“Architects have given
up too easily their role in the architecture of cities, of the public space. It
has been left to planning ... Most public space is addressed by engineers,
trying to get a car somewhere as quickly as possible.” David Mackay 1913-2014
A tip of the hat and a fond farewell to David Mackay, who died
last week. Mackay was a partner in the Barcelona architecture practice MBM
(Martorell, Bohigas & Mackay) and had what proved to be as short and
frustrating a connection with Cardiff as Zaha Hadid. Through his design of the athletes’ village and harbour for Barcelona’s
1992 Olympic Games, and elsewhere, he gained an enviable international
reputation for repairing and shaping cities. He was commissioned by the Cardiff
Bay Development Corporation to design the square and avenue that would physically
and symbolically re-unite the city centre with its waterfront. His vision was
never realised but the misappropriation, dilution and perversion of his
master-plan took place over a period of time and did not attract the same
degree of attention as the spectacular collapse of Zaha Hadid’s Cardiff Bay
Opera House.
It is worth then considering David Mackay’s involvement with
Barcelona which started in the 1960s and, as recorded in the Guardian obituary
of 23 November “….he took a stand against
the neglect and speculation that ravaged the city under the Franco
dictatorship. It blossomed in the 1980s, when the Socialist party that ran the
city council responded to pressure from below to create more public space and
convert post-industrial wastelands to housing and social use.” [i]
It may then be remarked that Mackay’s principles can be compared and contrasted
with those who failed to implement the aspirational vision for what became Callaghan
Square and Lloyd George Avenue in Cardiff.
Mackay moved to Barcelona in the 1950’s with his Catalan
wife and in 1959 he started working with Josep Martorell and Oriol Bohigas,
becoming a partner of MBM in 1962. The two older architects were committed to the
re-introduction of rationalist, social architecture to Catalonia and opposed, on
social and ethical grounds, the uncontrolled speculative building boom of the
1960s that destroyed much of Barcelona. Their emphasis was on the social role
of architecture, its integration and relevance to the urban environment and
public space. Theirs was not a mission to leave individualistic monuments to
their architectural talents but a careful and considerate response to the
social requirements of each commission. They operated in that space between
town planning and architecture which we may call urban design. Their belief was
that modern architecture could contribute creatively to the identity of a city,
enhance its cultural landscape.
Mackay and his partners also sought to achieve mixed-use of
activity that ensured that people could work, live and play in districts and
bring life to its streets and squares through the whole day. In the event this
was not achieved in the Olympic Village at Barcelona, where it was originally
intended that affordable housing would be offered after the Games. It was
perhaps a victim of its own success, market forces and lack of resolve on the
part of the Socialist city government resulting in it becoming an up-market residential
ghetto. With the exception of the marina area, few businesses occupy space at
street level and away from the coastal frontage it can appear dead and dreary.
This will of course sound very familiar in the context of Cardiff Bay. It must
be stressed, however, that in Barcelona the original design concept was
realised and it was the end use that was betrayed in the failure to properly
implement stated social objectives. In Cardiff the kudos – or Cultural Capital-
represented by MBM and the Barcelona development was acquired and is perceived by some to have been cynically used in the marketing and promotion of an
urban redevelopment that did not have the resources for it to be fully
implemented. A visionary project was promised which was originally intended to replace
the railway embankment with a broad tree lined boulevard and an integrated tram system.
The importation of internationally recognised design talent to master plan this and other projects was central to a strategy intended to establish Cardiff's place among regional capitals and assure its recognition as a centre of excellence in the reclamation and revival of post-industrial waterfront cities. The stated objective at the time was for a 'ceremonial avenue' and references made to 'Cardiff's Champs Elysees'. In short, not a mere piece of road infrastructure but a PLACE, a civic space with a distinct character and identity.
By association the rhetoric and marketing alluded to Barcelona and the virtues of a thoroughfare and public space which would be, in itself, an object of universal admiration.
The importation of internationally recognised design talent to master plan this and other projects was central to a strategy intended to establish Cardiff's place among regional capitals and assure its recognition as a centre of excellence in the reclamation and revival of post-industrial waterfront cities. The stated objective at the time was for a 'ceremonial avenue' and references made to 'Cardiff's Champs Elysees'. In short, not a mere piece of road infrastructure but a PLACE, a civic space with a distinct character and identity.
By association the rhetoric and marketing alluded to Barcelona and the virtues of a thoroughfare and public space which would be, in itself, an object of universal admiration.
As to how realistic this was, in principle and practice,
needs to be considered. Looking, for example, at the promise of ‘our very own Ramblas’ it
is questionable whether this was a tenable proposition from the outset. The
Ramblas has 1.6m people at one end and the Mediterranean at the other. That population
is concentrated in an area 100km2, an urban population density of 16,000 km2.
That may be compared to the density of Cardiff which, even now, is only 5,900km2,
the city having fewer than 350,000 souls in an urban area 75.72 km2. Given the
advantages of climate and the relative lack of private gardens it is perhaps
unsurprising that the inhabitants of Barcelona are more inclined than those of
Cardiff to take their recreation in public space. That said the frontage to Cardiff
Bay will now, on a sunny day, evidence many strollers but, it may be said, simply
not enough of them inclined to populate a 1km avenue.
