0:00:04 > 0:00:08In the 1930s, five children were born
0:00:08 > 0:00:11who grew up with dreams of building a better world.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17And that's exactly what they did.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22The architecture of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers,
0:00:22 > 0:00:25Michael Hopkins, Nicholas Grimshaw and Terry Farrell
0:00:25 > 0:00:27can be found across Britain and the globe.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34In their youth, they collaborated, and their work was hailed
0:00:34 > 0:00:39as a radical new style of architecture - high-tech.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41In later years, they became rivals.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43Their buildings were sometimes controversial,
0:00:43 > 0:00:47but they turned into the most successful generation of architects
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Britain has ever produced.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54In this series, for the first time, all five of them tell their story.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02From housing to high culture, from offices to airports,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06the world we live in now is the world that they designed.
0:01:08 > 0:01:15This programme contains some strong language.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47If you've bought a ticket for a tourist flight into space,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49the last building you'll see as you leave Earth
0:01:49 > 0:01:54will have been designed by one of the most successful architects on the planet -
0:01:54 > 0:01:55Norman Foster.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06New Mexico is home to the world's first commercial spaceport,
0:02:06 > 0:02:11both spacecraft hangar and, from 2014, passenger terminal.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15Everything's all under one roof and that roof
0:02:15 > 0:02:18is almost like the contours of the desert.
0:02:18 > 0:02:19So environmentally,
0:02:19 > 0:02:20it's very efficient.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27And it brings together the drama and the excitement,
0:02:27 > 0:02:31makes space travel accessible beyond the few.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34In that way, it opens up a new era of flying.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49I love flight. I love flying as a pilot...
0:02:51 > 0:02:53..and the poetry of flying.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58Um...so you can imagine the appeal of that project.
0:03:05 > 0:03:06Over the past four decades,
0:03:06 > 0:03:11Foster has built futuristic structures all over the world.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18But to understand what inspired him,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21you need to go back to post-war Britain
0:03:21 > 0:03:23and the comic he read as a teenager.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33I think the Eagle was the romance of technology.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39There was a vitality
0:03:39 > 0:03:42in the very freshness of its graphics...
0:03:45 > 0:03:48..and the celebration of making things.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Back in the '60s, Foster collaborated for several years
0:03:54 > 0:03:59with another architect who, like him, is now a lord.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Opposite one of Rogers' most famous creations,
0:04:15 > 0:04:17the headquarters of Lloyd's of London,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20his architectural practice has been building a new tower,
0:04:20 > 0:04:22nicknamed the Cheese Grater.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42I've always had this belief that towers,
0:04:42 > 0:04:45in fact buildings, should express their structure.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50Clearly, towers have a tremendous potential
0:04:50 > 0:04:52because they're reaching upwards.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55You've got to...you've got to have a big...a big structure.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01What can you actually create which is more humanistic than just a box?
0:05:01 > 0:05:05On the whole, for instance, offices are just rectangular boxes.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10This tower thickens out at its base,
0:05:10 > 0:05:12where seven storeys have been scooped away
0:05:12 > 0:05:15to create something Rogers often campaigns for -
0:05:15 > 0:05:16public space.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31Rogers, like Foster,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35can trace some of his architectural inspirations back to his youth.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37One of my first presents, I remember,
0:05:37 > 0:05:38was a tiny box of Meccano.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48And I have always enjoyed Meccano.
0:05:51 > 0:05:52Though Rogers and Foster
0:05:52 > 0:05:56are the best-known British architects of their generation,
0:05:56 > 0:06:01three of their close contemporaries have also built a global reputation.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18Earlier in his career,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21Michael Hopkins collaborated with Norman Foster,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23just as Richard Rogers had done,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25and for Hopkins too,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29a '40s childhood inspired a life in architecture.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32I went to school, I did absolutely no work at all
0:06:32 > 0:06:35and I was always able to sort of bunk off on my bike
0:06:35 > 0:06:37when other boys were playing games.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44I started sort of becoming aware of buildings in the countryside
0:06:44 > 0:06:47and enjoying them and feeling... feeling good about them.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50I used to go out bicycling a lot.
0:07:02 > 0:07:03Over 50 years later,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Hopkins Architects designed the London Olympic velodrome.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12It's a Pringle, isn't it, it got called?
0:07:12 > 0:07:13It's a beautiful form
0:07:13 > 0:07:16and it begins to tell me something about, from the outside,
0:07:16 > 0:07:18what's going on in the inside.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25Buildings must be legible and easy to understand.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29As you arrive into the stadium space,
0:07:29 > 0:07:31you're arriving in a theatre of sport.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35CHEERING
0:07:35 > 0:07:37Hopkins learnt his craft
0:07:37 > 0:07:39at London's Architectural Association.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43One of his fellow students there in the early '60s
0:07:43 > 0:07:45went on to create Britain's most visited work
0:07:45 > 0:07:49of high-tech architecture - the Eden Project.
0:07:59 > 0:08:00Over the last decade,
0:08:00 > 0:08:04Grimshaw's firm has become a major player in New York,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08building everything from a public housing scheme in the Bronx
0:08:08 > 0:08:11to the Fulton Street transit interchange.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16It's ten floors, three floors underground
0:08:16 > 0:08:18and the key thing is
0:08:18 > 0:08:20it's got a kind of opening in the top.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24You can get a shaft of sunlight coming down like that...
0:08:26 > 0:08:28..right down to this level here
0:08:28 > 0:08:30and you get a patch of sun down there.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36This is going be a great meeting place,
0:08:36 > 0:08:40through which hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people,
0:08:40 > 0:08:42will go every day.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47So the idea of making it beautiful is quite important
0:08:47 > 0:08:50and I think if you're just lifting the spirits of people,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52you're doing something.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59And for the first 15 years of his professional life,
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Nick Grimshaw's partner was Terry Farrell.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19The biggest Farrell buildings in recent years
0:09:19 > 0:09:21can be found in China.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28Biggest of all, at 1,449 feet,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31is the KK100 Tower in Shenzhen.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36The tower is the tallest by a British architect.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40It was the tallest building built in that year -
0:09:40 > 0:09:41in other words, in 2011,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44there was nothing else taller in the world built.
0:09:59 > 0:10:00There aren't many like it.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02It's not symmetrical both ways.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05I like to think it's like a blade of grass.
0:10:07 > 0:10:10MUSIC: "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" by The Ink Spots
0:10:10 > 0:10:19# I don't want to set the world on fire... #
0:10:19 > 0:10:23For Farrell, like the rest of these '30s babies,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27a life in construction began with six years of destruction.
