It could be a suitable question for Radio 4’s ‘Round Britain Quiz’!...
Like most of the teams we’ll take the last item first, and with a bit of a nudge from the question master, we are told that that we are looking for an Olympic venue – not a big one, not one hosting field or track events, but one where the competitors usually achieve black before gold. We duly rack our collective brains and tentatively suggest judo as a sport where black belts abound, and with the question master not dissenting – bingo, we arrive at a dojo. So we are looking for a specific dojo being a venue – and that takes us to East London as the site of the 2012 Olympics.
Not able to proceed further, we turn to the aspiring sculpture and, noting the curious clue we are given – aspiring rather than inspiring, we establish that we are looking for a particular sculpture, and that it is outside rather than inside – so not the Angel of the North. The question master takes pity and “arrows” us towards Nottingham – and the sculpture called “Aspire” – at Nottingham University. Still in the dark about the connections, though.
The Millennium Bridge – our first instinct is the Millennium Bridge in the Goyt Valley in the Peak District, but we are told to look a little further south – which takes us to the one which crosses the Thames from St Paul’s to Tate Modern.
So, by now we guess that the common connection that we are looking for is a designer.
Two parts left to identify. A geometrical shape – pyramids – not exactly contemporaries of the bridge sculpture or dojo – but what else? A cube – and yes, we think we have it – not just a cube, but The Cube – the planned development in Birmingham adjacent to the Mailbox.
We have nearly solved the question now – Ken Shuttleworth is the architect of the Cube!
Shuttleworth was born in Birmingham in 1952 and studied architecture at what is now the Leicester School of Architecture, de Montfort University. While with Sir Norman Foster’s firm he worked on the “Gherkin” and across the river, City Hall, and the Millennium Bridge. Wembley Stadium was another of his projects, but the smaller venue we noted earlier – the judo centre in Dartford, South East London, was his first project since leaving Fosters and starting Make. Opened in 2006, it is the first completed purpose-built facility for the London 2012 Olympics.
Next we have The Cube – a 17 storey mathematical cube, mixed development, award winning, destined to be “iconic”, with a rising, twisting, asymmetric lightwell inside geometric metal and glass cladding
Then “Aspire” - 60 metres high (to celebrate the University’s Jubilee Campus 60th Anniversary), a tapering steel lattice, unfurling, aspirational to those fortunate to pass daily its distinctive, landmark presence.
And the “nom de plume”? Reputedly, Shuttleworth’s fluid draftsmanship led to the nick name “Ken the Pen” while a student [cue groans all round].
This article was written by
Peter Tugwell and first appeared in Construction News Update, Autumn 2009.
