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Dezeen Wire: the restoration of historic tea clipper the Cutty Sark in London by Grimshaw architects has been derided by architecture critics and conservation experts after being officially reopened by the Queen yesterday. Here’s a round up of what people are saying.

Writing in The Guardian, Steve Rose says the decision to sit the ship on a glass plinth has resulted in the impression that: “It’s no longer a ship, nor quite a building, but some bizarre hybrid of the two.” He claims that the experience improves once inside though. “There’s something bracing about standing ‘underwater’ and looking up along the ship’s copper-lined keel.”

The Telegraph reports that conservation groups are upset that Grimshaw’s intervention obscures the lines of the ship’s hull, quoting sailor and architect Julian Harrap who said: “Why on earth hoick it up into the air? Why do you have to put these bloody great beams right through the middle of it, to damage the fabric of it?”

Over on Twitter, Building Design editor Amanda Baillieu asks, “Would it have been a nobler end if the Cutty Sark had sunk?”, while the Sunday Times architecture critic Hugh Pearman said, “Haven’t been there yet but does restored Cutty Sark looks like a ship half-in, half-out, of a bottle?”.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that Cutty Sark director Richard Doughty defended the renovation, claiming the solution creates “a very different experience, offering a light environment in the Cutty Sark’s new elevated position.”

See our previous story about the Cutty Sark here, all of our stories about Grimshaw here and lots of stories about boats here.

London architects Grimshaw have completed the restoration of historic tea clipper the Cutty Sark, which reopened to the public today in Greenwich.

The architects have completely repaired the vessel’s deck and rigging, which were severely damaged in a fire in 2006, and have raised the entire ship three metres above its dry dock to create an underground exhibition hall below.

A glazed structure surrounding the ship forms a roof canopy over this hall, bridging the space between the ground and the hull.

This structure also integrates an entrance, where a bridge leads across into the ship and stairs climb down into the space beneath.

If you’re interested in boats, check out all our stories about them.

Photography is by Jim Stephenson, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Here’s some more information from Grimshaw:

Her Majesty The Queen Reopens Cutty Sark on 25 April 2012

On Wednesday 25 April, Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, officially reopens Cutty Sark, the world’s last surviving tea clipper and one of Britain’s greatest maritime treasures, following an extensive conservation project, with major support totalling £25 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The following day (26 April) the ship opens to visitors for the first time since 2006.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Also, today (13 April 2012) the Trustees of Cutty Sark and the Trustees of Royal Museums Greenwich are pleased to announce that following her completion, the ship will come under the operational management of Royal Museums Greenwich.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Lord Sterling, Chairman of both Royal Museums Greenwich and the Cutty Sark Trust, said “Cutty Sark holds a unique place in the heart for the people of Greenwich, Great Britain and indeed the rest of the world, and it is splendid that she is re-joining the London skyline once again. Cutty Sark is set in the newly landscaped Cutty Sark Gardens, created by Greenwich Council, one of our strongest supporters. We are indebted to those members of the public, from all over the world, who have generously contributed to the preservation of this much loved national treasure. We are also deeply appreciative of the many other major institutions, government bodies and foundations that have played a key role in providing the funds. In particular, our deep thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund who have supported the project and stood by Cutty Sark through its difficult times, particularly following the fire, and allocating £25 million of public money raised through the National Lottery.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Cutty Sark’s re-launch comes in an exceptional year for Greenwich, which was granted the status of Royal Borough in February, and will have the eyes of the world upon it during The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic Games this summer. On 25 June 1957 Her Majesty opened Cutty Sark to the public for the first time and we are delighted that on 25 April, this year, The Queen and HRH Duke of Edinburgh, who has been President of the Cutty Sark Trust since 1951, will return to re-open the ship.”

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Richard Doughty, Director of the Cutty Sark Trust, said: “We have been privileged to be involved in conserving Cutty Sark and restoring her to her key position in the Greenwich World Heritage Site. Our solution, a world first, will secure Cutty Sark’s future so that she can continue to inspire many new generations of adventurers at the heart of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.”

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Kevin Fewster, Director of Royal Museums Greenwich, said: “Cutty Sark is an iconic London landmark and a much loved part of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Bringing Cutty Sark into the Royal Museums Greenwich family strengthens the links between some of the key attraction of this unique World Heritage Site and helps us to explore the extraordinary maritime stories we have to tell.”