0:10:30 > 0:10:31My main memories of the war
0:10:31 > 0:10:35was the shelter my father built with my uncle,
0:10:35 > 0:10:38and I was fascinated - here were men, doing men's things,
0:10:38 > 0:10:39digging a hole in the ground,
0:10:39 > 0:10:44putting this metal corrugated thing under and filling it over.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50Another formative experience came soon after the war,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54when Terry's family moved to a Newcastle council estate.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56Their house had been built with a process
0:10:56 > 0:11:00which his generation of architects would later make great use of -
0:11:00 > 0:11:01prefabrication.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04It was designed in an aircraft factory.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08It was a steel-frame house clad in...in asbestos.
0:11:09 > 0:11:11Farrell's working-class background
0:11:11 > 0:11:12would give him a different perspective
0:11:12 > 0:11:16to most in the privileged world of British architecture,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18and he wasn't the only Northern lad in this group
0:11:18 > 0:11:21to benefit from a place at grammar school.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26Norman Foster and I were probably born just a couple of miles apart.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30- NORMAN FOSTER:- It was a fairly tough neighbourhood -
0:11:30 > 0:11:32I mean, an area where people worked with their hands
0:11:32 > 0:11:34and if you didn't work with your hands,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37if you were interested in books rather than other things,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40then you were very suspect and given quite a hard time.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Richard Rogers also came to British architecture
0:11:51 > 0:11:53as something of an outsider -
0:11:53 > 0:11:56his family was Anglo-Italian
0:11:56 > 0:11:58and his earliest years were spent in Florence.
0:11:58 > 0:12:03But when his parents fled Mussolini's dictatorship in 1938,
0:12:03 > 0:12:05the five-year-old Rogers got a crash course
0:12:05 > 0:12:07in the English side of his heritage.
0:12:08 > 0:12:10Especially in the beginning of the war,
0:12:10 > 0:12:13either being Italian or German was a bad thing
0:12:13 > 0:12:14and going to a small primary school,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18you know, bullying was, er...prevalent, um...
0:12:18 > 0:12:20So I was pretty suicidal at school,
0:12:20 > 0:12:22especially in my primary school, I really was suicidal.
0:12:23 > 0:12:25Being dyslexic, as I found very much later,
0:12:25 > 0:12:28my aim in life was to be second from last
0:12:28 > 0:12:30rather than bottom of the class for most of my life.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35Hopkins and Grimshaw came from more comfortable backgrounds,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38but they too were formed partly by the experience of hardship.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42I know all the other architects you're filming -
0:12:42 > 0:12:46of course, we all were brought up in years of serious austerity.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49We had, for instance, utility furniture,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53which was furniture that had to be approved by the government
0:12:53 > 0:12:55for using the minimum amount of materials.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58No decoration, no frills.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02In 1951, however, the teenage architects-to-be
0:13:02 > 0:13:05were given a glimpse of a brighter future.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07# The Festival of Britain is here
0:13:07 > 0:13:10# People are welcome from everywhere... #
0:13:10 > 0:13:12When I went down to the Festival of Britain,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14it made a big impression on me.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17I particularly remember the Dome of Discovery,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21which was a marvellously futuristic shape.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23It was a damn good building, actually.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28I mean, if you took Richard's Millennium Dome,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30you could see a definite analogy, actually,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32quite fascinatingly, there.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37And the Skylon, which was a marvellous bit
0:13:37 > 0:13:40of "look, no hands" structural virtuosity.
0:13:40 > 0:13:46These were, er...perhaps even more exotic
0:13:46 > 0:13:50because of the... the drab surroundings.
0:13:53 > 0:13:58The whole atmosphere was determinedly sort of modernistic.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05Across the rest of Britain too,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08architecture quickly became the promise of a better tomorrow,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11as the bombed-out nation was rebuilt.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15You know, the optimism of building houses for people
0:14:15 > 0:14:18that are coming back from the war, of building schools,
0:14:18 > 0:14:21of building hospitals, er...of doing urban planning...
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Changing the world was very much on the agenda at that time.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Britain's post-war buildings weren't nearly-new -
0:14:31 > 0:14:33they were products of the modern movement.
0:14:33 > 0:14:38They followed the example set since the '20s by Continental architects,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45Architecture for the machine age, where form followed function
0:14:45 > 0:14:46and less was more.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50This kind of architecture makes no attempt to disguise itself
0:14:50 > 0:14:52in a false and conventional style.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58The goal of the modern movement was healthier, lighter,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01better architecture for everyone.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03So, at the birth of the welfare state,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06modernism seemed a natural fit for public buildings.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14Young people wanting to change the world saw modernism as the way
0:15:14 > 0:15:19to do so, which is why Hopkins, Grimshaw and Rogers
0:15:19 > 0:15:22all headed to the same place for their architectural training.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26There was only one school that taught modern architecture in Britain
0:15:26 > 0:15:28and that was The Architecture Association.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31Every other school was teaching Neoclassicism.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34Michael Hopkins found more than his education at the AA -
0:15:34 > 0:15:39he also met his future collaborator and wife Patricia.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45There were 400 boys and about ten girls...
0:15:45 > 0:15:48so you made a beeline for the prettiest girl.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52I remember Michael coming into the little cafe with very tight jeans,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56washed leather jacket and a book on ballet under his arm,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00um, and I thought "Urgh, what a...
0:16:00 > 0:16:02"He's just showing off."
0:16:02 > 0:16:05But it obviously made a mark.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Thanks to a scholarship, Terry Farrell
0:16:07 > 0:16:11completed his architectural training in the United States.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
0:16:15 > 0:16:19I had five days at sea and sailed in past the Statue of Liberty
0:16:19 > 0:16:24into New York and I could see that this was a life-changer.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29# Somewhere beyond the sea
0:16:29 > 0:16:32# Somewhere waiting for me... #
0:16:32 > 0:16:33Unusually for the time,
0:16:33 > 0:16:38Foster and Rogers also made the pilgrimage across the Atlantic.
0:16:38 > 0:16:39Couldn't believe our eyes.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42The scale and the buildings were soaring up and down
0:16:42 > 0:16:44these amazing avenues.
