The Perfect Home_1of3
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00:00Does it matter what our houses look like?
00:06Can a building make us happy?
00:09What might a perfect home of today be like?
00:16Caring a lot about the design and decoration of our houses can seem both materialistic
00:21and self-indulgent.
00:22But this series argues that the dilemmas of the ordinary homeowner straddle a range of
00:28the most profound questions of the branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.
00:34The choices we make about the shape of the windows or the colour of the walls matter
00:39because we are, for better and for worse, different people in the different places we
00:44inhabit.
00:46In this programme I want to question the appearance of many new housing developments.
00:51Are the houses currently being built as well designed or even as beautiful as they could
00:56be?
01:01According to government figures, one million new homes are going to have to be built over
01:05the next ten years in Britain alone, a dramatic projection of growth echoed right across the
01:11developed world.
01:12It's a challenge, as important in its way as improving hospitals or schools.
01:18What vision of life and happiness should our new houses be proposing?
01:32This field just outside Stratford-upon-Avon is threatened by a proposed development of
01:37700 new homes.
01:41Local campaigner Gordon Brace is deeply pessimistic about what's going to be built here.
01:47How do you personally feel that this is going to come under the bulldozers?
01:51I think all the people who live here feel as all people always do when beauty is threatened.
02:00We feel fed up and very cross and personally very angry.
02:07There's more to Gordon's protest than a desire to save his view.
02:12His objection to the development is focused on the quality of its design.
02:17Why has the prospect of new houses come to seem like a curse rather than an opportunity?
02:25What do you think is particularly wrong with these houses?
02:27I think that the design is totally anonymous.
02:33The houses like this come off a computer model and they will be duplicated at any town you
02:40like to go to.
02:43It's just masses of these little houses.
02:47And then we're surprised that people retire into their own boxes, take no notice of their
02:51neighbours, don't form a community, don't go and vote, don't feel part of anything else
02:57because we've forced them into a situation where all they can do is go home and look
03:02at the telly.
03:06I don't dispute the need to build the houses.
03:09I'm interested in the impact of this kind of architecture on what I might as well call
03:14our souls.
03:17The most striking feature of the houses we're building today is that most of them don't
03:24look very modern.
03:25We seem passionately interested in reviving old styles, neo-Georgian, neo-Tudor, neo-Rocky
03:32Mountain style, anything but the style of our own era.
03:36We want to recreate the feel of life about 250 years ago, before the Industrial Revolution,
03:41in a simpler, more agricultural age.
03:47Great Knotley Garden Village outside Braintree, Essex, is a development of 2,000 new homes
03:53completed in 2003.
03:56Its developer, Chris Crook, showed me round.
03:58Chris, if a Martian came to this village, there would be no way of them knowing that
04:03they were in the 21st century.
04:06They might think they were in 1750.
04:08There's nothing that says we are living today, rather than 200 years ago.
04:13You would know something about the age, because you've got a double garage integral to the
04:20design.
04:22My main objection is that I think the houses should, in some way, reflect the age in which
04:26we live.
04:27As you know, the interior of this house is very different to the exterior.
04:31The interior will be modern, it will be full of computer equipment, it will be cutting
04:35edge.
04:36And it will be harking back to something which no longer exists.
04:39Not at all.
04:40I mean, if that's what people want, we're in the industry of producing what people want.
04:52Property developers are often criticised for being greedy, but to blame their financial
04:56aspirations is to miss the point, as a visit to the elegant squares of Georgian London
05:03makes clear.
05:06Up until the 1760s, this part of London was all just farmland.
05:10But that's when a speculative property developer by the name of the Earl of Bedford decided
05:14that he would construct one of the great classical squares of the world on this very spot.
05:19And I think he succeeded quite well.
05:21The Earl took a keen interest in every aspect of the buildings that he designed.
05:26He made stipulations as to the colour of the doors, the width of the windows, the heights
05:30of the houses.
05:31He's even said that he could be seen on a Sunday morning trimming the hedges to ensure
05:36a perfect classical sense of symmetry.
05:41I'm not saying that we should be copying the architectural style of Bedford Square today.
05:46Quite the opposite.
05:47But the level of artistic ambition of its developer and the architectural boldness of
05:52his designs would be something to emulate.
05:56The real lesson of Bedford Square is that there doesn't have to be a conflict between
06:00creating something that's beautiful and something that will make money.
06:06I want to criticise many new developments, neither for their very existence nor for their
06:11commercial aspirations, but because of their style.
