A New Parliament for an Old/New Country

Parliament emerging from the land, the assembly chambers, and symbols of upturned boats on the seashore

What architectural forms best symbolizes the aspirations of a nation?  For Scotland, the design selected via competition in 2004, was by Barcelona architect Enric Miralles.  Instead of a royal palace, Miralles envisioned government growing from the landscape, where Scotland's national character could be a blend of nature and man, city and countryside, democratically accessible to all. The complex, which emerges at the base of the old city, is truly remarkable and creatively achieves that vision. We had the honor of witnessing the inaugural address by Scotland's new First Minister who eloquently voiced much of that country's nationalistic aspirations. But not without heated debate.  Whether Scotland remains united with England, Wales and Northern Ireland in Great Britain or achieves total independence continues a 250 year old question. Their new Parliament building will provide a wonderful stage for that continuing debate.

Edinburgh - A City of Bagpipes, Brews, and Burns

View of Edinburgh Castle, Old and New Towns from Calton Hill

A four-and-a-half hour train ride from London takes you to the capital of Scotland: majestic and brooding Edinburgh. The medieval city, lorded over by the 12th century castle, sits on one side of Princes Street, while the new city--designed by a 23-year-old planner in 1766--fills the other half. We spent our first afternoon hiking up to the castle, which houses the royal jewels and a lovely small chapel built by King David I to honor his mother, St. Margaret. Another steep climb took us up Calton Hill, the highest point of the new town and a hang out of the philosopher David Hume. From these vantage points Edinburgh sweeps out to the Firth of Forth and the North Sea beyond: a jumble of soot-stained stone buildings, cobbled streets, grand squares, dramatic crags, and monuments to the great Scotsmen who gave the world modern economics (Adam Smith), an ode to haggis (Robbie Burns), and romances filled with kilt-wearing knights (Sir Walter Scott). While we avoided the haggis (aka boiled offal-filled sheep's intestine) we did feast on smoked haddock, neeps, tatties, and a fair amount of stout.

Parks, Gardens, Squares and Fields...Oh My

Private square, fenced-in greenery and a public garden atop a former boneyard

London is full of green spaces, and it's green spaces that make the city such an easy place in which to walk. On a 3/4 mile walk to work, there's a community open space, a public square, a private park for children only, and a formal, 300-year old legal complex that opens its gardens to the public from noon to 2:30pm. There's a world of difference between them all. Squares are typically private and fenced off for use only by surrounding residents, while a garden can be public or private, and larger parks refer to royal properties that have been converted for public access. One of the city's more curious traditions was the conversion of graveyards into parks as new cemeteries were developed in outer London. Nearly every public park was previously a cemetery with unreadable headstones pushed over to the sides. Family tombs are often left almost like picnic tables. In a nearby park is a towering, fenced-in tree whose base has grown up and over headstones placed there by Thomas Hardy, who as a young architect (who knew?), was overseeing the construction of a railroad line through an older cemetery.

Headstones lining a park walkway and the Thomas Hardy Tree

St. Pancras Station - What An Urban Gateway Should Be

Sir Gilbert Scott's Victorian exterior, the Eurostar, old & new train shed, and the hotel's grand reopening in May.

St. Pancras Station, only 250 yards from our flat, sets the modern standard for entering and leaving a city. Originally constructed in 1868 with a grand hotel and the largest enclosed space in the world, the station has now formally reopened as the portal to England. Sir Gilbert Scott, the architect, would surely be pleased to see his Victorian symbol of industrial-age exuberance begin a second life as a contemporary gateway. To think that the national rail service was thinking about tearing it down in the late '80s. Now you can easily take the Eurostar from here and be in Paris in 2 hours, purchase a gift or snack at one of the upscale retailers, stay in a $500/night hotel, or at least, have a martini in the elegant converted ticket office.