0:16:45 > 0:16:46That certainly was a shocker.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51It really knocked us out.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55When I got to America I felt I'd come home.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58I think it changed the way that I looked at things.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04You had this feeling that everything was possible.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10Terry's postgraduate studies took him to Philadelphia.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12Richard and Norman enrolled at Yale,
0:17:12 > 0:17:16where the two rapidly became collaborators and close friends.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20Norman was a brilliant, fantastically strong draftsman,
0:17:20 > 0:17:22where I could hardly hold a pencil in comparison.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26When we first came together at Yale it seemed to me
0:17:26 > 0:17:29that you know, Richard had all the...
0:17:29 > 0:17:32the qualities that in a way I admired.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35My memory of the most exciting intellectual talks
0:17:35 > 0:17:39that I've ever had in my life were the ones with Norman.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42We argued about how to change the world.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47It was a great period and, for me, very liberating.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52I did a lot of drawing, a lot of thinking,
0:17:52 > 0:17:57and a lot of travelling and I really immersed myself in America.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03We just worked like hell day and night, and at the end of
0:18:03 > 0:18:09a project we'd just drive thousands of miles in search of architecture.
0:18:14 > 0:18:19We did the trips together, went to see industrial buildings together.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22The steel mills, the Airstream caravans,
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Cape Canaveral, NASA, as well as the architecture.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31We went to see the majority of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings...
0:18:33 > 0:18:36..so we were imbued with them.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40We were like sponges, you know, we were just absorbing...
0:18:40 > 0:18:42this new culture.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49They headed back to Britain, inspired by America's
0:18:49 > 0:18:52can-do and capitalist dynamism.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59Most architects in mid-'60s Britain worked in the public sector,
0:18:59 > 0:19:02but Norman and Richard set up their own private firm
0:19:02 > 0:19:04with their wives Wendy and Sue.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06They called themselves Team 4
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and set up shop in the Fosters' tiny flat.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12It was a bed-sitting room in Hampstead Hill Gardens.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15On those few occasions when there was a potential client,
0:19:15 > 0:19:20then we had somebody who was in the kitchen, just banging a typewriter
0:19:20 > 0:19:24to make it sound as if there was a lot of action going on.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27MUSIC: "Get Ready" by The Temptations
0:19:27 > 0:19:29Their first projects were houses,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33including a group of three in North London.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35Despite two future superstars of architecture combining
0:19:35 > 0:19:40their talents, this job proved an inauspicious start to their careers.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44I mean, it was hellish. I mean, we had extremely little experience,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47even though we tried to sort of bring in people with a little bit more
0:19:47 > 0:19:50experience, and we went from crisis to crisis to crisis.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57Unlike the later work of Foster and Rogers, the houses were built
0:19:57 > 0:20:00with traditional materials, such as brick,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04and they struggled to find builders who could meet their ambitions.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06One example of shoddy workmanship
0:20:06 > 0:20:10was brought to the architects' attention by the house owner.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14He pointed to what I thought was a damp-proof course, which is
0:20:14 > 0:20:17usually a sort of rubber membrane of plastic,
0:20:17 > 0:20:19stops the water going through the bricks,
0:20:19 > 0:20:22and then he picked it up and he said, "What do you think this is?"
0:20:22 > 0:20:24And it was the, it was the Daily Mail,
0:20:24 > 0:20:26or whatever it was, painted black.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Well, I do remember, and I'm a rather sort of tough person,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33sitting on, under a tree on Hampstead Heath
0:20:33 > 0:20:37and literally crying, saying, "I'll never be an architect."
0:20:39 > 0:20:42The problems caused by the slow and unreliable traditions
0:20:42 > 0:20:44of the British building site
0:20:44 > 0:20:47weren't just thwarting their architectural dreams.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51Financially it was disastrous, and that's really what drove us
0:20:51 > 0:20:52to look for another way.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55I think Norman and I, and Wendy and Sue,
0:20:55 > 0:20:57all decided we had to change,
0:20:57 > 0:21:01and we had an opportunity to build a factory in Swindon
0:21:01 > 0:21:05and it had to be done in a year at an immensely low price.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Searching for a cheaper and more reliable way of building,
0:21:10 > 0:21:13the architects remembered some of the steel structures they'd seen
0:21:13 > 0:21:17on their American road trips, for which components had been
0:21:17 > 0:21:21manufactured under carefully controlled factory conditions.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25It was wanting to use materials that were precise
0:21:25 > 0:21:28and the whole thing went together a bit like clockwork.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32It was all site welded, but beautifully done
0:21:32 > 0:21:35and it took no time at all to build the frame.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47Foster and Rogers' factory for Reliance Controls
0:21:47 > 0:21:51has since been demolished, but back in 1967 it marked
0:21:51 > 0:21:55the birth of what became known as high-tech architecture.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03It was unlike anything else built in Britain at the time,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06neither traditional brick nor the brutalist concrete
0:22:06 > 0:22:10then in vogue with property developers and the public sector.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13You could see the whole skeleton.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15It was perfectly obvious how it all worked.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20You know, really lightweight, but stiff structure.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26Tony Hunt was a crucial collaborator for Rogers and Foster,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29and later Grimshaw, Farrell and Hopkins.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31All these architects built their success
0:22:31 > 0:22:34on a different kind of relationship with engineers.
0:22:35 > 0:22:40The customary way of designing is that the architect
0:22:40 > 0:22:45is trained to design and then to bring in engineers
0:22:45 > 0:22:48to translate that design and make it stand out.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51I think that's a totally inadequate way of designing.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56I want to know whilst I'm in the process of designing,
0:22:56 > 0:22:59I want to know what the possibilities are.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02To discuss at a meet, early meeting with the architect,
0:23:02 > 0:23:03"How are we going do this?"
0:23:03 > 0:23:06It's very difficult to define in the end...
0:23:06 > 0:23:09exactly who designed precisely what in the building.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11In the situation we're talking about here,
0:23:11 > 0:23:16the engineer is part of a complete team of people.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20Sitting around a round table which is non-hierarchical,
0:23:20 > 0:23:26that was considered radical and revolutionary as a way of working.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33The times were a-changing, how architects worked,
0:23:33 > 0:23:38what they built with and who they built for were all being rethought.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41Since the '20s, modernists had dreamed of the better world
0:23:41 > 0:23:42they might construct.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47In the '60s, that utopia got a makeover from the counterculture.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50# Something happening here
0:23:50 > 0:23:54# What it is ain't exactly clear... #
0:23:54 > 0:23:57We were extremely moved by the political situation,
0:23:57 > 0:24:01you know, CND marches, went on most of those, Vietnam,
0:24:01 > 0:24:05and really the whole student, intellectual workers revolution
0:24:05 > 0:24:08against the status quo tradition and so on.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11We were very much involved in all those things.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13# Stop, children, what's that sound?