06:15The kind of architecture they employ has been called pastiche, that is, an unconvincing
06:21reproduction of the styles of the past.
06:25There's nothing wrong with wanting our houses to be in touch with the traditions of our
06:29country.
06:30It's how we do it that counts.
06:32So what's the problem with a pastiche way of doing things?
06:37Come with me to a few interesting places around the world and you'll see.
06:49For anyone interested in architecture, I recommend a visit to this fascinating town.
06:56Stay at the magnificent Hotel de l'Europe, with its stunning views over the canals.
07:01Take a relaxing trip in a traditional Amsterdam glass-topped boat.
07:07Soak up the atmosphere of the historic market square with its wonderful Dutch cheese shops
07:12and its medieval guild hall.
07:16And if you like that kind of thing, there are windmills.
07:22It's a beautiful place, a magnificent piece of urban planning and a model of ecological
07:27sustainability.
07:28So why is it that as soon as I got here, I started to feel uneasy, even nauseous?
07:38The reason I'm feeling a little bit strange is that, despite appearances, I'm not in fact
07:42in the Netherlands.
07:44I'm in Japan, just near the southern city of Nagasaki.
07:50This is Huistenbosch, an entire fake Dutch town, which allows the Japanese to experience
07:57the charms of the pre-20th century Netherlands without any of the inconvenience of actually
08:03having to go there.
08:06It's a meticulous recreation.
08:08The very wood and bricks have been imported from Holland.
08:11But the place is all the eerier for its historical exactitude.
08:21The lesson of this strange Japanese town is that a good building needs to be more than
08:26just structurally sound.
08:29Its appearance must also in some way cohere with both its place and its time.
08:37Huistenbosch Dutch village may be an extreme example of pastiche architecture, but here
08:43in Great Notley Village, you get some of the same eerie, unnerving quality.
08:47The buildings may be more recognisably in the right country, but they're certainly not
08:52of the right era, which begs the question, why are we so interested in building in the
08:56styles of a pre-industrial age?
09:06On the grounds of the Palace of Versailles stands a strange little village called the
09:11Queen's Hamlet, built in 1776 under the direction of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.
09:20Worn down by the formality and grandeur of life at Versailles, Marie Antoinette used
09:25to escape here to watch cows being milked and to perform in little plays about the lives
09:31of milkmaids and peasants.
09:34It's another eerie place, a fantasy stage set for a woman who clearly didn't have the
09:40faintest idea of what peasant life was actually like, and yet it's the forerunner of every
09:46neo-vernacular housing estate in the Western world.
09:52Marie Antoinette's reasons for liking this kind of peasant architecture are simple enough
09:56to read.
09:57Basically, she'd had enough of luxurious palace life, of mirrors, gold, marble and long state
10:03dinners, and she was looking to rustic architecture to help her to rebalance her character, to
10:08put her in touch with sides of her personality she was afraid of losing touch with.
10:13And in a way, nowadays in the modern Western world, we've all followed in the footsteps
10:17of Marie Antoinette.
10:18The general trend towards the rustic, towards a kind of fake country living, reflects the
10:23fact that we are in fact very far away from this kind of country life.
10:28We're looking to rustic architecture precisely because we're so very un-rustic in our
10:32souls.
10:42One can sympathise with Marie Antoinette's problems with the Palace of Versailles.
10:47It is oppressively ornate and formal.
10:50A few hours there does make you long for something simpler.
10:54And yet, wandering around the Queen's Hamlet today, you sense that it's not Marie Antoinette's
10:59complaints with the world around her that were misguided.
11:03It's how she responded to them.
11:06The problem is that she fell for a delusion.
11:09It's not just that most peasants lived in grinding misery and often longed to escape
11:14their scenic villages.
11:16It's that rather than grappling with reality, rather than trying to reform French upper
11:20class life to make it less decadent and ornate, she fled from it.
11:25Rather than trying to make the real world properly habitable.
11:29She ran away to a make-believe home, while the reality just got worse and worse, till
11:35a revolutionary mob came to bash down the gilded doors of Versailles and dragged her
11:40off to the guillotine.
11:49We seem in danger of responding to many of the problems of modern reality with the same
11:55lack of sophistication and courage as Marie Antoinette.
11:59The danger in our reality comes from a very different direction.
12:03Our world seems too brutal, too technological, too industrial.
