Author: Eric Schultz

“People think we know what we’re doing. Really, we’re just making it up as we go along.”

Guardian of Temple

I will remember London as a wonderfully bizarre collection of juxtapositions. Contiguities of new and old, a dynamism of physical and cultural points of view down every street, a surprise around every corner.

Our tremendous guide of Westminster Abbey, Andy, offered this tidbit of British history. “People think we know what we’re doing. Really, we’re just making it up as we go along.”

Looking back through my photos and notes it couldn’t be more evident, and that’s perfectly okay. Were it any different, London would lack the incredible richness and complexity that makes it so full of character.

Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Mondrian (Barbara Hepworth)

Edmund Bacon, the father of modern Philadelphia as well as actor Kevin Bacon, describes the responsibility of picking up where the previous generation left off as the “principle of the second man” in his Design of Cities. To some pieces of architecture we owe an incredible debt. Others not so much, however it’s not always clear. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. The choices we make as designers today, will have indelible impacts on tomorrow and beyond. We must be cognizant of these responsibilities, but we should not be intimidated. What makes the number of the projects we encountered so great is their ambition; a willingness to be bold, unique, and iconic.

London Wall Place Pedestrian Bridge: Make Architects

The greatest piece of advice I’ve been given in my architectural education has been to go look at stuff. Look for solutions to your own design problems. Chances are someone has already solved it, quite possibly hundreds of years ago. By studying abroad, I’ve been able to obtain a much wider scope, a number of new cards in my mental Rolodex, and an experience I will take forward into practice.

 

Henry Moore’s Mother and Child in St. Paul’s Cathedral

One of the most interesting pieces I found in St. Paul’s Cathedral was Henry Moore’s Mother and Child: Hood. Moore’s semi-abstract sculptures helped create a very specific form of modernism in the United Kingdom.

Completed in 1983 out of travertine marble, Moore’s take on Michelangelo’s Pieta is able to convey the grieving Mary after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ using minimal detail. The characteristic disparity in size between the Madonna and Christ becomes further exaggerated through the abstraction of form. The way Moore nests the two figures strengthens the maternal relationship by creating an almost wombic cradle.

Seeing more contemporary works of art in such historical spaces highlights the interconnectedness of their simultaneous presence in the city.

Henry Moore’s Mother and Child

A City Never Forgets

 

Wren’s Desire

London. Over 2000 years of urban history winding along the Thames. Everywhere one looks there is a constant reminder of the past among the present. Roman masonry across the street from Richard Rogers’ high-tech expressionism. World Heritage Sites among ostentatious skyscrapers. Royal palaces in the foreground of world financial centers. Olympic villages on top of reclaimed brown fields.

As London has evolved, it’s kept much of its previous DNA, even if as appendices in  many cases. As the city continues to change, what will we decide to save and discard? The things we produce and keep as a society reflect our needs and values. London is an incredible menagerie of what we hold dear, even if for the wrong reasons.

If New York was delirious then London is raw. Faced with confronting plague, the Great Fire, and the Blitz, it has kept its markers of preservation while carrying on with progress.

 

 

London Wall and 88 Wood Street

Tower of London and Beyond

Queen’s House and Canary Wharf

Eric’s Pre-Departure Thoughts

Being interested in urban design, I’m most excited to study the dynamic contextual relationships that trace the course of London’s history in real time. From Roman ruins to contemporary high rises, there is a readily observable dichotomy between the here and now, there and then, as well as everything in-between.

I’m also excited to visit post Brexit as shifting cultural and political sentiments challenge the field of architecture. I want to know how people feel about recent occurrences in the UK as well as the United States.

A major reason I wanted to study abroad was to gain a global experience. Being able to sketch, photograph, and fully sense such significant works and how they tie into the city, will undoubtedly broaden my scope and hopefully play a major role in my future work. While in London I plan on investigating brownfield development versus green belt reduction with regards to housing. Rapid urbanization is a global phenomenon and finding solutions that can translate around the world should be imperative to those responsible for the built environment.

Being a truly international city, I’m really looking forward to trying food from as many cultures as possible. Also as a huge football fan, I can’t wait to attend a match during our free day.

Eric’s Bio

Hi, I’m Eric Schultz and I’m a G2 in the M. Arch program. I’m originally from Youngstown, OH, but Columbus has been my home for the past decade. Although a graduate student, I’m still quite new to architecture. I completed my BS in applied mathematics from OSU in 2013, and spent the early part of my career in various areas of biomedical research. Through the past year and half, I’ve been constantly finding new avenues of exploration in the field. My current interests focus on the present and future challenges facing urbanization.

This is why I’m so excited to study abroad in London. Being a truly international city for over two millennia, the built environment of the metropolis has been influenced by a myriad of both internal and external forces encompassing political, socio-cultural, and economic movements.

As digital infrastructures continue to evolve in cities, data becomes an exponentially more plentiful resource. As architects, we are ultimately responsible for illustrating novel complex relationships in these spaces. For my individual project, I look to couple publicly available datasets within overlapping urban adjacencies to 1) clearly identify problems facing the continual growth of a global city, and 2) begin to visualize their solutions in urban design.

Eric Schultz