Puffed-Up Politicians at London City Hall

London's new City Hall and its Assembly Chamber, by Sir Norman Foster

Ten times a year London's mayor is subjected to questioning by the 25 city counselors (or "Assembly Members") and the public is invited to witness the political posturing and blood-letting. The members are seated according to party affiliations and it's immediately apparent who's there to congratulate the city's leader and who brings out the long knives. Mayor Boris Johnson, with his back to the Thames and the Tower of London rising menacingly over his shoulder, tried to deftly deflect questions about the Tube and potential transit strikes, air pollution, the run up to the Olympics, and generally why he's accomplished nothing during his tenure (at least according to Ken Livingston, the man Johnson replaced, who was sitting in front of us). It's high political theatre with catcalls, harrumping and raised voices with a veneer of civility--all in a building referred to politely as the "glass onion" and less politely as the "glass testicle."

A Stroll Through Hip Clerkenwell

St. John's Hospital, industrial chic gastropub, Hadid's very traditional digs, the old and the new juxtaposed

The Clerkenwell neighborhood, a 10-minute walk from our flat, is what Portland's Pearl District aspires to be. The guidebooks claim that few areas are better at exemplifying London's capacity to reinvent itself. Originally home to the order of St. John's and its Knights Templar, the 11th century priory gateway rubs shoulders with renovated buildings housing some of the city's top architects and designers, such as strident Zaha Hadid (whose office is fittingly in an old school bearing an entrance marked for "women and infants"). Industrial chic gastropubs like the Clerkenwell Kitchen offer pricey cuisine amidst exposed brick, stainless steel, and sleek black leather to similarly sleek, black-clad 30-somethings.  

As It's Been Said, Two Countries Divided by a Common Language

A few of the signs we've come across.  The language is English, but since it's Britspeak, and we've no dictionary in hand, we're sometimes left scratching our heads. At other times, the uber-polite approach to public notices makes us smile.

Did the Vikings Wear Red Pants?

Stave church & carved pillar, fjord edge cafe, Vigeland statues, and passed out students

Oslo....land of gravlax, icebergs, and the $6 cup of coffee. Two days here just about broke the bank, but was definitely worth it. More dramatic and geographically varied than Copenhagen, Oslo offered the same wonderful mix of beautiful old buildings and mind-blowing contemporary design. At the outdoor Folk Museum we wandered through a stave church built in the 1200s and then ate mussels and people-watched at the Aker Brugge waterfront that's bursting with new development. Unlike Portland, Norwegians feel nature is something to be conquered and have no qualms about putting cafes and imposing structures (like the amazing new Opera House) abutting the water. (In the case of the Opera House, the fjord laps at the edge of the building and the steeply sloping roof is an invitation to slide into the water.) At the other end of town, we visited Frogner Park, which boasts 192 bronze and stone sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. (Japanese tourists were enjoying themselves shedding their shirts and mimicking the statues' poses--luckily they kept their pants on!) We also observed the strange "brotherhood of the traveling red pants." Apparently high school seniors mark their impending graduation by donning red overalls and getting crazy drunk for the three weeks between the end of classes and their final exams. The pants are like walking yearbooks, covered with signatures and mementos. Mick, our friends' son (and part-time guide) who is going to grad school in Oslo, told us that the red pants also serve as an early warning device of crowds to avoid!

Oslo's dramatic new opera house, an iceberg of white marble moored in the city's harbor

There Is Nothing Like the Danes!

The Stroget, Royal Guards, bikes everywhere, and Nyhaven (the old harbor)

Springtime in Copenhagen...Royal Guards out of a Hans Christian Anderson story, more bikes than anyone could count, and waffles (and inexplicably hot dog stands) at every turn. While Rudy worked (reviewing student work at DIS, the Danish Institute for Study Abroad), I played tourist. We did have some time together to stroll along the canals; trip over cobblestones and drool over high-priced, high design goods in the Stroget shopping district; and watch the guards march back and forth at the Amalienborg Castle, which was a few doors down from the B & B where we stayed in a lovely 1890s apartment filled with family heirlooms. Rudy even spotted the prince walking his dog around the castle grounds, nattily dressed in a double-breasted blazer (the prince, not the dog). On our last day, the head of DIS's architecture program took us on a tour of Orestead, a suburb to the south that is being carved out of wetlands. The area is filled with several architectural experiments from BIG and similar cutting edge firms--lots of crazy angles, eco-roofs, and intriguing public spaces, all laced with canals and a stone's throw from a new elevated rail line.

The New Copenhagen-Student (!) housing, BIG's "mountain," the Opera House, and market-rate housing.

