Barry Traces Of Peter Rice

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-84351-391-9
Verlag: The Lilliput Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Lilliput Press is delighted to be reissuing Traces of Peter Rice for the first time in paperback. This book is a collaborative enterprise, British, French and Irish, representing the countries where Peter Rice passed most of his life and the cultures that formed him. These essays and cameos range widely across his career and legacy. Family, friends, scholars and colleagues write about his work, his solutions to intractable problems and his aesthetic sense, seeking to provide an understanding of his works and days. On the books original publication in 2012, Arup Phase 2 in London, the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and Farmleigh Gallery in Dublin developed a series of exhibitions, workshops and conferences dedicated to Peter Rice, for which the essays in this volume provide an indispensable foundation. Peter Rice (1935-1992), a native of Dundalk, was educated at Newbridge College, Queens University, Belfast and Imperial College, London. He joined Ove Arup & Partners in 1956 becoming a director in 1978. Widely regarded as the most distinguished structural engineer of the late twentieth century, his innovations in materials and design hugely advanced the nature of modern architecture. After early work on the Sydney Opera House, he defined the structural elements of buildings like the Centre Pompidou, the Menil Collection museum, Lloyd's of London, the Gare TGV at Roissy, the Pyramide Inversée of the Louvre, Kansai International Airport and the Full-Moon Theatre in the Languedoc. His posthumous An Engineer Imagines (1994) became a byword amongst students and his peers. His influence shaped a new generation of architects and engineers, through his commitment to the integrity of a structure, his refusal of precedent and courage as a designer. He has imprinted les traces de la main on material culture and the built environment with a use of cast steel, ductile iron, stone, glass and ferro-cement. Whether adapting nature's patterns to build flexible structures or transforming our experience of the ecology of light, his public spaces delight and surprise with their sensual mathematics and triumphant integration of the human and the monumental.

Kevin Barry is Professor Emeritus, School of Humanities, National University of Ireland, Galway

Autoren/Hrsg.

Barry, Kevin

Leseproben

2. Peter Rice, engineer

Jack Zunz

When I was asked to make a contribution to this publication on the life and work of Peter Rice, I did not want to repeat what I said and wrote about him after his untimely death. His personal qualities, his exceptional talents, have been, and will continue to be, a subject for celebration and reflection. Instead, and in some ways in keeping with the title of this book, I want to revisit the route that took Peter to the very summit of his profession; a route, which in hindsight though quite logical, was nevertheless long, yet straight and not without elements of serendipity.

I first met Peter in the latter part of 1961, when I was assembling Arup’s team to design and construct the roof for Sydney Opera House. Peter was part of a small team that had been engaged in carrying out model tests and geometric studies. A change in direction led to some of the team deciding that they had had enough. I wanted Peter to stay and play his part in what increasingly appeared to be an exciting, if partly uncharted, journey. Peter, then a comparatively inexperienced young graduate and ever thoughtful, wanted time to deliberate and take stock before deciding whether or not he wanted to carry on. After a week, he came back stating that he wanted to continue working on the project, but needed my assurance he would be sent to Sydney to be part of the team on site supervising construction. I told him that I would make every effort to fulfill his wish. This is when my association with Peter started.

Even with hindsight it is difficult to imagine that this very bright, sensitive and thoughtful engineer would become one of the most talented designers of engineering structures of his generation. He did not appear to have any special concern for the design of structures. I cannot remember him attending any meetings with Jørn Utzon or his co-workers. His main interest was in the analysis of structures, and he was exceptionally good at it. He was one of the first to harness electronic computers to solve engineering problems, computers that by current standards were antediluvian. Despite recurring electricity failures he coaxed from cupboards full of thermionic valves reams of punched tape that he read accurately and assiduously. He worked on the analysis of parts of the main roof and was central to our being able to start producing some drawings from which the roof structure could actually be built. Peter had now acquired greater confidence in his abilities not only to analyze complex structures, but also to ensure that the results of these analyses were properly translated into workable details ready for construction.

When we reached the stage where drawings for construction were emerging we spoke about moving him to Sydney to play his part on site in a supervisory role, as we had agreed. An experienced and very capable Resident Engineer had guided the project to the stage where construction of the roof could commence. I considered it to be necessary to have engineers on site who were familiar with the roof analysis and there was no one better than Peter who had detailed knowledge of the predicted behaviour of this rather unusual structure. Peter was also keen to play his part in its realization. It was now 1963 and he and his family moved to Sydney.

