When architect Niall McLaughlin defines the “post-industrial landscape,” it could seem out-of-place and academic. After all, what does this cantering Irish brogue and the hard-sell confidence of a London professional have to do with rusting steel mills; with, as he defines it, a landscape emerging from a crisis of place, of labor, and identity. Architecture for a place “that found its identity in something that the people did, and which they’ve now lost.”
But as McLaughlin speaks about his own architecture in England, as included in the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art’s current show, Gritty Brits: New London Architecture, it becomes more obvious. Not only is McLaughlin’s work fluently embedded in post-industrial England, but Gritty Brits’ art is one from which 
Pittsburgh can draw inspiration.
A walk through Gritty Brits isn’t the stroll along the Thames of postcards and pamphlets: Situated largely in the city’s East End, a post-industrial area once decimated by World War II, the projects in the show twist and squeeze between grocery stores and disused factories. To Raymund Ryan, Curator of Architecture at HAC, that’s what draws these architects together: Besides a generational theme – the architects of Gritty Brits all having been born in the 1960s – there’s a dose of reality in their work, albeit one tempered by irony and fun.
“All of this work is concerned in some way or another with daily life. They’re very interested in observation, and you can see a long British tradition of empiricism – of looking at what exists, as opposed to imposing some utopian or highly abstract idea.”
Take, for example, the Idea Store Whitechapel project, completed in 2005 by Gritty Brits architect David Adjaye and Associates. A library built in a traditionally immigrant, working-class section of East London, the Idea Store eschews our grand-and-imposing library traditions in favor of an open design – full of windows and gaping-wide open 
doorways. The result is a building that is both literally and figuratively transparent, open, and integrated into its shopkeeper’s surroundings with a resounding “welcome.” It’s a concept mirrored by Arthur Lubetz Associates’ recent redesign of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill Branch.
Lessons for all
At the March 24 forum, Learning From London, it was made all-too obvious that what has happened in London and its surrounding environs not only could be applied to Pittsburgh, but must be – and shall. HAC’s Ryan insists that Gritty Brits is no staid, on-the-walls show, but a proactive conversation with the community.
“I wouldn’t like, in general, for HAC to be a passive thing,” says Ryan, “where people wander in and say, ‘oh, that’s pretty,’ and ‘what the hell is that?’ If we can at all, I’d like to be something more positive; to instigate some kind of positive discussion.”
It’s to that end that the three women in London arts-and-architecture practice muf have taken on the Charm Bracelet project, as challenged by the Children’s Museum and other North Side organizations. Charm Bracelet hopes to find ways to link the North Side’s cultural amenities together and showcase the neighborhood’s positive progress: muf’s experience on a Steelers home-game day, as the neighborhood was flooded with 
ens of thousands of visitors, led to some of their ideas of using tailgating as a positive cultural experience.
“It fits into muf’s strong suit,” says Ryan, “observing and thinking about commuity spaces. They’re saying, ‘there are all these people, maybe not every day, but you’ve got to come in and look at things in a positive way, rather than the negative.’”
Between Pride and Nostalgia
Amongst the projects presented in Gritty Brits, however, perhaps the most obtusely interesting to Pittsburghers is Niall McLaughlin Architects’ somewhat bizarre ARC Centre for Excellence in the Built Environment – not in London, but in the once-proud port town of Hull on the North Sea. In the 1960s, a series of highways cut the town off from its centuries-old identity: the sea. Soon after, the so-called “Cod War” of the ’70s with Iceland sucked the life out of the local fishing economy. “The connection between the sea and the town was completely destroyed in the course of about four years,” says McLaughlin. A town whose identity as a fishing center and port stretched back to the Middle Ages found, in less than a decade, that identity had disappeared.
For the ARC Centre, McLaughlin’s firm used 100% Hull-made materials – locally built RVs stand upright to form a back wall, while the sloping front bears projections of the sea. Its appearance is odd, yet playfully beautiful, and its concept is one that Pittsburgh could idealize: finding a balance between pride and nostalgia.
Hillary Robinson, Dean of CMU’s College of Fine Arts and a “life-long resident of post-industrial towns,” from Belfast to London to Pittsburgh, pointed out at Learning From London that the lesson is in, “recognizing how space and territory are marked, and how histories can be carried forward in the architecture. There’s a different between the UK and Pittsburgh’s [attitude towards] land: In Pittsburgh, people seem much more ready to pull houses down.”
It’s certainly a situation that the people of Pittsburgh are more in tune with now than a decade ago. In December, the City bought back 11,000 liens on in-fill – or, as Gritty Brits’ literature might put it, residual – properties throughout Pittsburgh. Mary Navarro of the Heinz Endowments points out that this is exactly the property that Pittsburghers should be watching.
“We have great architectural resources,” Navarro said at Learning From London, “not just the major [buildings], but these in-between spaces. I hope this exhibit will 
encourage people here to look at those spaces differently.”
“People here are very conscious – if not neurotic – about the fact that the city has lost population,” says Raymund Ryan. “And of course I’m not going to say that’s a benefit, but it does present certain benefits, and one of those is that there are so many leftover sites. All of [Gritty Brits’] projects occupy leftover – or at least odd – sites. And they’re also not coming in and thinking, ‘well, I must knock everything down [first].’ In Pittsburgh, there are so many opportunities where you don’t have to start from scratch. For example, [DGGP’s] project, the Pittsburgh Glass Center – that has a lot in common with this show.”
Niall McLaughlin pointed to another, future discussion, to be held – perhaps in London, perhaps Hull, or Pittsburgh. These cities identities are changing fast, even as they’re solidified in architecture. Just as Pittsburgh rebuilds out of the steel industry towards a future touted as “eds and meds,” Hull’s future is, apparently, digital. And it’s coming fast.
“I worry about nostalgia,” says McLaughlin. “The young people of Hull aren’t interested in the sea and in history. Hull is now being marketed as ‘The Digital Estuary.’ And I wonder, what on Earth would an architect do with that?”
Justin Hopper last wrote about his love of Pittsburgh in an essay for the first anniversary issue of Pop City. It was the most-read story of the month. To read it click
here.
Photos:ARC Centre for Excellence in the Built Environment (Niall McLaughlin Associates)Niall McLaughlin lecturing at the Carnegie Museum of ArtIdea Store Whitechapel project (Adjaye/Associates)Hypocaust Building at St. Albans (muf)Houseboat project (Niall McLaughlin Associates)
Raymund Ryan
All photographs courtesy of Heinz Architectural Center/CMoAexcept ARC Centre © Nick Kane (courtesy of Niall McLaughlin Architects)