“London’s Worst Attractions” recognized by the Internet, actually cost 6 million pounds | Aifaner

Designers and studios who originally thought of a great god level can, like the original Yanzhai teacher designing the Xiaomi logo, the client “accepts all the orders” and realizes the originality on the design drawings intact.

——But recently, an internationally renowned architecture firm designed the “world‘s first publicly accessible art warehouse” MVRDV of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, and it will inevitably “turn over.”

MVRDV “turned over” this time because of the design of an artificial mountain attraction, which is also known as Marble Arch Mountain due to its proximity to the famous historical site-Marble Arch.

Spend 6 million pounds (early public information lied to be 2 million pounds), which is equivalent to about 50 million yuan, just to build a half-year temporary attraction. On a daily basis, it will cost 33,000 pounds (nearly 300,000 yuan). cover the cost.

This is obviously a lineup of 5A attractions, but in the end it was rated as “London’s Worst Attractions” by netizens.

Tourist Emma Wright sent a very disappointing selfie with the caption: “Visiting Marble Arch Mountain is the worst thing I have ever done in London.” She was seldom liked and commented on weekdays, but she was rewarded in this matter. A lot of resonance, not only being reposted frequently, but also in major media.

Two days after the opening, Marble Arch was closed and refunds were given to customers who booked tickets, unable to withstand a round of fierce attacks from bad reviews. Later, it opened for free at the beginning of August, but it was commented as “A ticket for 0 yuan is still too expensive.”

——The reason is that the damage level of the physical photos of the landscape is not lower than the buyer’s show that the seller wants to delete.

The ticket page of the official website of Marble Arch Mountain uses a design rendered by MVRDV with 3D software.

However, Marble Arch, a temporary attraction that can only be seen for 8 pounds, grows like this-a rockery glued with cheap turf, and it is not green enough.

But the story is not so simple. After learning about the original design of MVRDV, I have to admit that fortunately, it did not follow the designer’s idea, otherwise it is not just “London’s worst attraction”.

Because MVRDV’s idea is quite “crazy”, they want to use this artificial mountain to cover the marble arch. However, as a historical relic that needs to be protected, how did the Marble Arch become a mistaken Monkey King and be suppressed under this “Five Finger Mountain”?

However, in the eyes of foreign netizens, Marble Arch Mountain is not even comparable to the scene in the game “Mario Kart 64”, and is more like a large “slag pile.”

As long as you think that the original “slag pile” will bury a historical relic in it, the next thing is hard to imagine. I can’t help but sigh, how did the brains of these designers form?

Design concept born for 17 years

Before Marble Arch Mountain, MVRDV had an obsession with the green landscape mountain that “covered” the building.

After the Marble Arch Mountain came out, someone in the circle immediately saw the clues. Isn’t this the serpentine gallery pavilion plan that MVRDV died that year?

In 2004, MVRDV was very young and was invited by the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Park, London to design a new pavilion. Since 2000, the Serpentine Gallery has invited architects every year to design a new building on the lawn of Kensington Gardens-only in the year when MVRDV took over, there was no actual pavilion built.

MVRDV, who was still young, was very ambitious. They saw that the pavilions designed by other architects were built on the lawn in front of the gallery building, which seemed to have nothing to do with the gallery itself.

MVRDV feels that since it is to be done, it must be integrated with the Serpentine Gallery in order to be worthy of the name Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.

So they submitted a proposal to build an artificial landscape mountain outside the Serpentine Gallery. On this mountain, you can not only overlook the beautiful scenery, but also connect to the internal cafe, allowing visitors to sit on the lawn and drink coffee.

MVRDV still retains the description of the design proposal on its official website: “This concept is to establish a stronger relationship between the pavilion and the gallery, so that it is not a separate building, but an extension of the gallery. Through Incorporate the existing building in the museum and transform it into a mysterious hidden space.”

In other words, MVRDV will use a new building designed by itself to hide the original serpentine gallery building.

Julia Peyton-Jones, who served as the curator of the Serpentine Gallery at the time, was soberly aware of the safety risks of this scheme to the Serpentine Gallery, and suspended the construction plan on the grounds that it was too expensive. She later called it a “heroic failure” in an interview.

MVRDV was the youngest design company we commissioned at the time, and they came up with an amazing, brave, and magnificent proposal. This is the first time the architect really wants to erase the traces of the gallery.

-Julia Peyton-Jones, former curator of Serpentine Gallery

After 17 years, MVRDV once again wanted to cover the building with a giant artificial mountain. If it is completed this time, it will still be a “heroic failure.”

Strange attraction design logic

Due to the impact of the epidemic, the originally prosperous Oxford Street business district has become depressed, so the local government plans to build a new attraction at the marble arch at one end of Oxford Street to attract more people and rejuvenate the surrounding business district.

The default setting for this attraction is a building such as “Observation Deck”, which can overlook the beautiful scenery of London.

But when the project was handed over to MVRDV, they were once again fascinated by the obsession of covering the building. They did not modify the plan until they were warned by experts to leave space for the marble arches and built an artificial mountain that was much smaller than the original plan.

