Musical critique of the proposal for Victoria Tower Garden to be the UK National Holocaust Memorial

CITY as LANDSCAPE architecture

This podcast is a critique of a competition winning design for converting a romantic public garden beside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster into a UK Holocaust Memorial. The small and much-loved greenspace would become a wide verge for a heavily trafficked pedestrian walk from Parliament Square to the Memorial.

The design was by Kathryn Gustafson working with Ron Arad (of Ground Zero fame) and David Adjaye who (also with Gustafson) designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in Washington DC. The design for the Holocaust Memorial is very good. But the site selection, done before the design was commissioned, was totally wrong. I've tried to say this using a 'dark' piece of music to explain the proposal and a 'bright' piece of music to describe the character of the existing site. In Chapter 16 of City as landscape, a similar point is made by using the colour-words 'grey' and 'green' to describe the character of urban public spaces. The chapter title is Harlequin Space.

This podcast is also available as a YouTube video and so is the design team's explanation of their Concept - explained with the aid of a beautiful (but misleading) Capprice for Viola by Atar Arad (who is Ron Arad's brother). Music is a great way of explaining the moods and characters of people and places.