Peter Rice and Dr Lionel Geoffrey Booth with drawing of Sydney Opera House (Jørn Utzon), c.1960. (Peter Morice)

Elevation of superstructure of Sydney Opera House, Drawing by Ove Arup and Partners (Yuzo Mikami), 1964. (Yuzo Mikami/Arup)

Sydney Opera House under construction, c.1965. (Max Dupain, courtesy of Sydney Opera House Trust)

On the site at Bennelong Point, Peter’s contribution proved to be immense. He used his formidable intellect to help solve seemingly intractable problems in rectifying unpredicted deformations during erection. He wrote computer programmes that enabled the contractor to predict accurate positioning of the structural elements. He also experienced the real problems that can only be learnt on site, actually being part of the construction process. He learnt to develop the art of the possible, the manner in which one can open up the boundaries of accepted practice. Above all, he came into contact with Jørn Utzon.

Utzon was persuasively lyrical when speaking about architecture, particularly his own. When walking around the site with the resident staff, he spoke about his vision of colour, light and texture in a way that made an indelible impression on Peter. He described his aims and objectives in architecture at an intellectual level that matched Peter’s own. I believe that listening to Utzon articulating in particular his visual objective, seeds were planted that awakened Peter’s nascent interest in design for concepts of structure in architecture, which was to come to such spectacular fruition some years later.

This later passion for design, however, was still dormant. After three years in Sydney, and when the construction of the roof was well advanced, he wrote to me asking to have a year away from practice and become a visiting scholar at Cornell University. In his letter he said, inter alia, ‘I would like to study the application of pure mathematics to engineering problems. I think that a more thorough understanding of the nature of the equations used to solve structural problems in design could lead to a better conditioned solution and ultimately to a better choice of structural components.’

In many ways this was typical Peter. There was no wish to add letters to his name. He was simply seeking knowledge to enable him to find better and possibly new solutions to the problems he might face.

Positioning of structural element, Sydney Opera House, c.1965. (Max Dupain, courtesy of Sydney Opera House Trust)

Peter returned to Arup in London in 1968. He had gained confidence and maturity. His superb analytical skills were harnessed to the full in working on fabric and other lightweight structures with Frei Otto. The real flowering of Peter’s talents, however, became evident when he met Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers during the design for the international competition of what was subsequently called Centre Pompidou.

Like Sydney Opera House, the choice of the winning design raised eyebrows. Piano and Rogers’ scheme was the stuff of avant-garde schools of architecture influenced by state-of-the-art prophets like ‘Archigram’. Now these ideas had to be coaxed into reality, there was no scope for fudging obvious problems. What is more, the building was to be erected in the centre of one of the most culturally sensitive cities in the world, Paris.

Peter Rice, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers turned out to be kindred spirits. While Peter then (and later) deferred to architects where their expertise was obvious and seminal, he had now established the confidence to use his exceptional talents to complement rather than to defer to those architects with whom he was working. Not only did he explore the use of novel ways in assembling and configuring structures and the materials from which they were made, but also directed his formidable analytical capabilities in helping his architectural colleagues to explore the problems they were trying to solve in the first place. He became a master of his craft and had acquired the confidence to practise it.

It could be said that the concept, application and subsequent successful functioning of the now legendary ger-berettes proved to be a nodal point in Peter’s career. Here was Peter, probably inspired by the exuberance of Victorian engineering, resurrecting a material that had fallen into disuse in contemporary structural engineering, revisiting concepts in the use of this material, which others have followed. The application of the gerberettes and other elements in cast steel were also a testament to his clarity of thought. It enabled him to articulate structures in a comprehensible manner that was to be a hallmark of much of his work. He established a resonant relationship with his architectural colleagues, which not only made this structural expression possible but also helped those architects to gain insights into new possibilities in the work on which they were engaged.

Post Centre Pompidou he was more and more in demand. Many of the great and the good in the international architectural galaxy sought out his talents. He now had the confidence to break fresh ground when appropriate. His self-belief flourished, underpinned by clarity of thought, analytical strengths, increasing knowledge and understanding of materials and above all increasing interest and understanding of the totality of design. Peter had become a star, but he also understood the real essence of teamwork and was never afraid to give generous credit to those who merited it.

Peter’s road to stardom had been long, but his light shone all the brighter for that. His talents had developed with a strong intellectual spine allied to a warm personality. His relationships with collaborators, particularly some of the world’s great architects, were not only developed on the grounds of his professional talents, but also through enjoyable personal encounters. His relationships with both Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers probably remained the strongest. It was forged in the heat of creating Centre...