12:08We see an ugly landscape taking shape of trading estates, factories and shopping malls, and
12:14the prospect frightens us.
12:17In the early 20th century, a German philosopher and art historian by the name of Wilhelm Wörringer
12:23came up with a fascinating thesis for why it is that certain societies and individuals
12:28will fall in love with certain kinds of architecture.
12:32His premise was that we fall in love in architecture with what we don't have enough of in ourselves.
12:38So the rustic style, infused as it is with the qualities of quaintness and simplicity,
12:44will appeal chiefly to societies where progress has been too fast, where there's an atmosphere
12:49of moral and spiritual confusion, and so a hungering for old certainties.
12:55In such a turbulent background, inhabitants will experience what Wörringer termed an
13:00immense longing for tranquillity, and so will turn to country cottages to regain a peace
13:06of mind.
13:16Dorian Bowen works in a large firm of surveyors in central London.
13:20Every weekend, he drives for four and a half hours into rural Carmarthenshire, and lives
13:25in a caravan, while he lovingly restores a rustic cottage.
13:32Now, your dream for the cottage is to bring it back as faithfully as possible to how it
13:37must have been in its heyday, I mean, that's the goal?
13:41Yes, to be as authentic as one practically can be, and faithful to the period as it were.
13:51This would have been the heart of the house, really.
13:55Everything was done around the fire.
13:58I mean, as you can see, even the furniture actually goes inside the fireplace itself.
14:04So you stay as close to the warmth?
14:06Yes, and all the cooking and everything was done in the fire.
14:11And, of course, the last little feature was the pigsty.
14:15This has been converted into the outside toilet.
14:18So you're converting it, but not into an en-suite?
14:22No, no, it's completely...
14:24Outside.
14:25Outside.
14:26So people will have to go outside of the house in winter, say, to go to the loo?
14:30Yes.
14:32As Wörringer would have pointed out, it takes a deeply urban person
14:36to feel the attraction of living in an 18th-century cottage.
14:40Like Marie Antoinette, we long for a simpler, more authentic life,
14:45longings that we think a country cottage will assuage.
14:51So, John, how do you imagine your life once you've moved out of the house?
14:55Well, I don't know.
14:58So, John, how do you imagine your life once work in the cottage is done
15:03and everything is set up? How will you spend your days here?
15:08I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do that.
15:10You've not thought about that?
15:12Look for another project, maybe.
15:16I recommend it to anybody, that they have a house full of bears.
15:20They'll never be miserable.
15:24Wörringer's ideas apply as much to how we do up the interiors of our houses
15:29as to their outward design.
15:31We're drawn to a style of decal because it seems to contain qualities
15:35in which the house is built.
15:37We're drawn to a style of decal because it seems to contain qualities
15:41in which the house is built.
15:43It seems to contain qualities in which we're deficient,
15:46so a given stylistic choice will tell us as much about
15:50what its advocates lack in their lives as what they like on their walls.
15:55The harsher and more frightening we perceive the modern world to be,
15:59the more we might want our houses to speak of softness and cosiness.
16:06There's a bear.
16:08Susan French started collecting teddy bears as a girl.
16:11His name's Bob? Old Bob.
16:13She and her late husband built up a collection that now numbers 800.
16:18So the bears are a comfort?
16:20Oh, yes, definitely. But they always were in childhood.
16:23You know when you come home from school and life was a bit...
16:27You got your bear and everything was OK.
16:30Why do you think people stop sort of hugging their bears?
16:34Probably because they don't feel very grown up, but I don't care.
16:38I think people often sort of care about what other people think
16:41and I never have.
16:43Why do you feel a strong need for that kind of cosiness and comfort?
16:50All my life I've liked to be cosy and comfortable
16:53and my mum and dad were very loving
16:56and we always had a lovely, cosy, happy house
16:59and I guess I wanted to recreate that and pass it on.
17:04What's the opposite of cosy for you when it comes to a house or a space or atmosphere?
17:10Minimalism.
17:12That's the opposite of cosy?
17:14Bear floorboards, one television in the corner
17:18and a couple of leather chairs.
17:21Very smart and sometimes I think, oh, it'd be lovely to have this
17:24and then I think, oh, no, I couldn't live like that.
17:28There's nothing wrong with wanting our homes to give us comfort and security.
17:33It's how we go about it that counts.
17:36Surely the best way to deal with what we don't like about the modern world
17:40isn't to pretend that that world never happened.
