autonome et architecturale, un lieu, au creux du plus ample méandre de la rivière londonienne: entre le fastueux complexe culturel de Greenwich et la péninsule socialement contrastée d'Isle of Dogs. Thamesplace hybride le langage de la grande infrastructure et de l'espace public en théâtralisant une traversée, en-dessous puis au-dessus de l'eau, établissant ainsi une chorégraphie du mouvement avec la Tamise. Les barques et navires poursuivent sans entraves leur ballet incessant tandis que les piétons et cyclistes défilent ou dérivent entre Nord et Sud. Thamesplace réinterprète et amplifie les lectures d'un site, ludiques et démocratiques, où l'on s'y baigne, s'y prélasse, où l'on se restaure et se donne en spectacle. Enfin, Thamesplace conjugue les activités “tamisiaques” du passé avec les besoins de mobilité d'une population toujours croissante en rappelant les mots de R. Rogers: «[...] allowing the Thames to become a focus for activity rather than a sterile gulf between North and South London».

2016

Londres, capitale du post-modernisme?

Nicolas Bruno Jacquet

The advantage of the dynamism of the London architectural scene seems rather ignored by historians and theorists. Not only is London absent from the grand narrative of modernity, but it is also denied the status of avant-garde, although since the 1960s, the British capital has been one of the main testing grounds of the renewal of forms and architectural ideas. The emergence of the of notion âpost-modernismâ at the turn of 1970s, initiated within the London specialized publishing, confirms this central role. This theoretical notion was created by the historian Charles Jencks (whose professor was Reyner Banham, initiator of the New Brutalism with Alison and Peter Smithson) as an alternative to modernism. It has transformed the architectural scene by establishing the return of historicism, the great moral taboo of a modernity based essentially on functionalism. This theoretical revolution, however, did not occur without causing grotesque postures, fueling a debate exacerbated and soon disrupted by the controversial speech of Prince Charles, who became the spokesman of the traditionalists. The impact in the media of this âpost-modern affairâ has led to believe in the manifestation of a crisis of legitimacy and of reception for the work of architects, in the context of heated debates concerning the cancellations of three major architectural and urban planning competitions for the capital city â the extension of the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, the No.1 Poultry programme in the City, the redesigning of Paternoster Square near St Paulâs Cathedral. Yet, this intense sequence of the reappraisal of modernism has not curbed the development of an innovative and a radical architecture. On the contrary, it has led to the deregulation of the modern discourse by problematizing the architectâs responsibility in the creation of the built environment and by forcing to reconsider the challenges of integrating radicalism in a located environment. In this, âpost-modernismâ questions the foundations and the revival of a specifically British culturalist approach, as an alternative to the progressive model that has guided the idea and the act of modernity.

EPFL2016

Londres, capitale du post-modernisme?

Nicolas Bruno Jacquet

EPFL2016

Thamesplace: habiter et traverser la Tamise (Londres, GB)

Londres, capitale du post-modernisme?

London affairs - study trip guide

London affairs - study trip guide

Thamesplace: habiter et traverser la Tamise (Londres, GB)

Londres, capitale du post-modernisme?