I met a fascinating man at a dinner this week. He was a planner, but not that sort, more a town planner. He had loads of interesting stories and I thought I'd jot them down here. They may come in handy one day.
1. He was on the client side for the pitch for the design of the DLR. Pentagram pitched and one of their team was Phil Carter who now runs Carter Wong Tomlin.
2. Most big architects get their juniors to design the buildings and then they do those wacky sketches afterwards.
3. Until recently there were loads of different official heights for Nelson's Column. He's involved with this sort of Government thing and so recently he's corrected this and there is now one official height, although I can't remember what it is. It's on the plaque at the bottom though.
4. For the Queen's Silver Jubilee he wanted to pedestrianise Leicester Sq (which they did), Trafalgar Sq (which they've just done) and Parliament Sq (which they haven't done yet).
5. In the early 70's they wanted to make part of Piccadilly a bus lane. The Ritz complained that it would take too long for their guests to cross the road from their chauffeur driven Rolls', bearing in mind there would be 40 buses a minute "thundering" down the bus lane.
This guy proved that it would take an old dowager 30 seconds to cross the road, including enough time for a walking stick induced wobble and a man with an umbrella to appear. The buses "thundered" by every 90 seconds and therefore the Ritz lost and the bus lane was built.
6. Lots and lots of interesting stories about Ken.
Ken Livingstone was also some 20-25 years ahead of his time politically divisive issues such as gay rights and dialogue with the IRA. At the time, I recall he was ridiculed for being part of the 'loony left' by the British newspaper media and labelled 'Red Ken'(mainly The Sun, part of News International Group, owned by Rupert Murdoch) his ideas from then are now considered mainstream.
I'm quite envious. Really.
Posted by: Charles Frith | Dec 21, 2006 at 14:11