0:00:02 > 0:00:06BBCFour Collections - archive programmes chosen by experts.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected
0:00:09 > 0:00:12programmes about Post-War Architecture.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections,
0:00:15 > 0:00:17are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49This is either a godless building,
0:00:49 > 0:00:50or God.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57But if God did exist, I could imagine him looking like this building -
0:00:57 > 0:01:03in a way of having strength but...a lack of emotion.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17When I first came here, I came here to study anatomy.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20I was doing life drawing at the art school
0:01:20 > 0:01:25and then drawing from cadavers in here to make it all make sense.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41The first time I went into the dissecting room and walked through,
0:01:41 > 0:01:44I thought I was going to vomit or pass out and die.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47Cos I spoke with a doctor who said to me,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50"Have you dealt with corpses before?" And I said yes, when I hadn't.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54But, very quickly, that got normalised,
0:01:54 > 0:01:56and now going through the dissecting rooms,
0:01:56 > 0:02:00I don't really have any emotion, except maybe nostalgia.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Buildings cut and dissect space
0:02:12 > 0:02:14to create living environments for live people.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19This is a building for live people to cut and dissect dead bodies.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22That's why I like this building. I like that contradiction.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25I like the way that it's like a building getting its own back.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31It's almost as if the outside of the building, the exterior
0:02:31 > 0:02:35is denying that it's part of the same processes of decay and destruction
0:02:35 > 0:02:39and corruption as the human bodies inside the building.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43The dead bodies come and go and the living bodies come and go
0:02:43 > 0:02:45and the building stays the same.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58I get a feeling from the building that it's more alive than me,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00which is terrifying.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05It dwarfs everything.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08I think the building ignores all the buildings around,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11and becomes...a focus.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18It's just relentless in what it is.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22Just formally it's very fascist, it's like a cube.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25A cube can represent a fascist idea of
0:03:25 > 0:03:29"This is what we are and we're not backing down on any angle."
0:03:31 > 0:03:32It's solid from all angles.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42A solidity - and people always look for solidity -
0:03:42 > 0:03:44I think is a great strength.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46I love the idea of solidity,
0:03:46 > 0:03:52but to actually find solidity in my body means that I will be a skeleton.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58With a person, the most solid part of a person, physically,
0:03:58 > 0:03:59is the skeleton,
0:03:59 > 0:04:00and that's on the inside.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Whereas, with a building, the most solid part of it is on the outside.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12The exterior of this building is incredibly strong,
0:04:12 > 0:04:14it's like armour, armour-plated.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17It's like a castle, or a castle keep, a fortress.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Alongside the building, there are two enormous chimneys,
0:04:27 > 0:04:28which aren't part of the building,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31but because they are such a simple form, and the building
0:04:31 > 0:04:33is such a simple form, you visually connect them immediately.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40And wherever you are, round the building, up to a mile away,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43you see the chimneys and know that that's where the building is.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46And in a way they give it a very strong fascist feeling,
0:04:46 > 0:04:48like a concentration camp,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51or the gas chambers, which is very eerie for a place of study.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11I wouldn't be surprised if more dead people
0:05:11 > 0:05:16had passed through the ninth floor than living people, which is weird.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19It's a building for dead people.
0:05:19 > 0:05:24For me, the ninth floor is the one floor where it is most apparent.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27And it filters out as you go up and below that floor.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34It's all related to bodies, the whole of the floors.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36Even if you're doing microbiology,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39there's still dead culture, dead tissues, dead blood cells.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43But on the ninth floor is where it's most apparent.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51To have a clinical building, I think is a great idea.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57The most unclinical thing about this building is the canteen.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01The difference between the mural
0:06:01 > 0:06:03and what's actually going on in the mural
0:06:03 > 0:06:06and what's actually going on in the rooms,
0:06:06 > 0:06:08is like the difference between loving somebody
0:06:08 > 0:06:10and murdering somebody.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18But why do a painting of something when you can have the real thing?
0:06:23 > 0:06:26I've always been obsessed by medical waste,
0:06:27 > 0:06:28much more than any other kind of waste,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32because it's so clean, it's so organised, so clinical.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39The building consumes energy - light, heat, food,
0:06:39 > 0:06:45medical supplies, students, cadavers, tutors,
0:06:45 > 0:06:46everything.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Buildings have entrails -
0:06:54 > 0:06:56for wires, for the pipes, the heating, the electricity,
0:06:56 > 0:06:58for the air conditioning.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00In this building, they're all contained inside
0:07:00 > 0:07:05these convex features to keep more space on the inside for the students.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10In the building, I like the idea that the services are all on the outside,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14so that even though, visually, it looks like it has this strength,
0:07:14 > 0:07:16it's like its most vulnerable parts
0:07:16 > 0:07:18are actually very near to the surface,
0:07:18 > 0:07:20which is quite a fragile position.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26I was always fascinated by the NASA photographs of the moon -
0:07:26 > 0:07:30the way that by laying a grid over an unknowable landscape,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33they create a kind of confidence, something solid and believable.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36But I always felt that the moon and the grid were never connected,
0:07:36 > 0:07:37they were always separate.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40I see buildings like that - as a three-dimensional graph,
0:07:40 > 0:07:44or a grid, like a geometrical structure to live in,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46to give us meaning in our lives.
0:07:46 > 0:07:48And in the same way that the grid on the landscape of the moon
0:07:49 > 0:07:51doesn't make sense and can never be combined,
0:07:51 > 0:07:54I think buildings never fully combine with us.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58I guess that's why they fall down.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03It's like, buildings are at their most perfect
0:08:03 > 0:08:06before the people move into them, and then it's just a matter of time.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17Looking at the building, I get torn between ugly and lovely.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23There's a beauty in ugliness that I think exists in this building,
0:08:23 > 0:08:24along with its function.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27So, for me, the first time I saw the building,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29it was instantly fused with that idea of death.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35There's a lot of different ways that I can see the way that
0:08:35 > 0:08:37the outside and inside are connected,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41but in a way it's like I can't bring the function of the building
0:08:41 > 0:08:45and way it looks on the outside together, and I can't take it apart.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48It's like one without the other doesn't make sense.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52For me, it completely affected my whole idea of death.
0:08:55 > 0:09:00Seeing bodies in this building with the mystery completely removed
0:09:00 > 0:09:02made me realise that God didn't exist.