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Contemporary architecture: examples from the era

Recent building projects range from the ambitious and flashy to quirky and understated
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Steve Rose The Guardian, Sunday 11 September 2011 Article history

The new Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood Edinburgh, Scotland. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

1. 30 St Mary Axe (the "Gherkin"), London

Just when it was assumed there was nothing left to do with skyscrapers except build them ever taller, Norman Foster (and his many collaborators) reinvented the typology as a giant vegetable. Despite the nickname, there's a refined beauty to the building. Opened in 2004, it pure, complete geometry comes to a triumphant conclusion in the giant glass cloche on top. The funny shape is far from arbitrary, though. This is a model of energy efficiency. An innovative natural ventilation

system draws fresh air (warm in winter, cool in summer) in and up through six shafts spiralling round the building. The triangulated structure, meanwhile, enables virtually clear floors of office space inside, with interesting views up and down the shafts. The top-floor circular bar and restaurant is the best view in London. Not open to the public

2. Lloyd's of London
The giant mobile phones and designer stubble of the 1980s City boom might seem antiquated, but Richard Rogers' radical office building, opened in 1986, still looks ahead of its time. The inside-out design never caught on, but in Lloyd's it made for a thrilling machine-like exterior glass lifts, brushed steel cladding, exposed ducts and bespoke engineering details. The interior, meanwhile, is clear, simple and flexible. The central atrium is a glorious space, suffused with natural light and monastic calm, despite the buzzing activity of the resident insurance brokers. The inclusion of an 18th-century interior by Robert Adam on the 11th floor is a delightfully surreal touch. Open by prior arrangement only, 020-7327 6586

3. Eden Project, Cornwall

Buckminster Fuller invented the geodesic dome a lightweight shell made up of simple geometric elements in the late 1940s, but it took another half-century before someone thought of covering a disused Cornish quarry with it. The invention of computers and lightweight materials helped. Using a hexagonal tubular-steel grid and pillows of transparent ETFE a plastic that is 99% lighter than glass Nicholas Grimshaw's collection of eight domes to mark the millennium lets the plants take centre stage. 01726 811911

4. Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster

Reconciling the abstraction of modernism with the historicism championed by John Ruskin, Richard MacCormac's powerful and sensual 1998 creation is mindful of the power of symbol and metaphor. The curved, protective walls, ringed by a small moat, enclose a space that's both church-like and ship-like. The Ruskin archive is housed in a building within the building, a double-height oak-framed box with panels of red plaster that "floats" between canal-like corridors running either side. Glass and slate panels in the floor evoke Ruskin's beloved Venice. For a small building, it's crammed with sensual delights. 01524 593587

5. Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich

Norman Foster's engineering-led problem-solving ability produced in 1978 an arts building that is simplicity itself. It is a 130m-long box, open at both ends, and that's about it. The genius lies in the double frame of tubular steel, a system of prefabricated elements assembled like a Meccano set on-site. Foster tucked away all the extra bits toilets, services, etc in the space between these inner and outer skins, creating a clear, open interior for exhibitions and educational space augmented by a flexible, external cladding system. Compared to lumbering buildings of the past, this opened up an era of space-age lightness it literally weighs a fraction of conventional structures. 01603 593199

6. Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh

In an age of attention-grabbing icons, Catalan architect Enric Miralles instead crafted a building "sitting in and growing out of the land of Scotland". Now the fuss about the cost has died down, Miralles' 2004 creation has been recognised as an enduring work of art. Miralles created a freeassociative language of national forms here, drawing on inspiration such as upturned fishing boats and Mackintosh's flower paintings. 0131-348 5200

7. Storm Water Pumping Station, Isle of Dogs, London

What could have been an insignificant shed in Docklands sets a standard of civic virtue few other buildings measure up to. This 1988 building is postmodernism without the irony. The architectural language draws on everything from ancient Egypt onwards, but there's a purpose to these elements the "jet engine" is an extraction fan, for example and under the hand of philosopher-architect John Outram, they're combined into a complex, allusive narrative of storms, floods and nature. Not open to the public

8. Blue House, east London

Taking its cues from the language of pop culture as much as high art, this small but influential work, built from off-the-shelf materials, speaks of a more playful and relaxed alternative to the prevailing perfectionist modernist mainstream. You could call it postmodernism, but its designers, Fashion Architecture Taste, wouldn't. The cartoony "house" shape on the facade, with regimented windows above, signify the building's live-work function like an advertising billboard, and while the exterior gives little indication of the spatial richness inside, it says plenty about the designers' personality, and their belief that architecture should have personality too.

Not open to the public

9. Selfridges, Birmingham
Strutting into Birmingham's Bullring like a catwalk model at a working men's club, Future Systems' freeform design reinvented the department store and revitalised the whole city. The exterior is thrillingly eye-catching a curvaceous, figure-hugging blue number studded with aluminium discs, like giant sequins. But the 2003 building also caters to modern retail demands there are virtually no windows so as to maximise display space inside. The central atrium, meanwhile, clad in sci-fi white plastic, with a ground-floor cafe, provides the perfect space for people-watching. 0800 123400

10. Kielder Observatory, Northumberland

Architecture plays second fiddle to nature in this harmonious ensemble. Built in the most sparsely inhabited part of England, where the night sky has minimum light pollution, this strange wooden ship of an observatory does all it can to reduce its impact on the landscape. Opened in 2008, it is powered by solar panels and a wind turbine and its workings are low-tech. A place to consider the cosmos and our place in it. 07805 638469

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Contemporary architecture: examples from the era

This article appeared on p55 of the British Architecture guide 2011 section of the Guardian on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.30 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was last modified at 00.44 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was first published at 00.44 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011.

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Contemporary architecture: examples from the era

This article appeared on p55 of the British Architecture guide 2011 section of the Guardian on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.30 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was last modified at 00.44 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011. It was first published at 00.44 BST on Sunday 11 September 2011.