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Clarity Regained
Spencer de Grey, Foster's partner in charge of the Stansted scheme, admits that the practice has not been consulted on recent changes, and regrets the fact. 'You need the right advice to look after a building, like a car: he says. 'It's a pity that there hasn't been a stronger overall management strategy But de Grey insists that the fact that the building has accommodated many changes is a testimony to its basic strengths. 'It's robust enough to take change. Architects and critics are possibly too fastidious — it's BAA's building and they presumably are better at running airports than we are. Anyway, all the changes are skin deep. It could all be stripped out again in a few years. We need to be broad-minded and less precious.'.
Foster & Partners' transformation from a modest-sized, leading-edge atelier into one of the largest practices in Europe, handling commercial as well as public work on grand scale, has depended on its ability to work within the constraints of the development system. The success of Stansted, not least the high value-for-money element in the project in terms of both capital and running costs, has been good for Fosters. At Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong, the firm has BAA as a partner in the development team. John Egan sees BAA's expertise as an exportable commodity. The group is also buying into foreign airports and retailing, while planning its greatest venture ever: Terminal 5, Heathrow. T5 could be one of the great buildings of the early twenty-first century, but it is worth noting that separately appointed 'interior architects' and 'retail architects' will work alongside Richard Rogers in developing the designs. Whether this will compromise the Rogers vision or actually simplify the architects' task, by closely defining the extent of their control, remains to be seen.
Spencer de Grey is right to insist on the overall success of Stansted (and equally right to suggest that BAA might take rather more care with future changes). The tracked transit system, serving only one satellite so far, works well. The rail service from London is reliable and fast, though so far under-used, while good access and parking encourages car use. (The undercroft station is vast, with more circulation space than King's Cross.) The baggage system is 'the best in the country', according to Dennis Cockran of handling agents GHI (though it once tore one of my bags to pieces). The baggage-reclaim hail, where shops are out of the question, remains as it was in 1991, an airy and luminous space.
Stansted's claim to be 'London's third airport' may seem a little specious — it might more accurately be described as an East Anglia and Home Counties airport — but it has all the qualities of a true gateway. The aim was to create 'a calm object in the landscape'. Step out of the terminal, elevated on its undercroft, and you look right across the parked cars to woods and fields beyond, though an alleged lack of short-term parking, and the possibility that it might in the future be double-decked, could wreck that delicate relationship. Joan Fletcher, the terminal's general manager, recalls that 'we were the biggest tourist attraction in Essex for some time after the opening'. Even now, visitors come simply to look, and many regular travelers choose Stansted simply because they like the place.
One possibility which BAA must dread is that Stansted's terminal could be listed, like Foster's Willis Faber. For the moment, it is highly unlikely, and Spencer de Grey insists that he for one would not support such a move. 'It wasn't our idea to list Willis Faber he says. 'The problems there could have been resolved in other ways.' If there is a perceived problem at Stansted – and many people who work there, including BAA staff, regret some of the changes — it could be addressed by a new management strategy, with a renewed commitment to quality.
Ultimately, however, the building reflects a debate about the nature of airports — national status symbols or marketplaces? — which is not confined to Britain. Norman Foster sought to infuse Stansted with the clarity and drama of the great nineteenth-century railway stations. In the age of privatisation, the latter are themselves being compromised by commercial imperatives. The balance between private profits and public amenity is a fine one and the two can go hand in hand —no one wants a station or an airport without a bar or a newspaper shop. But an airport is more than a shopping centre, and a building as good as Foster's surely deserves the same sort of care that John Egan presumably bestows on his Jaguar.
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