It may also be added that it is the claims made upon it that
might have been contested rather than the aspiration. Ambitious it certainly
was but the promoters of the project should perhaps be commended for that. Precious
little vision and ambition has been displayed in urban matters by those who constrained
the budget then terminated the life of the Development Corporation before such
works were completed. The political context in which Mackay was working in both
Barcelona and Cardiff may be loosely described as ‘socialist’ and their civic
leaders publicly committed to urban renewal. There, however, the resemblance
may abruptly end. The internal priorities and external pressures on CBDC may be
attributed to politics which were more Byzantine than Barcelonan. The
Development Corporation itself may be considered the bastard offspring of an
unholy coupling of One Nation Conservatives and oligarchic Labour Party leaders.
In any consideration of the redevelopment of South Cardiff at the end of the 20th
century the Cardiff Bay Barrage will always be the White Elephant in the room.
That project focussed opposition to the Development Corporation from
politicians within and without Cardiff. It created divisions of those who
claimed to be of a ‘socialist’ persuasion, some of whom formed curious
alliances with those of other faiths. That said, the barrage perhaps merely
served to focus the antipathy of Valleys Labour towards the perceived disproportionate
investment in Cardiff, Old Labour towards Quango’s and New Labour towards Old
Labour. Most of the foregoing were challenged by an emergent cadre of aspirant career
Labour politicians who didn’t leave school before the age of 25 and who formed a
loose alliance with The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Such
alliances then shifted further at the end of the Millennium and those lucky
enough to have drawn a winning ticket in the Assembly Election Lottery had to
translate their vocal opposition to CBDC and all its works into responsible governance.
And failed.
In practical terms the barrage drained the administrative and
financial resources of CBDC and diverted them away from the strategic
(physically and symbolically) objectives of re-uniting the city centre with the
waterfront. In the final assessment what was eventually produced bore little or
no resemblance to the designs produced by David Mackay. The concise appraisal is
offered by Geraint Talfan Davies;
“…the sad, misplaced
suburbanism of Cardiff’s Lloyd George Avenue; the linked Callaghan Square that
could have been a treasured public space but is, in fact, a rectangular,
furnished roundabout. All of these have occasioned deep and obvious
disappointment among citizens.” (Talfan Davies 2008 p289).
Coupled with that is the continued physical separation of
the community to the west by the railway embankment and the failure to deliver
the levels of social integration advocated by MBM in their work elsewhere. Talfan
Davies goes on to comment that these places are the antithesis of urban design,
a process which assumes the purpose and intent implicit in the original appointment
of David Mackay. The objectives of reshaping the city for the better were
compromised by many factors and culminated in the implementation of
infrastructure works through a private finance initiative. Inevitably the
procurement of public works by such means places priority on the lowest bid not
the achievement of the superlative design standards that were central to the
mission originally stated for CBDC by the Secretary of State. In the course of
that process social responsibility is to some degree abrogated and, following
the dissolution of the Development Corporation, the City Council permitted the
construction of a series of ghettoes in South Cardiff. I was going to refer to
that as a ‘free for all’ but it was, of course, not. It was an opportunity for
those with the financial means to develop or acquire apartments in gated
blocks.
I am not aware of David Mackay making any public
condemnation of Cardiff and, if he did, it certainly did not attract to the
city the unwelcome attention of the international design community as the Zaha
Hadid affair continues to do. Privately he expressed some frustration with the procurement
of public works in Britain and, in particular, practices such as private
finance initiatives which would invariably mean that the designer would be
alienated and lose control over the final quality of projects. That such
disappointment was expressed quietly is another measure of the man. Others in
his position might have complained more loudly about the responsibility without
power of the designer and the betrayal of trust by those who commissioned them.
Far better that his association with Cardiff be quietly forgotten and little
connection made between his designs for Bute Avenue and Square and the travesty that now sits in their place
in the form of Lloyd George Avenue and Callaghan Square.
If there is to be a verdict in this piece it is that the
Cardiff Bay Development Corporation definitely appointed the right man, but possibly
for the wrong reasons. By my reckoning the blame cannot be attributed solely to
the Corporation but, as was the case with the Opera House fiasco, the (dis)credit must be shared more widely.
Put bluntly, it takes a lot of people a lot of time and effort to fuck things
up as frequently and as badly as we do in Wales. To some extent it is institutionalised,
many of the participants outlined above having subsequently been at the
epicentre of the concentric circles of self-interest that we call ‘government’
in Wales. It is those, who were critical of CBDC, who may suggest that the
Corporation only ever intended to rent from David Mackay his reputation. To
simply draw upon and then disburse for their commercial ends the cultural
capital represented by that man.
Mackay’s personal commitment to social justice was attested
by his actions in opposition to the Franco dictatorship, assisting activists to
contact the foreign press and he was a founder of Amnesty International in
Spain. Given the earlier comments about the political context of his abortive
work in Cardiff it is perhaps a shame that he didn’t stick around here longer.
Talfan
Davies, G. (2008). At Arm's Length. Bridgend, Wales, Seren.
