ALDGATE NEW GATE

BY GEORGE GINGELL, KATE MACTIERNAN AND DUNA IRSHAID

An instrument and installation at Aldgate, London 2011

1. INTRODUCTION 2. CONCEPT STAGE

3. WORKING DRAWINGS 4. WORKSHOP PROCESS

5. ON SITE

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1. INTRODUCTION
The project started from an interest in the old routes into London and the monuments the marked the entry into the ancient city. The original gate at Aldgate was a medieval stone structure with a tunnel and turrets which made it obvious you were now crossing a threshold, into a new place, with new laws, a new culture and a new environment. Today there is no noticeable sign that you are entering the City Of London at the same site on which the old Aldgate stood. What was the modern version of the city gate a building typology that seemed to have disappeared as fast as the city had spread? Studying the street we noticed there was in fact a sentry box sitting on the median strip. A metal and glass booth, open at one side, in which an officer could stand and check cars as they passed into the city, surrounded by more than the usual host of cctv cameras. This is a temporary structure that was erected during a terror scare in the City, but has remained as a sort of surveillance checkpoint, one of the many that form the ring of steel. The modern version of the Aldgate we found had become a security system rather than an identifiable structure; it is now something much less tangible, almost invisible. Our aim then was to give some of the traditional features of the old gate back to this now indistinguishable area, to make its historic significance and modern presence an event in the day of people travelling from the messiness of the East End into the slickness of the City and back out again. We would do this by marking the transition, visually, aurally and spatially. Visually we would draw attention to the threshold in operation by building two booths, of similar scale to the existing glass sentry box (but with an abstracted likeness to the centre of the original Aldgate) and finished in Artex which is the aesthetic of all London street furniture. Aurally we would use contact microphones on the ground to pick up the sound of

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peoples footsteps and traffic and then amplify and augment these sounds, so that they had the effect of sounding like footsteps or vehicles passing through a tunnel. On top of this we would use feedback from a computer to interlace these sounds with the high pitched frequencies and odd electronic noises synonymous with surveillance. The passer-by would be enticed by these noises, a welcoming step up into the booth and its strange bright white circular interior, to come into the booth to. The circular base and internal walls and the opening facing onto the street would prompt them to look out from this spot. In doing so they would become aware of the two objects in front them; the glass and steel booth and the twin tabernacle on the other side of the road. The positioning of the booths to create a threshold across the pavement and the road suggests there is something of importance at this point. These three booths then act together with the pedestrians to create a border and to invoke the idea of separate zones, marked by architectural monuments within a city in which each area now bleeds into the

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AREA IMAGES

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Computer mock up of piece on site

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Computer mock up of piece on site

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2. CONCEPT STAGE

Initial concept clay model on marble slab

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Stills from film showing proposed surveillence points to complete threshold. pg. 11

London street furniture studies, and the architectural language of the modern gateway.

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Initial sketches, late at night Monte Carazzo

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Initial sketches, late at night, Monte Carazzo

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PLECNIK MASOULEUM, Brick dome on hexagonal base

PLECNICK SMALL HOUSE ON A GRAVE, marble and concrete Ljubjana

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Materials study, faade treatment with tar and tar wixed with grains for textured effects.

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INSPIRATIONAL IMAGES

De Chirico

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Infinite Column

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4. WORKSHOP PROCESS

paper trial model, dome unravelled

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paper trial model in wokshop

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paper trial model dome done

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paper trial model dome done

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dome decisions

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Putting together CNC pieces

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Putting together CNC pieces pg. 27