Five New Rogers Buildings For Bankside

Leader of the structural expressionist tribe, the Richard Rogers Partnership, have shown off the plans they have for a series of new buildings on the South Bank in London including three new residential towers also throwing into doubt the controversial 44 Hopton Street tower.The development is being built on a plot on Holland Street, SE1, to the immediate south-west of the proposed Tate Modern extension and to the north of Bankside 123, in a new joint venture by developers Clan Real Estate and Grosvenor called GC Bankside. The scheme will feature five buildings, the shortest of which will be five storeys. The taller towers will be 24, 18 and 12 floors respectively. They all show off the traditional RRP styling with diagonal cross-bracing and bright colours, in this case red, plus a visually semi-detached service shaft.The development will extend past this into the nearby 44 Hopton Street site that GC Bankside have bought off the previous owner Meyer Bergman. This will now be turned into a public square if Southwark Council approve the new designs. Given they opposed the designs for 44 Hopton Street and were forced only on appeal to allow it through the planning system, it's likely they will be more favourable to anything that will see something they opposed quashed. This proposed square has also overjoyed local residents who opposed 44 Hopton Street and tried to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. Ironically the new towers will be taller than the previous one however they are further away from the plush apartments of Bankside Lofts so their distance should help mitigate the potential impact that has had residents there breathing with relief.It was always rumoured that Meyer Bergman were simply looking at getting a mark-up on the site they had bought. When queried last year by a cynical Skyscrapernews convinced the site was simply being bought as an investment Adrie van der Luijt of Meyer Bergman was at pains to stress the development would be going ahead saying that, "we wouldn't be spending this sort of money if we weren't fully planning to build the revised version of the development."With construction on 44 Hopton Street now halted having unusually begun without marketing, perhaps it was their plans all along to purchase the site and then force the hand of their neighbours by beginning construction and giving them no choice but to buy - all in all shrewd business sense.These are not the first buildings planned by RRP for the South Bank. In the 1980s they tried to get designs for Coin Street builders past the planners in Lambeth, they are also in the process of designing Bankside 4. With nearby designs built or in the making by the likes of Zaha Hadid, Will Alsop and Allies and Morrison, these should help contribute further to making whole area a showcase for modern British architecture in the same way it is for the best of modern art.