17:45If we're saying that the rustic style of architecture
17:48is all about getting us to forget reality,
17:51we could say, well, what's wrong with that?
17:53What's wrong with a little delusion?
17:55Any attack on delusion probably comes back to the idea
17:58that escaping the facts always has a price that you have to pay for doing so.
18:03The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche talked about a mature adult
18:07always being someone who no longer denies,
18:10who looks at the truth in the face.
18:14Nietzsche said,
18:16the worst sickness of men tends to originate in the sentimental way
18:20they try to combat their sickness.
18:23What seems like an easy cure in the long run
18:26produces something worse than what it's supposed to overcome.
18:30Fake consolations always have to be paid for
18:34with a general and profound worsening of the original complaint.
18:41So how does Nietzsche's thought apply to architecture?
18:44Really the idea is that a good building
18:46shouldn't be shutting itself off from reality.
18:49It should be in some way mediating
18:51between the inner world and the outer world as it actually is.
18:55The point of our buildings is to reconcile us to the facts of our lives.
19:03By refusing to grapple at an architectural level
19:06with the challenges of modernity,
19:08its technology, its speed, its titanic energies,
19:12we're letting the modern world become progressively uglier.
19:15We're creating a landscape divided on the one hand
19:18between uninspiring and brutal industrial and commercial zones
19:22and on the other, sentimental pastiche dormitory villages.
19:26We're ducking the challenge of making something beautiful
19:29out of the stuff of our modern reality.
19:35So does that mean that we should all be living in houses
19:38that look a little bit like industrial sheds or factories
19:41Of course not.
19:43I think it's quite possible for houses to look modern,
19:46to look distinctively contemporary,
19:48but to talk about the best sides of the modern world.
19:51Our houses should present us with a modern ideal.
19:58It's this belief that took me to Berlin,
20:01the new capital of a united Germany,
20:04a city which is trying to use its many new buildings
20:08in the way I think they should be used,
20:11to inspire its citizens with a modern, achievable vision
20:15of what they could ideally become.
20:29Why are there so many statues of angels and lions
20:32and men on horseback on the roofs of old buildings?
20:35So many allegories painted on the ceilings
20:38and high-minded slogans carved on the walls.
20:41It's all a bit unfashionable nowadays,
20:44but it's worth just thinking for a moment
20:47about why their architects thought it worth putting them there.
20:53I've come to Berlin to see how modern architecture
20:56might inspire us with ideals.
20:59It's a notion with deep roots in German culture.
21:02It was here in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
21:05that a group of artists and writers
21:08worked out a philosophy of architecture
21:11which they called idealisation.
21:19Idealisation was what motivated the man
21:22who built Berlin's grandest buildings in the 1820s and 30s,
21:26Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
21:30Schinkel wanted to endow Berlin
21:32with some of the qualities of ancient Athens.
21:35His bridges, museums and palaces aimed to inspire his fellow Berliners
21:40with the ideals he thought were important about classical Greece.
21:44Aristocratic self-confidence, discipline, courage and self-restraint.
21:50Schinkel wasn't stupid.
21:52He knew that Prussians were seldom as noble and heroic
21:55as the figures he placed on their buildings.
21:58But he believed that architecture
22:00should nevertheless show them what to aspire to.
22:04As Berliners crossed the Schlossbrücke to get to a meeting
22:07or went to the theatre in the evening,
22:10the hope was that architecture could, in a small but significant way,
22:14help to lift their spirits and unlock their bridled potential.
22:19This might all seem some distance away from our own more cynical age.
22:24It's impossible to overlook just how far short many Germans fell
22:29of the high-minded ideals inscribed in their buildings.
22:34But it would be a mistake to dismiss altogether
22:37the notion that buildings can inspire us with ideals,
22:41and modern Berlin provides us with the opportunity
22:44We haven't really lost sight of the whole project
22:47of idealisation in architecture.
22:49We still have ideals, but these are quite different ideals.
22:52We're interested in things like democracy, science and business.
22:56And these things still play a large part
22:59in the kinds of buildings that we build.
23:01Behind a practical façade,
23:03modern architecture has never lost sight of the idea
23:06of trying to reflect back to the past,
23:08to re-enact the past.
23:10Modern architecture has never lost sight of the idea
23:13of trying to reflect back to its audience
23:15a selective and perhaps quite flattering image of who it is
23:19in the hope of moulding upon and improving reality.
23:26The idea that a building should try to make us better people
23:30has implications for everything we build, including our houses.
