City of London Development by Architect Jean Nouvel in London, UK
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Architect: Jean Nouvel
Building Type: Retail + Office complex
Location: immediately east of St Paul's Cathedral, City of London
images © Miller Hare Ltd
One New Change - Building Description:
Land Securities' One New Change is a landmark 560,000sq ft retail and office development.
Designed by one of the world's premier architects, Jean Nouvel, One New Change is an iconic, world-class building which will offer a fresh perspective on the way we work, shop and live in the City.
One New Change will create a new focus in the heart of the City - an iconic, seven-days-a-week, world-class shopping and leisure destination. There will also be a public open space on the roof housing a café/restaurant, which will open up fantastic new views of neighbouring St Paul's Cathedral and more widely across the capital.
The design of One New Change will be both contemporary yet complimentary to Christopher Wren's baroque masterpiece, St Paul's. Jean Nouvel has designed buildings across four continents, in cities as wide ranging as Paris, New York, Rio De Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid and Beijing and has a reputation for providing challenging, original architecture for highly sensitive sites.
The shops and offices are organised around a central hub with the retail units arranged over three floors and the office over the upper floors with public open space at roof level. A panoramic lift set within the central atrium gives the public direct access to the roof and a series of stepped terraces.
The external cladding is carefully designed to give ONC a streamlined, contemporary feel while introducing a dialogue with neighbouring buildings. The glass is fritted to achieve a gradual gradation in density from clear to opaque. The treatment of each panel ranges from a clear glass vision area to a matt opaque finish in a range of colours and patterns, responding to the local context of each façade of building. There are 22 different colours and more than 250 different frit patterns on the glass. There are more than 6,300 glass panels of different sizes and shapes, with 4,300 individually unique pieces of glass.
The interior will have a polished feel, while the exterior is opaque and smooth - so One New Change echoes the surrounding stone and brick facades and establishes a dialogue with its neighbouring buildings.
One New Change will open in autumn 2010.
One New Change - Prince Charles Letter:
The Guardian reported 16 Aug 2009 that The Prince of Wales lobbied for one of the world's leading architects to be dropped from a £500m office and shopping complex beside St Paul's Cathedral so one of his preferred designers could take over, the Guardian has learned.
The developer who commissioned the Paris-based Jean Nouvel to design One New Change has revealed that the prince called for an alternative architect to be considered for the sensitive site yards from Christopher Wren's masterpiece.
In a private letter to Land Securities, one of Britain's largest commercial developers, the prince made clear he felt the firm had got its design approach wrong. He said he was concerned that the design should "allow St Paul's to shine bright" and offered his own architectural advisers, who prefer traditional forms, to help.
"He wrote to me at the time we selected Jean Nouvel and suggested we should meet his preferred architects," said Mike Hussey, then London director of Land Securities. "He hadn't seen the scheme, he just complained about the selection of the architect. He didn't want a modernist."
Charles's intervention, in a letter sent in 2005, emerged from a wide-ranging investigation by the Guardian into the extent of his sometimes hidden role in shaping Britain's skyline.
Amid concerns that his hands-on involvement in planning and architecture may exceed his constitutional role, it has also emerged that:
• His aides regularly scrutinise plans by major architects including Sir Terry Farrell, Sir Richard MacCormac, John McAslan and Alan Baxter who work on some of Britain's largest building projects.
• He told English Heritage's chairman to urge cabinet ministers to block a £200m development at Smithfield Market in London. It was rejected and his aides have now been asked to endorse new plans.
• His architecture charity is involved in plans for more than 17,000 homes across Britain – more than Persimmon, one of the country's largest house builders, built last year.
One New Change - construction photos from Jul 2009:
photos © Nick Weall
There were renewed concerns last week about the prince's influence when five design firms allied to his approach to architecture were selected to draw up draft plans for the Chelsea Barracks site after he successfully persuaded the Qatari developers to sack Richard Rogers. Like Lord Rogers, Nouvel is a winner of the Pritzker prize, architecture's version of the Nobel, as well as the Royal Gold Medal, Britain's highest accolade for an architect. The prince routinely opposes modernist architecture and advocates traditional styles based on historical precedents.
Sunand Prasad, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, described the intervention at One New Change as "brazen" and "pernicious" and last night called for him to "step back".
"The prince has an unusual amount of power which, under our constitution, is not designed to be used to interfere with the running of everyday affairs in this country for the simple reason that the prince is not accountable," said Prasad. "This is a dangerous course to go down. There was an open competition for this building and then along comes somebody with special powers seeking to influence the outcome in a blatant intervention."
Clarence House confirmed the private letter was sent in 2005 following Nouvel's appointment. The architect had won the commission in an international competition and the designs had been submitted to the Corporation of London planning authorities. Hussey, a leading patron of modernist architecture, decided the prince's suggestion was "not appropriate" and wrote back to decline the offer.
A spokesman for Clarence House said Charles was concerned to retain St Paul's "inspirational" status on the London sykline, but declined to comment further on the prince's private correspondence.
His aides believe the prince is entitled to share his views on the built environment. They defend his right to intervene over developments close to buildings or sites of national importance as he has done over the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and Paternoster Square, also beside St Paul's.
Related Project : Chelsea Barracks where Prince Charles also wrote to the developer pushing for a change from contemporary architecture.
Also previously by Jean Nouvel in London:
Walbrook Square - ’The Cloud’, City of London, UK
2006-
Foster & Partners / Jean Nouvel Architects
image from Stanhope
Walbrook Square London : abandoned Aug 2009
Another controversial Jean Nouvel design : MoMA New York tower
London Architecture - Selection:
London Bridge Tower - The Shard : Southwark skyscraper by Renzo Piano
image by Hayes Davidson and John Mclean
Doon Street tower London
London Architects
Prince Charles Letter : Chelsea Barracks
World Architecture : e-architect - a guide to key buildings across the globe
Comments / photos for the One New Change London page welcome:
info@e-architect.co.uk
One New Change - page: adrian welch / isabelle lomholt
Buildings by this architect:
Agbar Tower
Hotel Puerta America interior
Arab du Monde lnstitute
Key London Buildings:
Canary Wharf Tower
One Hyde Park
Swiss Re skyscraper
Key Links:
Office Buildings
London Skyscrapers