0:24:13 > 0:24:17# Everybody looks what's going down... #
0:24:17 > 0:24:21I was responding to the times I lived in.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25Flower power and... make love not war.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30A general feeling of freedom in society...
0:24:30 > 0:24:33is there a kind of architecture that reflects that?
0:24:33 > 0:24:37Is there a kind of non-monumental kind of architecture?
0:24:40 > 0:24:45Other switched-on young cats were asking the same questions,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48and they defined the aims of architecture for their generation.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55What's needed is a new architecture to stand beside the space capsules,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58computers and throwaway packs of an atomic world.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Sometimes dubbed the Beatles of Buildings,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05the collective of young designers who called themselves Archigram
0:25:05 > 0:25:07treated architecture like pop art.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12I suppose we wanted to be sort of interesting and famous
0:25:12 > 0:25:15and do something weird, you know.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18Change is the dominant fact of today.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26Though hugely influential, Archigram never actually built anything -
0:25:26 > 0:25:28that was for the squares.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32Instead they published magazines and generally wound people up.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36You know, I think if you don't rebel against the generation before you,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39there's something wrong with you.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42The city should be capable of forming and reforming
0:25:42 > 0:25:44day by day, week by week, year by year,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47as events and purposes change.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51I was really fired up by the idea of
0:25:51 > 0:25:55architecture that you can manipulate and you can change
0:25:55 > 0:25:58and that's responsive to the users.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03And that was the subject of my thesis.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06Archigram's Peter Cook was one of Grimshaw's tutors.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08To show the importance of change,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12Nick illustrated his final student project with animation.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18My subject was basically an interweaving network
0:26:18 > 0:26:22of travelators and escalators, and so it was a constantly changing,
0:26:22 > 0:26:26constantly rejuvenating organisation.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32When Grimshaw left college in 1965,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35he formed a practice with Terry Farrell.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39Their first major new build project together applied the concept
0:26:39 > 0:26:43of adaptable architecture to a pressing personal need.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45We...none of us had anywhere to live.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48I'd slept on the floor of the office for, for, for a while.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54So Nick and Terry started their own housing cooperative
0:26:54 > 0:26:57and designed a tower block for themselves to live in
0:26:57 > 0:27:00on a site they'd found near Regent's Park.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03It was dirt cheap.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06We built it for the same price as a council block.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10Farrell and Grimshaw's tower, however,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14wouldn't look anything like a typical concrete council block.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35I liked the idea of having an anonymous frame,
0:27:35 > 0:27:39which you could then clad with modern materials.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43There'd been very few buildings clad in aluminium up to that point.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49But it was structurally strong, it didn't corrode
0:27:49 > 0:27:51and it was waterproof, so it became a skin of a building.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00The chief planning officer, you know, he was speechless.
0:28:00 > 0:28:01I mean, he said, "You're...
0:28:01 > 0:28:05"An aluminium building next to Regent's Park!"
0:28:05 > 0:28:06"Over my dead body", he said.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11It wasn't just the exterior which was radical.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14The interior was built for the kind of constant change
0:28:14 > 0:28:15Archigram had envisaged.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19It was designed almost like an office block.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22All the structure was on the outside wall or in the core,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25so you could remove any of the internal walls,
0:28:25 > 0:28:27so that gave you tremendous flexibility.
0:28:40 > 0:28:46You could have 14 bed-sitters on one floor, or in fact one flat,
0:28:46 > 0:28:48and everything possible in between.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56Some people bought the flat next door later on
0:28:56 > 0:29:00and knocked the two together, so the configuration of bedrooms
0:29:00 > 0:29:02and kitchens could vary their position.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08Grimshaw and I both took an apartment there
0:29:08 > 0:29:11and we both lived there. We were all in and out of each other flats,
0:29:11 > 0:29:14having dinner and what-have-you, and drinks parties.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17It was a very good, a very good community actually,
0:29:17 > 0:29:19a very good community feeling.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25Cabbies quickly nicknamed it "The Sardine Can"
0:29:25 > 0:29:27but within the profession,
0:29:27 > 0:29:32the tower marked out Farrell and Grimshaw as architects on the rise.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35By the time their partnership took off however,
0:29:35 > 0:29:37another had fallen apart -
0:29:37 > 0:29:39Foster and Rogers.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41There was no work and if there's no work,
0:29:41 > 0:29:43there's too much time to argue about things,
0:29:43 > 0:29:48but also probably we were both as, er, strong as each other
0:29:48 > 0:29:53and there was the beginning of a feeling of we needed our own space.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58In 1970, Norman Foster found a new partner - Michael Hopkins.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02And we got on very well together, you know.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05We had, um, a great relationship.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09Norman was clearly a sort of very energetic chap,
0:30:09 > 0:30:12who would be giving the whole thing his heart and soul.
0:30:12 > 0:30:14I was probably a bit more laid back.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17They understand the building they're going to work in, you know,
0:30:17 > 0:30:19and where they get their tea and where they park their car,
0:30:19 > 0:30:20all these sort of things.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22I mean, how do you see yourself...?
0:30:24 > 0:30:27What the two shared was a determination to innovate,
0:30:27 > 0:30:29which proved particularly appealing
0:30:29 > 0:30:32to clients in new industries like high technology.
0:30:33 > 0:30:38When a computer firm urgently needed more space for its expanding workforce,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42Foster and Hopkins created a pioneering membrane structure,
0:30:42 > 0:30:44which sat in the office car park.
0:30:44 > 0:30:49When you fill it with air, it blows up like a balloon.
0:30:57 > 0:31:04'We were able to realise space for some 70 people in a total period,
0:31:04 > 0:31:07'including research, of, ooh, about eight weeks.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12'But of that time, the erection time was 55 minutes.'
0:31:13 > 0:31:18Never collapsed, but the odd puncture you could cope with.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20You just get one of those... get a bit of Elastoplast
0:31:20 > 0:31:22and stick it on the outside.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29The practice would prove as radical in its social agenda
0:31:29 > 0:31:32as in its approach to structure and materials.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36Mirror glass was a swanky novelty in 1970.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40Foster made a whole building from the stuff in London's Docklands,
0:31:40 > 0:31:42many years before the bankers moved in.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47Conditions were horrific and this was a total transformation.