23:34But it's perhaps easiest to accept
23:36where major public buildings are concerned.
23:39Take the refurbishment of the German parliament, the Reichstag.
23:43It's as full of idealising ambition
23:45as any of Schinkel's palaces ever were.
23:48This building, burnt down by the Nazis,
23:50left as a ruin since then,
23:52was thought by many people to be too tainted by the German past
23:56ever to be used again.
23:58But the British architect Norman Foster,
24:00by scooping out the structure
24:02and crowning it with a dazzling dome,
24:04has reinvented it.
24:07Lord Foster makes no bones about his philosophical ambitions.
24:11The Reichstag is creating a symbol
24:15which is about a public space
24:18and it is using the lightness and the transparency
24:21to signal, if you like, symbolically, the process of democracy.
24:25So, in that sense, it's become a symbol
24:28not only of Berlin but of a reunified Germany.
24:32But that transparency, that lightness,
24:34also creates a new relationship
24:36between the body politic and the public.
24:39That's also needed a lot of courage, if you like,
24:44on the part of the politicians
24:47to accept that, symbolically, the public that they serve
24:50are literally above them and looking down on them.
24:55The buildings produced under an idealising theory of architecture
24:59might be described as a subtle form of propaganda.
25:02The words are rather alarming one, but perhaps it shouldn't be.
25:05There's nothing wrong with the idea that works of art,
25:08and in particular architecture, should direct our actions in some way,
25:11so long as the directions it points us in are valuable ones.
25:15The defenders of idealised architecture
25:17are refreshing in the frank way in which they insisted
25:20that actually art should make things happen
25:23and, in particular, that our buildings should try to make us good.
25:32It's not just the Germans who've had to think
25:34about how modern architecture might speak of ideals.
25:38With the relocation of the capital of Germany to Berlin in 1990,
25:42almost every country in the world
25:44has been obliged to build a new embassy here.
25:49The point of an embassy is that it's a building
25:51that should speak about a country,
25:53what its values are, what it ideally stands for.
25:58This is the Dutch embassy,
26:00reflecting some of the virtues and aspirations of this country.
26:04Relentlessly modern, but also quite playful.
26:07This is the home of the United Arab Emirates.
26:10Yes, this looks like an oriental Shahrazad's palace.
26:17This is the Berlin home of the Swiss.
26:20Is this a bank? Is it an embassy?
26:22Hard to say.
26:25Now, this totalitarian bunker
26:27perhaps says more about the country that sponsored it
26:30than the architects originally intended.
26:32This is the Berlin home of the People's Republic of China.
26:39The British embassy seems very aware
26:41of its country's potentially rather staid, dour image
26:45and so seems to have taken a lot of pain
26:47to try and suggest a more fun and frivolous image,
26:50but it doesn't quite convince.
26:52It gives off the air of an accountant at a teenage disco
26:56taking off his tie and getting on the dance floor.
27:01An embassy is an unusually clear example
27:04of what all architecture should be trying to do,
27:07saying what's valuable about a culture.
27:10But it's important not to be too literal or too obvious.
27:14That's when you get a pastiche.
27:17We thought that we should send a subtle message to the Berliners
27:21that, yes, here is Egypt.
27:23And you can see that anybody...
27:25This is the subtle message. Yeah.
27:31The Egyptian embassy makes the same mistake
27:34as the neo-vernacular housing estates we visited in Britain.
27:38Yes, it's speaking about Egypt, but in the most clichéd of ways.
27:42It's reduced Egyptian-ness to the level of a mural on a wall.
27:46President Mubarak, and we should have this official picture.
27:50It's a carpet, isn't it? It is a carpet, yes.
27:55This building may nod towards the traditions of Egypt,
27:58but without showing how those traditions have anything to do with Egypt today.
28:03It's a classic example of a building Nietzsche would have called sentimental.
28:08So this is an Egyptian princess getting ready for a party.
28:11Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
28:14MUSIC PLAYS
28:18Compare that with the joint outpost of the Scandinavian countries in Berlin,
28:23five beautifully tooled national pavilions grouped around a common courtyard.
28:29What I admire here is that it really has summed up some good things about the region,
28:34but in a modern, subtle, unsentimental way.
28:38These buildings are an understated celebration of classic Scandinavian ideals.
28:43Openness, cooperation, democracy,
28:46and the harmonious coexistence of sleek modern technology
28:50with the rough-hewn materials of the ancient fjords, mountains and forests.
