Anh-Linh Ngo

The Thames Valley is one of the key areas currently under development in London. In this space,
the city is creating a new identity for itself by constructing a high density context of cultural and
city facilities. lab*london’s task in this setting is to occupy a special position at the Blackfriars
Bridge.

A phenomenon of our media environment is the immaterialisation of processes of communication
by connecting and communicating people over seemingly insurmountable distances. This fact is
expressed through a structure which occupies the two river banks of the Thames between the
existing bridges. Rather than building a physical connection, i.e. a living bridge, the contents of the
program are communicated on a metaphoric level without destroying the genius loci of this delicate
urban situation. Two 5-storey-high slabs enclose the space including the gap with its columns left
over by the former rail bridge. The confusingly lookalike twin-construction expresses architecturally
the media-theoretical problem of the indistinguishable-ness of image and portrayed reality.
On an urban level, the division of the design in two halves corresponds to the situation created in
the Thames-metropolis where bridges over the river are always just cautiously outstretched
tentacles for the mutual exploration of two disparate living areas. Both slabs are connected to the
adjoining urban tissue through their rear fronts where new places form adequate entrances for the
buildings and guarantee links to the public transportation system.

The opposing facades of the buildings are equipped with instruments for media applications, similar
to pixels of two gigantic flat-screens which can be used by artists and visitors to communicate with
their counterpart in the other half of the building or in the whole world via the Internet. As such,
the design formulates a formal antithesis to the actually demanded bridge construction. The
underlying design concept seeks to transform media-theoretical considerations into a holistic urban
and architectural structure combined with the specific requirements for a “center for media art”.

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