0:31:47 > 0:31:52I mean, the idea that the dockers could have a civilised place.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57Foster's amenity centre for the Fred Olsen Shipping Company gave
0:31:57 > 0:32:02blue collar staff a white collar quality of design.
0:32:02 > 0:32:07And I brought together, under one roof, dockers and management.
0:32:08 > 0:32:12For so many, it was unthinkable because...
0:32:12 > 0:32:14I can remember the quotes at the time -
0:32:14 > 0:32:16"They're dirty", "They swear",
0:32:16 > 0:32:19"How could secretaries be in the same building as the dockers?"
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Foster has always stuck to that, he's always seen offices
0:32:23 > 0:32:26and factories as basically the same kind of thing,
0:32:26 > 0:32:28they accommodate working people
0:32:28 > 0:32:32and those working people are not divided by any class.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34He's a working-class chap himself.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37I think that, in a way, we're all products of a background,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41I think we're influenced by our background.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45I would see my father coming home as a manual worker and, um,
0:32:45 > 0:32:48his workplace, it was a pretty horrible place.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53Um, now, at Olsen, I engaged personally
0:32:53 > 0:32:55and directly with the unions.
0:32:55 > 0:32:57That's not what architects are supposed to do,
0:32:57 > 0:33:01architects are supposed to design buildings, but buildings don't arise
0:33:01 > 0:33:05out of thin air, they're generated by needs, the needs of people.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09Foster's ex-partner had also moved on.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13In 1970, Richard and Sue Rogers formed a new practice
0:33:13 > 0:33:17with the man who would eventually build The Shard, Renzo Piano.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20Renzo and I were both unemployed and we thought it'd be more fun
0:33:20 > 0:33:22to be two unemployed than one unemployed, if you like.
0:33:22 > 0:33:23We got on very well.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27When I met him, it was love at first sight, you know.
0:33:27 > 0:33:31I was totally iconoclast, you know, and Richard was,
0:33:31 > 0:33:33we were young, mad people.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36Bad boys in some ways.
0:33:37 > 0:33:39Like so many of their generation,
0:33:39 > 0:33:43both Richard and Renzo were fired up by the spirit of '68,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46the year when protests in Europe, above all in Paris,
0:33:46 > 0:33:49came close to full-scale revolution.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54So when President Pompidou, a figure hated by the left,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57announced an architectural competition,
0:33:57 > 0:34:02Rogers refused on principle to even consider entering.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04So I wrote a whole list of things which I didn't like -
0:34:04 > 0:34:06I didn't like the idea of working for a President.
0:34:06 > 0:34:08And he actually made a beautiful text
0:34:08 > 0:34:13that was a perfect explication why we should not do it.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16I was against it and he was pro it.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19We had a very democratic discussion. I lost.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21We said OK, so let's be free.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25What can we do to break rules, to make...to make something different.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33What Pompidou wanted was a new art gallery and library.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36What Rogers and Piano designed was a fun palace,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39where people would be free to do their own thing.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42Alongside their architectural sketches,
0:34:42 > 0:34:44they submitted their own manifesto.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48The first paragraph says, "A place for all people, all ages,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52"all creeds, for the poor and the rich, for the old and the young."
0:34:52 > 0:34:57To transform a place that used to be quite dusty, quite closed,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59to something completely accessible,
0:34:59 > 0:35:01something that celebrates the openness.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08Their design specified that all the walls and even the floors should be
0:35:08 > 0:35:12moveable, to suit the changing desires of the building's users.
0:35:12 > 0:35:14It was as flexible and fantastical
0:35:14 > 0:35:17as anything Archigram had dreamed up
0:35:17 > 0:35:19and, even the architects assumed,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22no more likely to make it beyond the drawing board.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24When we knew that there were
0:35:24 > 0:35:29681 entries, then we were sure that we never win.
0:35:29 > 0:35:31And one morning a call came.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35It took me ten minutes to understand what the lady was talking about
0:35:35 > 0:35:38and finally I got it.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40I said "Oh, my God!"
0:35:40 > 0:35:42So I called Richard and told, "Hey, Vecchio."
0:35:42 > 0:35:46Vecchio, which is what he calls me, old man, um, I'm four years older,
0:35:46 > 0:35:49and he said, "Sit down, we've won the competition."
0:35:49 > 0:35:51I said "Stop pulling my leg."
0:35:51 > 0:35:54Thanks God he sat down because it was...
0:35:54 > 0:35:56it was completely unexpected.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59And then the next day, we had to go to Paris.
0:35:59 > 0:36:01We arrived there and everybody was in dinner jackets,
0:36:01 > 0:36:04I mean, it was really glittery, only the way the French can do it,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07you know, and here we were with the sort of, you know, fuck-off-type
0:36:07 > 0:36:10T-shirts one wore in those days and people wearing shorts
0:36:10 > 0:36:14and, you know, miniskirts and so on, um, but they were immensely kind.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18The competition jury loved the concept.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22They didn't realise that was all Rogers and Piano had at the time.
0:36:23 > 0:36:25As the architects moved to Paris,
0:36:25 > 0:36:28they didn't actually know what they were going to build.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35There were people coming from all over the world there, you know,
0:36:35 > 0:36:38and nobody knew really what they were doing.
0:36:39 > 0:36:40Terrible problems with language.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43We had Italians that didn't speak English,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45English that didn't speak French.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50To be honest, the competition design was unbuildable.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53You know, sort of floundered around,
0:36:53 > 0:36:55trying to find out what was happening.
0:36:57 > 0:37:02We dug an absolutely colossal hole in the centre of Paris.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07I do remember this sort of feeling of slight panic once,
0:37:07 > 0:37:11looking down this massive hole, and it was huge,
0:37:11 > 0:37:15and thinking, "Christ, what the hell are we going to put in this hole?"
0:37:15 > 0:37:18And gradually, over the next weeks, it became apparent that we were
0:37:18 > 0:37:23in a war because the French were absolutely hopping up and down
0:37:23 > 0:37:27that foreigners, non-French, had won a competition for what was going
0:37:27 > 0:37:30to be, although we didn't realise at the time, a national monument.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54While Rogers battled to get his new-style art centre out of its hole,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57his former partner was radically rethinking
0:37:57 > 0:38:00a different type of building - the office.
0:38:00 > 0:38:01This is Ipswich.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04It's a pleasant, if rather ordinary town.