28:57This is Finland, then Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark.
29:03MUSIC PLAYS
29:06So what's this building trying to tell us about Finland?
29:09I wondered myself, but I think what it is telling is high-tech functionality
29:15and a certain economy in not overdoing it.
29:19I mean, this is the only colour spot we have,
29:22and the contrast, although I say it myself, is not bad.
29:26And the secret of the Finnish embassy is behind our backs,
29:30and that's, of course, the sauna.
29:32This is the sauna? This is the sauna.
29:34It's really a sauna? It looks like a meeting room.
29:36Oh, my God, it really is a sauna. It is a sauna.
29:38That's fantastic.
29:40So you resolve some of the big diplomatic issues that arise in the sauna.
29:43You couldn't imagine a Finnish embassy without a sauna.
29:47I agree, I agree.
29:49And you can imagine that all the others envy us for this.
29:53MUSIC PLAYS
29:56This is the Danish embassy. This is one of my favourites here.
30:00It is spectacular in a different way.
30:03What I like here is, of course, the light, the light wooden,
30:07and the clarity also.
30:09I mean, you have the whole embassy in one.
30:12You have these lifts.
30:14MUSIC PLAYS
30:17Denmark is designed...
30:20Denmark is designed...
30:22They are the smartest businessmen in Scandinavia.
30:30For me, the lesson of this building is that today's architecture
30:33can speak of the ideals of the age every bit as powerfully
30:37as the statue-covered museums of old Berlin once did.
30:41I think that's what domestic buildings could do too.
30:45So what contemporary ideals should our own houses be speaking of?
30:50And what might they look like if they did?
31:00I've been arguing that our buildings should reflect
31:03the best of our era and our country.
31:07Is it tempting as you fly over all this, you think,
31:09ooh, I could change that bit?
31:11What about removing that thing and putting something else?
31:14Must be an architect's temptation.
31:16Yes, you do see a bigger picture, certainly.
31:20So what is it about the modern world that architects should be celebrating?
31:25Norman Foster took me for a jaunt in his helicopter.
31:29And do you think it really has influenced your architecture
31:32to be able to have that added aerial perspective, this understanding...
31:37I think the aerial perspective is important.
31:40If you look at a building like Swiss Re,
31:42it's using the same principles that sustain flight.
31:52But I wondered whether it's quite so easy to find the modern world exciting
31:56when you can't fly effortlessly over it.
32:00What would you say to people who were frightened by modernity?
32:05I mean, here, in a way, we're seeing the most exciting aspect of modernity,
32:09but it could also be seen as sort of frightening
32:11to be up in this little glass box floating above London.
32:14I mean, I'm personally thrilled, and probably you are too,
32:17but some people are not. What do you say to them?
32:20I think there are more people who are excited than those who are not.
32:31There's an argument for saying that though some people remain very excited
32:34by technology and its promise, etc.,
32:36public taste, when it comes to especially domestic housing,
32:40lags behind that excitement.
32:42People are very happy to have a new computer and a new car
32:45and a modern-looking oven.
32:48But when it comes to the actual shape and design of the house,
32:51there's a tremendous nostalgia.
32:54Is it because that that is the dominant model and everybody wants it,
32:58or is it because there isn't a better alternative?
33:02The indications are that when they're in charge,
33:05whether they're, you know, that big or whatever...
33:08That actually the promises of modernity live on,
33:12if they're given a charge.
33:14You see, if you were going to Bath at the time that they were created,
33:18you know, that was the rejection of the past model of housing.
33:23It wasn't going to something that is now cosy and mellow.
33:27It was high-tech. Bath was high-tech in its day.
33:30Exactly. All of these, at their time,
33:33they were... they were radical.
33:36But you see, you can never at any point in the history of building
33:39take away technology.
33:41Technology is implicit, embedded, endemic.
33:44It's central to the creation of the kind of spaces that we're talking about.
33:54Lord Foster's vision of a public thrilled by technology and progress
33:58has largely triumphed
34:00where big public or civic buildings are concerned.
34:03Think of Tate Modern or his own magnificent gherkin, Swiss Re.
34:08But on the level of the domestic house, there's still a long way to go.
34:13So what are the modern ideals that we could be celebrating in our homes?
34:26What I always loved about this was the concrete.
34:28Swiss concrete is this most amazing invention.
34:30They put wood slats in front of it and it leaves the imprint of the wood.
34:35It's an extremely sort of sensual texture.