So Many Pubs, So Little Time

A few pub signs from London....Haven't had a pint in all of these, but there's still time........

Getting Ready for the Big Show - The London Olympics

 480 days to go - Zaha Hadid's Aquatic Center as designed (left) and as built (right); a quarter of Kapoor's Tower & the Olympic Stadium

There's a clock in Trafalgar Square counting down the days/hours to the start of the 2012 Olympics. Rumored to cost more than $14B, there's no shortage of criticism - from the logo to the creepy-looking mascots to the emerging buildings. Unlike several past Olympiads, all the venues have been focused in one dilapidated area of the city to spur revitalization efforts. Last week we took an evening walking tour around the periphery of the venues, not exactly on the usual tourist route, to see some projects under construction. The tour was led by Timothy Bruce-Dick, an elderly rather eccentric London architect (redundant adjectives?) who added inside gossip. Hadid's Aquatic Center has been regrettably altered with temporary seating "wings" to add more seats for the games; as the architect said, "Hadid is probably biting the rug right now!" Surrounding the athletic venues is the Legacy Park, 1 mile long and 620 acres, the largest park to be developed here since Victorian days. Some of the parkways, sculpted landscape, and a new high-rail station in the middle of the grounds are already open to the public.

On the Art of Walking in London

There’s a subtle art to walking in London.  The pace is very quick; eye contact is minimal, and then you have to decide whether to look left or look right, so we look both ways, and still get it wrong.  Staying to the left instead of the right keeps you constantly brushing against others, unlike the natives.  So, the dance continues… Haven't driven a car in over a month, and liking it!

A Victorian Notion of Death

Victorian Monuments Overgrown in Highgate Cemetery

Ivy, weeds, and wildflowers beneath a canopy of plane trees overpower Highgate Cemetery in northern London.  Created in 1839 as one of the first cemeteries outside of the City of London (and as a refuge from grave robbers who were busy unearthing bodies for medical research), Highgate holds family tombs for almost 160,000 departed souls.  Reflecting Victorian symbolism and attitudes toward death, crumbling tombs for England's founding industrialists, writers like George Elliot, and even dissident socialists like Karl Marx jostle one another amid a losing battle with nature. Visitors and family leave odd mementos: a package of drink mix for Marx, a dozen oranges for a Chinese businessman, notes in many languages weighted down with rocks, notebooks for Radclyffe Hall, an early Lesbian author who scandalized society by writing of two women who "spent the night together but not as friends." Unlimited individual stories, no gardeners, little repair, and an occasional fox running through the labyrinth of paths demand reflection on mortality.

Kew - A Gardener's Delight for 300 Years

Handkerchief Tree, Kew Palace, and outside/inside earthly delights (including the rare Jade Vine, from the Philippines)

Kew Gardens, as the Royal Botanic Gardens is known, is an early spring delight. As one guide book says, it "represents the pinnacle of Britain's obsession with gardening." Covering half a square mile and bordered on one side by the Thames, it features a series of elegant Victorian greenhouses, stuffed to the gills with exotic plants, trees, and shrubs from all over the world. In the Waterlily House, lilies that look like small hassocks float along the pond's surface, and the Temperate House has what's called "the Holy Grail" of orchids, with petals measuring some three feet long. While the daffodils had passed their peak, the rhodies, azaleas, and wisteria were in full bloom, and it was a perfect sunny day to stroll through the big swaths of mowed lawns, dodging badger holes and small children.

It Was a Particularly English Day

Looking for us?...Not in this crowd

The Bartons of Queen Alexandra Mansions observed the royal nuptials with a few dozen other celebrants in "The Angel," a cozy pub in the village of Highgate, while sipping Pimms and tucking into a full English breakfast (ridiculous amounts of pork products, grilled tomato and mushrooms, baked beans, eggs, and toast). There was definitely an air of festivity, even outside the center of the city: businesses festooned with bunting, street parties, flag-waving children, and pictures of Kate and Wills smiling from unlikely spots. The forecast rain even held off---surprising that the Queen has that much power!...The English press has said all that can be said about the wedding - the dress, giving ratings to the headgear, cutting comments about the royal minibuses, verbal jousting between Royalists and Republicans, and just how quirky British-style celebrations can be.  Royal Knees Up!..with smiles all around.