No matter how crazy the idea is, you can see the logic that a powerful new attraction can temporarily attract tourists and promote consumption throughout the summer and autumn, allowing people to return to physical stores, and reversing the trend of people shopping online. .

——TLDR News

When the scale was reduced, the idea of ​​using soil to cultivate green plants was forced to use sedum turf, but the weather in London was not strong, sedum plants grew sparsely, exposing large brown turf, making this artificial mountain look even more ” It’s artificial, and it’s a shoddy kind.

After receiving bad reviews, MVRDV attributed the design error to the unfinished project and the need to give plants more time to grow.

The mound is a living device, and working with plants is unpredictable, especially in challenging weather conditions.

——MVRDV

As Marble Arch Mountain is scheduled to open until January next year, MVRDV explained that the green plants will change with the seasons and the attractions will become different. Such a far-fetched reason to find the weather, naturally received the public opinion counterattack.

Netizen Judith Patten questioned: “Too dry? London has been raining heavily (and flooding) in the past few weeks, and only one day was dry.”

Not only that, the viewing effect in the propaganda copy has not been realized. Commentator Dan Barker visited the attraction on the first day of opening. When he climbed up the 25-meter-high viewing platform, he did not see the “Let visitors enjoy the magnificent view of London” as stated in the promotion. On the contrary, it is a “construction site” covered with rubble, and when looking into the distance, dense trees will block most of the sight.

Moreover, this simple observation deck must be guarded by staff to prevent tourists from being in danger or dropping valuables such as mobile phones.

The Marble Arch Mountain, which has not many tourists, seems to be overestimated. It also built a “fast track” with an original price of £8, so Dan once joked: “It costs 6 pence for each step up.”

After the free open tour, the organizers behind it still hope that Marble Arch Mountain will attract 200,000 visitors by January next year, and claim: “Millions of people are expected to pass through the area to see its charm. “

Unfortunately, the actual experience cannot support this overly optimistic imagination.

There is still no shortage of good design for green landscape architecture

The failure of Marble Arch Mountain does not mean that the artificial mountain is completely unacceptable by the public. In a few positive reviews, netizen Ban used a photo of Teletubbies’ house to tell everyone: “I actually like Marble Arch.”

In the Teletubbies series released in 1997-2001, this grassy house that looks like a green hat is a real thing, located on a farm in Warwickshire, England.

Even after the show was stopped, enthusiastic Teletubbies fans still came here, and the troubled farmers could only razed the Teletubbies house to the ground. Now the location of this house has become a pond.

Judging from the precious bird’s-eye view left over at that time, the dome house is on a grass with some grass piers that look like a reduced version. The house itself is also a design that combines greenery and building structure, and landscape and architecture are really integrated into one.

The idea of ​​MVRDV to cover the buildings with artificial landscape mountains, whether it is a serpentine gallery or a marble arch of historical relics, is more of a replacement, burying the original design and replacing it with a new design. The illogical design was eventually accepted by the public.

James Shore, a landscape designer from the international-level landscape design company Wardell Armstrong, made a very pertinent evaluation of Marble Arch, and hoped that the public would not be discouraged by this project.

The worst part of this plan is that I am worried that it will be linked to greenfield investment.

As a concept of space design, I think it has advantages. It brings three-dimensional space to make full use of the space allocated in a city. Here, space is so precious. Of course, if you hire an architect, they There are advantages in this regard.

However, the rest of the design is full of problems, such as its impermanence-the landscape is different from the architecture and will only get better over time. Contrary to the case of the architecture, they are seasonal and require time and time. The surrounding ecological environment is established.

In the concept of combining green landscape and architecture, there is still no shortage of good designs.

The Casa Orgánica building, designed by Mexican architect Javier Senosiain Aguilar in 1984, is half buried under the ground like the Teletubbies house, and becomes the landscape of the hilly garden.

Today, Casa Orgánica is still a well-known local attraction in Mexico.

It costs US$480 for foreign tourists to visit. During the epidemic, the team can only visit 6 people, and they can only stay for one hour at a time, which still can’t stop the tourists who yearn for this attraction.

When I look at Casa Orgánica from the outside, it is completely covered by green plants. Walking in the garden may lead to the roof of the house without knowing it.

I thought the interior of this type of building would be dark and damp, but this half-buried house is brighter than normal buildings—the sun shines in and evokes infinite poetic fantasy in the cave-style interior space.

The architect Senosiain who designed this pinnacle architectural work has such thorough thinking about green buildings: “Humans must never be separated from their original impulses, from their biological nature. They must remember that they themselves come from a natural principle. , Looking for their place of residence cannot be separated from their roots; in other words, they must avoid making the place of residence unnatural.”

Whether it is architectural design or landscape design, once it breaks away from the laws of nature, the idea is too wild to return to life and truly serve its audience. No matter how good an idea is, it cannot be a good design that is praised by the public and remembered by history.