34:37I remember running my hands along this as a child constantly.
34:41And it's got this great smell as well, concretey smell.
34:45For me, that's a very Proustian smell.
34:48Brings back my whole childhood.
34:52I went back to the home where I grew up,
34:55a rented flat in a 1960s block in the Swiss city of Zurich.
35:13Now, I have not been in this space since I was 12,
35:18but I remember it absolutely.
35:20It's lovely to have this kind of central atrium, so light-filled.
35:25These huge windows.
35:27I seem to remember lots of things about,
35:29you're not allowed to touch the glass,
35:31because I'd leave my little handprints all over the place.
35:38Now, look at this. It's a fantastic, raw, concrete chimney breast.
35:44Tremendously bold. When you think that they were building this,
35:47this place was built in 66.
35:49So this was a real vision of how people should live
35:53as modern citizens.
35:55Incredibly light and airy. Fantastic view.
36:02And it's very touching, really,
36:04because this sort of sums up the ideals
36:06of what modern architecture was all supposed to be about.
36:10Open plan living, a kind of very free-flowing spirit.
36:16Incredibly in touch with nature.
36:23To me, this house still feels very modern.
36:26Most of the houses in Britain are probably about 20 years behind this,
36:30if not a century behind it.
36:35I actually remember that one of the great tragic things for me
36:38about coming to live in Britain, which I did when I was 12,
36:41was the windows.
36:43I grew absolutely obsessed by the windows,
36:45because look at these windows.
36:47They're fabulous, huge, chunky things.
36:49They shut like a submarine.
36:51I remember doing this as a child.
36:53So you're inside, you can sit here, and yet you can be outside as well.
36:57And this is really what modernism was all about.
37:00It was about living in the city, but with a garden.
37:03It was about living inside, but having contact with the outside.
37:07And it was about everything that a huge window symbolises.
37:10Openness, really, and a kind of freedom.
37:13So this house was a very friendly house.
37:17It spoke to me of all the things that I'm still nostalgic for,
37:21and that I still think that a lot of houses being built today
37:24don't speak of enough.
37:33For me, growing up in a house like this
37:36really made me familiar with the values
37:38of a kind of heroic age of modern architecture,
37:41and the ideas of speed, light, technology,
37:46all the most exciting things about living in the 20th century
37:50are sort of written into this building.
37:57There are signs that some of the ideals of modern architecture
38:01are finding acceptance, even by the conservative British.
38:07Carol Coombs and John Brooke
38:09used to live in a Victorian terrace in Ealing.
38:12Now they've built a modern house at the bottom of their garden,
38:15and they live there instead.
38:17The ironical thing is that we actually bought this piece of land
38:21that our house now stands on,
38:23mainly to prevent anybody else from building a horrid modern house.
38:27And then you've ended up building a beautiful one.
38:30Ah, but that was the whole story.
38:32We just presumed, because this is a conservation area,
38:35that we'd have to build what there is on the other side of the road,
38:38which would have been fine.
38:39You never really imagined it would be possible?
38:41No, no, and then suddenly the architect started to say,
38:44well, you know, I really don't think we're very constrained here.
38:47You can do more or less what you like. We'll give it a go.
38:53So, in many ways, this house sort of breaks the rules, doesn't it,
38:56of the traditional house?
38:58The first thing that breaks the rules, of course,
39:01is the glass roof here, of the atrium.
39:03And that's because this is the only... That's south.
39:06So, from an architect's point of view,
39:08it's very logical to make that glass, to let in the sun.
39:12And indeed, if it was a sunny day,
39:14the sun would be going onto our dining room table.
39:21Has it changed you as people, living in this house?
39:24Yes. Seeing the sky on all sides,
39:27it invites you to look out.
39:31And I think maybe I've always been, would you say, a fairly introvert person?
39:35Yeah, I think so. Yes, I think so.
39:37And I think it helps to make you realise
39:41that the purpose of a house
39:43is not a little sort of box in which you contain yourself,
39:47but actually what's important about it
39:49is the life you lead from your house.
39:52And so, somehow, it seems to me, anyway,
39:55to focus my mind less on things,
39:58but more on what I actually do, what I actually feel.
40:03What inspires me about Carol and John's house
40:06is that something as simple as opening the building out to light and space
40:10could have had such a large effect,
40:12not just on their views of the garden, but on their view of life.
40:17So, down the end here.
40:19So, this is where you spend most of your time living?
40:21Yes, yes.