0:38:04 > 0:38:09In 1975, it found itself with a most extraordinary building.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11You may think it looks odd.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13I think it may be the nearest thing to a masterpiece
0:38:13 > 0:38:16that the modern movement has produced in Great Britain so far.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33Norman Foster, with Michael Hopkins, created a building which,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37in more ways than one, would prove the forerunner of the places
0:38:37 > 0:38:39where many of us work today.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42For starters, it's shiny.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47If you look back at the people that changed the way that
0:38:47 > 0:38:50architecture around us looks, there's not that many of them
0:38:50 > 0:38:53and Norman Foster had a lot to do with persuading the architects
0:38:53 > 0:38:58that followed him to use extensive glass all over their buildings.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03Earlier generations of modern architects held
0:39:03 > 0:39:07large panes of glass in place with concrete or steel supports.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10At Willis Faber, there's nothing between the sheets
0:39:10 > 0:39:13except a thin layer of neoprene rubber.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15Rather than trying to support something from underneath,
0:39:15 > 0:39:18it's much easier to hang it from the top.
0:39:18 > 0:39:20I mean, glass is immensely strong when it's suspended
0:39:20 > 0:39:24and the glass is truly suspended around the edge.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28Foster perfected the art of framing huge sheets of glass
0:39:28 > 0:39:29with next to nothing.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32It was an extraordinary technical achievement.
0:39:32 > 0:39:38It made buildings look wonderfully precise and elegant and ethereal.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45Back in the '70s, even the nation's leading glass manufacturer
0:39:45 > 0:39:47had been sceptical about whether
0:39:47 > 0:39:51a curtain wall of the size Foster wanted was remotely feasible.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55Pilkington's were nervous of it and they were worried about
0:39:55 > 0:39:57whether they could do it.
0:39:57 > 0:40:004,000 square metres, after all, the largest glass wall in Europe,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03this was taking technology a whole lot further
0:40:03 > 0:40:05in terms of flexibility and the fact it would go round curves
0:40:05 > 0:40:10and everything else, so it was an enormous leap forward.
0:40:10 > 0:40:11Oh, it was very radical.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16The great thing about Willis is they were an insurance business
0:40:16 > 0:40:20and they were prepared to take a punt on this working out, you know.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31As with Foster's work for the dockers,
0:40:31 > 0:40:34this building was radical not only in terms of how it looked,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37but also how it was designed to be used.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40Employees were treated to a garden on the roof and -
0:40:40 > 0:40:43the height of '70s luxury - a heated swimming pool.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50The feature which proved most influential however was
0:40:50 > 0:40:52the way the workers were arranged -
0:40:52 > 0:40:55this was the first major office block in Britain
0:40:55 > 0:40:57to be entirely open plan.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04It seemed you could get a better solution by bringing people
0:41:04 > 0:41:09together on one floor, without, um, fixed walls between them,
0:41:09 > 0:41:13and to create areas with moveable elements of furniture.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16It seemed a progressive idea at the time.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20Tear down the walls and everyone could come together in harmony -
0:41:20 > 0:41:23the workplace as one big commune...
0:41:23 > 0:41:26with typewriters.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29And the freedom promised by open plan wasn't just social,
0:41:29 > 0:41:31it was structural.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34Fewer walls meant greater flexibility.
0:41:35 > 0:41:39It's a far better environment for today's changing functions.
0:41:39 > 0:41:43An instant flexible office facility that can parallel
0:41:43 > 0:41:46the surging turbulent business life it serves.
0:41:46 > 0:41:50Large open spaces still needed to be organised somehow,
0:41:50 > 0:41:53which is why American designers Herman Miller had pioneered
0:41:53 > 0:41:56a system of modular office furniture.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01Building their British headquarters was a dream commission
0:42:01 > 0:42:04for any young architect obsessed with adaptability.
0:42:04 > 0:42:09I think they interviewed six firms of architects for their UK factory
0:42:09 > 0:42:11and Norman Foster was one of them.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15I know because they came straight from his office to our office, so...
0:42:15 > 0:42:18Your business is changing constantly.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21Herman Miller believes your office should change with it.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25They had a very good patter about flexibility
0:42:25 > 0:42:28and about how human beings weren't meant to be in boxes
0:42:28 > 0:42:30and we liked all this. We thought, together,
0:42:30 > 0:42:34we could design a factory building which was totally flexible.
0:42:45 > 0:42:49The particular innovation of this Farrell Grimshaw design was
0:42:49 > 0:42:51to take the concept of adaptability
0:42:51 > 0:42:53and apply it to the exterior of a building.
0:42:53 > 0:42:57All the wall panels here, whether plastic or glass,
0:42:57 > 0:42:59were interchangeable.
0:42:59 > 0:43:02Where we wanted glass, we could put glazing up,
0:43:02 > 0:43:06we could just have solid walls et cetera and we could change them.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11It was an architecture which doesn't just sort of stand there
0:43:11 > 0:43:13and you try and use it,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16but architecture that you can manipulate and you can change.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20"Hold on, Geoff" if you like democracy in the workplace,
0:43:20 > 0:43:22that's what was emerging.
0:43:22 > 0:43:25The goal of flexibility was challenging notions
0:43:25 > 0:43:30of how buildings functioned and consequently what they look like.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40In Paris, Rogers and Piano had finally figured out
0:43:40 > 0:43:43how to build their adaptable, accessible art centre.
0:43:49 > 0:43:53In the pursuit of architectural and political freedom,
0:43:53 > 0:43:55they'd discarded their own early plans,
0:43:55 > 0:44:00rejected architectural tradition and inverted structural convention.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02The building itself is inside out.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05In other words, what you usually see inside goes on the outside.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08That means that inside is totally free of these elements
0:44:08 > 0:44:10and so totally flexible.
0:44:10 > 0:44:13These large spaces, the equivalent of two football fields,
0:44:13 > 0:44:15without a single vertical interruption.
0:44:19 > 0:44:21You've got the ultimate Meccano box here,
0:44:21 > 0:44:23where you can change everything,
0:44:23 > 0:44:26you can build a little cell there, you can build a big space there,
0:44:26 > 0:44:28you can have a moving floor there.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34The architects couldn't find a Meccano set
0:44:34 > 0:44:36with 150-foot-long pieces, however,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39so their kit of parts had to be custom-made.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44These huge things were made in a casting factory.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47It was a bit like Dante's Inferno.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49You know, it's extraordinary to see
0:44:49 > 0:44:53because you've got these huge vats of molten steel
0:44:53 > 0:44:56and you can mould something to the exact requirements,
0:44:56 > 0:44:58which is a big advantage.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00Obviously, aesthetically, it's very pleasing
0:45:00 > 0:45:02because you can get any shape you want.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09Quality is controlled in the factory.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12Everything arrives prefabricated, ready-finished.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16This building was put up faster than any building in Europe.
