Bowellism

Origin

The style originated with Michael Webb's 1957 student project for a Furniture Manufacturers Association building in High Wycombe. Webb coined the term in response to a comment on his design by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in a 1961 lecture, in which he recalled hearing the words: "within the schools there are some disturbing trends; I saw the other day a design for a building that looked like a series of stomachs sitting on a plate. Or bowels, connected by bits of gristle". Thus this inside-out style was termed 'Bowellism' because of how it recalled the way the human body works. One of Webb's proposed structures based on bowellism was the Sin Centre for Leicester Square. The concept was a geodesic structure that supports a glass skin.

Some scholars cite Reyner Banham as the first to use bowellism for the new architectural fascination with visible circulation, one that focuses on a building's skeletal services as well as its "bloodstream" or the moving cars and crowd, cascading down from the top to the main foyers—all visible through the structure's geodesic skin. Banham is also credited for introducing the term "topological" to refer to an aspect of brutalism.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano continued the style with the design of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, described as a "vast exercise in Bowellism", so the floor space of the interior could be maximised to fully appreciate the exhibitions.

Examples

• The Pompidou Centre in Paris (1977) by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.
• The Central Library of Rotterdam (1983) by Jaap Bakema.
• The Uniklinikum Aachen (1985) by Weber & Brand.
• The Lloyd's building in London (1986) by Richard Rogers.
• The Channel 4 headquarters, 124 Horseferry Road, London.

References

References

1. (1977). "Choice: Publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a Division of the American Library Association". American Library Association.
2. Geoffrey Howard Baker, ''The Architecture of James Stirling and His Partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford: A Study of Architectural Creativity in the Twentieth Century'', Farnham, Surrey / Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2011, {{ISBN
3. ''Radical Post-Modernism'', ed. Charles Jencks, [[Fashion Architecture Taste. FAT]], Architectural Design 81.5, ''Profile'' 213, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2011, {{ISBN
4. Simon Sadler, ''Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 2005, [https://books.google.com/books?id=moiSwq_w-YgC&dq=Bowellism&pg=PA23 p. 23, 1.11, 1.12 caption], calling bowellism a "micromovement".
5. Samantha Hardingham and David Greene, ''The disreputable projects of David Greene'', Architectural Association Publications 2007-10-01, {{OCLC. 811429228, [http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/4830/1/Greene_4.pdf pdf] {{webarchive. link. (December 17, 2013 p. 44.)
6. Baker, Geoffrey Howard. (2011). "The Architecture of James Stirling and His Partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford: A Study of Architectural Creativity in the Twentieth Century". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
7. Sadler, Simon. (2005). "Archigram: Architecture Without Architecture". MIT Press.
8. Jonathan Richards, ''Facadism'', London: Routledge, 1994, {{ISBN
9. [http://www.open2.net/modernity/4_8.htm Richard Rogers], Architects, From Here to Modernity, [https://web.archive.org/web/20040315090026/http://www.open2.net/modernity/4_8.htm archived] at the [[Wayback Machine]], 15 March 2004.