40:26A fantastic frame here.
40:28Lovely view.
40:30What does an appropriate house do for the people who live in it?
40:34How does it affect them?
40:36I think it makes them able and enjoy change,
40:43that change is something that's exciting
40:47and not something a bit scary.
40:50We're quite frightened of change in this country.
40:52I mean, we quite like that. Yes.
40:54We don't really like that. We're a bit frightened of this.
40:57People said to us when we were doing it,
40:59oh, my God, it was such a risk.
41:01And we'd never seen it as a risk, really.
41:03Well, I hadn't.
41:05I'd seen it as rather a great project, a great adventure.
41:13So, I think I would say that it encourages you to do something different.
41:28It's a cruel irony that just when we might feel ourselves
41:32most vulnerable to our surroundings,
41:34we often come into contact
41:36with some of the harshest and bleakest architecture.
41:40The huge, long corridors in hospitals,
41:42for me, are personally quite a scary experience.
41:46You feel quite disorientated.
41:48You're not really sure where you are.
41:50But even in this most utilitarian of spheres, hospital design,
41:54there are encouraging signs
41:56that the benefits of good, modern architecture
41:59are beginning to be appreciated.
42:03Maggie's Centres are a series of drop-in centres
42:06designed by some of the world's leading architects,
42:09which provide people diagnosed with cancer
42:12with the opportunity to work in a hospital.
42:15This building, designed by the architect Frank Gehry,
42:18opened in 2003.
42:20It adjoins Dundee's main hospital.
42:28The first time I came in here, I stopped,
42:32and just... there was a calmness and a calmness
42:36and a calmness and a calmness and a calmness
42:39and a calmness and a calmness and a calmness
42:42and a calmness and a calmness
42:44and a calmness and a peace about this place
42:47that really helped me.
42:49And going upstairs to look out the window over the river,
42:54there was just a tranquillity about the place
42:58that I felt helped me.
43:02In this place, you can wander inside and outside,
43:05and it's aesthetically pleasing.
43:07To me, it's nice, it's relaxing.
43:10And if you do want to come to the place,
43:12I think it's helpful if you're coming to a place
43:14that's nice to be.
43:16I always felt, when I came in here,
43:18that I just felt much calmer instantly,
43:20and I don't know if it's because it's light
43:22or if it was the view or if it was the fact
43:24that it was a lot of wood, which made me feel
43:26actually quite warm, and because it's quite natural,
43:28it made me feel like I could switch off in some ways.
43:32I think that the structure of the building,
43:35inside and out here, with the roundedness
43:38of many of the features like the walls
43:41and that table, the staircase that winds up,
43:45there are just very few jagged, sharp edges in here.
43:49You could embrace it.
43:51I often think of it as a lot more compactly
43:53around so that I can go in.
43:56When I come in, I feel free, I feel alert,
43:59I feel confident, and I feel my mind is clearer.
44:03My thought processes are better.
44:06I feel sort of intellectually better
44:08because there's something about the place
44:11that just makes me know myself
44:14and be confident about thinking about things.
44:18It's just a wonderful space.
44:20It's kind of freedom, it really is.
44:29In the end, architecture can't make us
44:32into fundamentally different people,
44:34but what it can do is to be a permanent reminder
44:37of who we are at heart and want to be.
44:46What are future generations going to make of us
44:49if the vast majority of the buildings we produce
44:52are silent about or even scared by
44:55the reality of our 21st-century lives?
44:59And if our buildings don't help us to mediate
45:02between the inner domestic sphere
45:04and the world outside our front doors,
45:07how are we going to make sense of ourselves?
45:10With one million new homes being planned
45:12over the next ten years in Britain alone,
45:15the challenge we're facing is an urgent one.
45:18If we get it right, we could all have the opportunity
45:21to live in houses that help us to feel
45:23that the modern world might be somewhere to feel at home in.
45:27The idea that the design of our buildings
45:30really matters to our state of mind
45:33is in fact rather an alarming one,
45:36given how badly built most of our world is.
45:39How seriously should we allow ourselves
45:42to take questions of beauty and ugliness?
45:45In the next programme, I'll be meeting people
45:48who argue that the colour of the walls
45:51can literally change what you believe in.
45:54And I'll also try to tell you what's beautiful and why.
46:02Next tonight, here on More 4,
46:04blood and a few prayers needed for MacBelka
46:07in Hill Street Blues.
46:24Subtitling by SUBS Hamburg