0:45:16 > 0:45:18The structure itself and the floors
0:45:18 > 0:45:20all went up above ground in eight months,
0:45:20 > 0:45:21just like a Meccano.
0:45:25 > 0:45:27It wasn't just the structural engineering
0:45:27 > 0:45:31which the architects had exposed to the public.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36What you actually are seeing, which is new in this inside-out building,
0:45:36 > 0:45:38is the mechanical services.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41All those elements which are usually hidden behind a false ceiling
0:45:41 > 0:45:42or a false wall.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44From a functional point of view,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47this also happens to be the part which you change most.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51The pipes are colour-coded - green for water, blue for air,
0:45:51 > 0:45:53as if they were merely elements of a diagram.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56But filling an entire street of historic Paris
0:45:56 > 0:46:00with supersized plumbing wasn't motivated purely by practicality.
0:46:00 > 0:46:06The use of the machine language was really part of this rebellion,
0:46:06 > 0:46:11to the fact that a cultural building should be like a tool
0:46:11 > 0:46:13and not like a palace.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21French critics had once dismissed Rogers and Piano as "hippies".
0:46:21 > 0:46:23They were, in fact, more like punks,
0:46:23 > 0:46:25sticking two fingers up at conventions
0:46:25 > 0:46:27of what a building should look like
0:46:27 > 0:46:29and also at the Parisian authorities.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35I have to be honest, I certainly look at it and think,
0:46:35 > 0:46:38"God, how did we get away with that?"
0:46:40 > 0:46:43We just sort of didn't really bother about the planners and things.
0:46:46 > 0:46:47There was never a drawing of it.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52They were just pipes and nobody's interested in pipes, are they?
0:46:53 > 0:46:56And I don't think anybody outside the office was quite aware
0:46:56 > 0:46:58of what was happening until it happened.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03We went through all the adventure of Pompidou
0:47:03 > 0:47:06pretending we didn't talk French.
0:47:06 > 0:47:08"Je ne comprends pas."
0:47:08 > 0:47:12"I don't understand" was our system.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15I think, just watching back, we were impossible people.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19Through their bloody-mindedness,
0:47:19 > 0:47:23the team had got their design built more or less as they'd wanted,
0:47:23 > 0:47:25but at first there was little to suggest
0:47:25 > 0:47:28that anyone else would like it.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32We didn't have a single piece of positive media for six years.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35There were all sort of comments in the paper, like,
0:47:35 > 0:47:37"When are they going to take the scaffolding down?",
0:47:37 > 0:47:38and all this sort of thing.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50The fortunes of the project were transformed, however, by the public.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53In its first year of opening, it attracted more visitors
0:47:53 > 0:47:56than the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre -
0:47:56 > 0:47:58over six million people.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01It was immediately taken over by the young.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05Within days of opening, it was full to the doors with young people.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13Out of 681 entries to Pompidou's competition,
0:48:13 > 0:48:15only Rogers and Piano had suggested
0:48:15 > 0:48:18creating a public piazza on the site.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20It became a meeting point for the whole of Paris.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29The Pompidou Centre set the template for the modern arts landmark -
0:48:29 > 0:48:32accessible, fun and iconic -
0:48:32 > 0:48:34and some of its earliest visitors
0:48:34 > 0:48:37have grown up to be architects themselves.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40I used to go to Paris while the Centre Pompidou was being built.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43It was a very important experience,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46just to see such an extraordinary building.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49It's certainly the most radical building
0:48:49 > 0:48:52of the post-war years, I think.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56There aren't many buildings
0:48:56 > 0:48:58that actually change things for ever,
0:48:58 > 0:49:00that they change the way we look at the world.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05Centre Pompidou spawned a new generation of architects
0:49:05 > 0:49:10who unashamedly celebrated the art of engineering
0:49:10 > 0:49:12in a way that was very explicit.
0:49:13 > 0:49:19Pompidou, created against all odds, felt at first like a one-off.
0:49:19 > 0:49:20Yet, less than a year later,
0:49:20 > 0:49:23Norman Foster unveiled an art gallery
0:49:23 > 0:49:26which sounded remarkably similar.
0:49:26 > 0:49:28Aiming for a number of things -
0:49:28 > 0:49:34to produce a building that didn't monumentalise art,
0:49:34 > 0:49:37a building that would be open in its approach,
0:49:37 > 0:49:39that would bring activities together.
0:49:57 > 0:49:59The interior itself is completely uncluttered, so that you can
0:49:59 > 0:50:03adjust lights within it and you can move panels around and so on.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07Flexibility - the building can change.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11Parts of it are open so you can get views out and natural light in.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25The aims of Foster and Rogers were almost identical.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29The resulting buildings, however, looked very different.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Rogers' structure felt like a fantastical machine.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40Foster's architecture was rational and minimal,
0:50:40 > 0:50:44less of a spaceship, more of an aircraft hanger.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48There are obviously common denominators between us,
0:50:48 > 0:50:50a sense of shared values.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54But if you look at the directions in which we've evolved,
0:50:54 > 0:50:58I think that you'll find that we've gone in different directions
0:50:58 > 0:51:02and I think, you know, that's something to celebrate.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07While Foster was designing his temple
0:51:07 > 0:51:10for Sir Robert and Lisa Sainsbury's art collection,
0:51:10 > 0:51:14another of his collaborators decided to go solo.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18Norman came up with the idea of this bloody great aircraft hangar.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22I remember feeling that that was going off in the wrong direction
0:51:22 > 0:51:25for that particular thing.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28And I was sort of half thinking of going on my own
0:51:28 > 0:51:32and, anyway, Norman went on and built the Sainsbury Centre
0:51:32 > 0:51:34and far from being the wrong thing,
0:51:34 > 0:51:39it was always the best thing in Robert Sainsbury's collection.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41You know, he really loved it.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44So I was quite wrong.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49Michael Hopkins immediately set up a new practice,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52with an architect he already knew well -
0:51:52 > 0:51:53Mrs Hopkins.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56You came home to join me, really, didn't you?
0:52:00 > 0:52:03Their first project was to build themselves a family home,
0:52:03 > 0:52:07which took a strikingly different form from its Hampstead neighbours.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20There would be no question at that moment in time...
0:52:22 > 0:52:24..it was going to be a steel and glass box.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27It was an aesthetic that we really enjoyed,
0:52:27 > 0:52:31the structure expressed on the inside.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34In the way that we knew we liked things to look.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47Having built one of Britain's first open-plan office blocks,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51Michael Hopkins now chose to live in a very open-plan home.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56Initially, we didn't have any blinds around the perimeter.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00It became clear very quickly that we needed some blinds,
0:53:00 > 0:53:02so we got the perimeter blinds
0:53:02 > 0:53:07and then we went on to use blinds as the subdivision internally.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10They're raised and lowered to adapt the space.
0:53:10 > 0:53:15Le Corbusier had aspired to a house which was "a machine for living in".
0:53:15 > 0:53:1850 years on, here was a home built like a factory,
0:53:18 > 0:53:20from industrial materials.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22Hello.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26Photographs appeared in books and magazines across the world.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31We've lived... How long have we lived here now?
0:53:31 > 0:53:33- Um...- 30-odd years.
0:53:33 > 0:53:35Mmm, 35 years now.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38It's exactly the same as it's always been. It's always been...
0:53:38 > 0:53:39It's just us, really.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42Haven't changed my mind about it one little jot in, er...
0:53:42 > 0:53:43No.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46I mean, I'd like...
0:53:46 > 0:53:49I'd like the thing a bit bigger, bigger scale.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56The Hopkins house was a textbook example of what, by the late '70s,
0:53:56 > 0:54:00was seen as a distinctive movement in architecture.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03Hopkins, Foster, Rogers, Grimshaw and Farrell
0:54:03 > 0:54:08were praised by critics for bringing modernism into the space age,
0:54:08 > 0:54:11and their collective achievements now had a name -
0:54:11 > 0:54:13high-tech.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15But it hadn't come from the architects.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18I've always rather objected to the word "high-tech".
0:54:18 > 0:54:22It sort of implies some kind of fashion label or something.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24High-tech, for God's sake, was going to the moon,
0:54:24 > 0:54:26you know, I mean...
0:54:27 > 0:54:31It doesn't really have anything much to do with real high technology,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33digital technology,
0:54:33 > 0:54:38but then Gothic has nothing to do with Goths either.
0:54:38 > 0:54:40Stylistic labels have a life of their own.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48The writers who popularised the term "high-tech" had picked up
0:54:48 > 0:54:51on something the architects rarely discussed.
0:54:51 > 0:54:53Technology in their work wasn't only a means
0:54:53 > 0:54:56of delivering more efficient buildings -
0:54:56 > 0:54:58it was also their defining aesthetic.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02This century is very much the century of science
0:55:02 > 0:55:04and we find that the analysis of science
0:55:04 > 0:55:07helps us with the poetry of architecture.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13High-tech meant more than the rational application of engineering.
0:55:13 > 0:55:15It was the celebration,
0:55:15 > 0:55:20perhaps even fetishisation, of the imagery of technology.
0:55:20 > 0:55:23Unfortunately, those were the qualities one of its inventors
0:55:23 > 0:55:25began to distrust.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29It wasn't just a way of building, it was a style.
0:55:29 > 0:55:34There were ideological fixers that everything had to be lightweight,
0:55:34 > 0:55:37everything had to be synthetic and factory-made.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42Farrell's doubts about high-tech were fuelled by plans
0:55:42 > 0:55:44for the historic London district of Covent Garden.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49The fruit and veg market moved out to this big shed,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53quite techy kind of building, very efficient and so on,
0:55:53 > 0:55:58so there was a whole district of empty and semi-derelict buildings.
0:55:59 > 0:56:02So the proposal, if you continued the past 20 years,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05was to knock it all down, start again.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07In fact, the student, Nicholas Grimshaw,
0:56:07 > 0:56:09had designed a new scheme
0:56:09 > 0:56:11for the whole Covent Garden site in the '60s.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15There was no idea of conservation then.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17As far as we were concerned,
0:56:17 > 0:56:20they were crummy, crumbling Victorian buildings
0:56:20 > 0:56:23and we students were absolutely thrilled -
0:56:23 > 0:56:25this was a real chance for something new.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31But by the '70s, the public was beginning to question
0:56:31 > 0:56:33whether new always meant better.
0:56:35 > 0:56:39For the first time, opposition was growing, protest movements began
0:56:39 > 0:56:43and I joined in the groups and I did several projects there.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47I was able to argue for the retention of all the buildings
0:56:47 > 0:56:49and I made a new courtyard
0:56:49 > 0:56:51and we did almost, as it were, a demonstration scheme.
0:56:53 > 0:56:56Farrell's new-found interest in conservation
0:56:56 > 0:56:59set him on a collision course with his partner.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02I got the most terrific excitement
0:57:02 > 0:57:06and thrill out of working with the newer materials
0:57:06 > 0:57:09and the possibilities for the future
0:57:09 > 0:57:12and I didn't sense, really in any way,
0:57:12 > 0:57:15that Farrell was interested in that.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Grimshaw saw it much more clearly than I did at the time
0:57:19 > 0:57:25that it couldn't continue with two architects that were drifting apart,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27as they say in marriages.
0:57:27 > 0:57:29You know, Fosters and Rogers,
0:57:29 > 0:57:31they were never longer than two or three years.
0:57:31 > 0:57:33Ours was 15 years, and so when it went,
0:57:33 > 0:57:38I felt a deep sense of loss and I felt this was like a death.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42Farrell and Grimshaw split in 1980.
0:57:42 > 0:57:44Their differences proved prophetic
0:57:44 > 0:57:47for the difficult decade which architecture was about to enter.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49MUSIC: "Are 'Friends' Electric?" by Tubeway Army
0:57:49 > 0:57:53Heritage and high-tech would be pitted against each other
0:57:53 > 0:57:57and the '60s radicals would have to adapt to a more conservative era.
0:57:58 > 0:58:02In the next episode, high-tech defends itself against rival styles,
0:58:02 > 0:58:05the press and even the heir to the throne.
0:58:06 > 0:58:09The new mission for the architecture of the future
0:58:09 > 0:58:11was to get along better with the past.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17You can learn more about iconic British designs
0:58:17 > 0:58:18and the people behind them
0:58:18 > 0:58:22with The Open University's interactive Building Stories.
0:58:22 > 0:58:23Go to...
0:58:26 > 0:58:28..and follow the links to The Open University.