The re-launch marks the start of an exciting new chapter in the extraordinary life of the world famous, three-masted clipper. It is the culmination of six years’ work and one of the most complex conservation projects ever undertaken on a historic ship. The project has succeeded in rescuing Cutty Sark and preventing her collapse, whilst preserving as much of the ship’s original fabric from the period of her working life as possible. Moreover, the innovative scheme also provides generations to come with a new way to engage with the ship and explore her history.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

In a brilliant feat of engineering, Cutty Sark has been raised 11 feet (3.3 meters) into the air, relieving the keel of the weight of the ship and preserving her unique shape. For the first time, visitors can walk underneath the ship and view the elegant lines of her hull, revealing the innovative design which was the secret to her success – enabling her to reach the record-breaking speed of 17 ½ knots (20 mph/32kmph) from Sydney to London. The space also showcases Cutty Sark’s extensive collection of over 80 ships’ figureheads, never before displayed in its entirety on the site.

The ship’s weather deck and rigging have been painstakingly restored to their original specification, with 11 miles (17.5 km) of rigging supporting the masts. Below deck visitors can explore Cutty Sark’s rich and varied history through new interactive exhibitions.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

Launched in 1869 from Dumbarton, Scotland, Cutty Sark visited most major ports around the world. She carried cargo ranging from the finest teas to gunpowder, and from whisky to buffalo horns. Cutty Sark made her name as the fastest ship of her era during her time in the wool trade. Many of the tea clippers that sailed the China Seas during the nineteenth century lasted for only a few years and only seven saw the twentieth century. By the mid-1920s Cutty Sark was the only one still afloat and from 1938 became a training ship for the Incorporated Thames Training College at Greenhithe.

Above: photograph is by Grimshaw

In December 1954, due to the great efforts of The Duke of Edinburgh, Cutty Sark came to Greenwich where she became, and remains, a memorial to the great days of sail and to all those who served in the merchant service.

Focus sur cette maison intitulée “Widescreen House” : un des derniers projets pensé par R-Zero Studio. Située au Mexique, cette résidence tout en longueur avec piscine a été conçue avec intelligence pour un rendu moderne. Une sélection de photos dans la suite.

Previously on Fubiz

• Three Way House
• Bakery Design
• Cloudy House

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Overlapping walls of curving concrete encase this funeral chapel in Graz by Austrian architects Hofrichter-Ritter.

The three walls never meet, but are connected to one another by panels of glazing that denote entrances at the front and back.

The chapel of rest is at the centre of the building and can seat up to 100 guests at a time, although the glazed facade can also be opened up to accomodate larger parties.

The middle concrete wall curls around the end of this hall to screen views out the cemetery beyond.

Ancillary rooms are wrapped around the eastern side of the building.

We’ve featured a few concrete church buildings in recent months, including one lined with crushed volcanic rocks. See all our stories about buildings for worship here.

Photography is by Karl-Heinz Putz.

Here’s a project description from Hofrichter-Ritter Architekten:

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46)

The chapel of rest for the Steinfeld cemetery is designed in the form of two curving formwork elements made of reinforced concrete and appearing as two carefully receptive hands. It is the centrepiece of the redesigned Cemetery Centre which was begun by the municipal parish of Graz under episcopal vicar Dr Heinrich Schnuderl, continued by Christian Leibnitz, the new municipal parish provost, and finally built to a design by Hofrichter-Ritter Architects in 2011.

From the perspective of urban development the building site had become a peripheral location due to the construction of the new, exclusively pedestrian tunnel underneath the railway line. Upgrading the site and, as a result, the Steinfeld cemetery was a matter of importance for Graz’s urban planners. Consequently, the cemetery has regained its significance as a public space and park.

A new concept for taking final leave of deceased loved ones has been developed in dignified and pleasant surroundings:
1. The chapel of rest serves as a chapel of rest and place of final blessing in one.
2. After the farewell ceremony the deceased is accompanied in a funeral procession through a separate entrance out of the building to the burial ground.
3. Due to increased demand on the part of the bereaved members of the family, technical multimedia facilities enable the farewell ceremony to be arranged in a highly individual way, if so required.

Depending on the particular choice of seating arrangement, the chapel of rest can accommodate up to about 100 people. In special cases larger funerals can also be held by opening up the northern glass wall and by using the spacious dimensions of the open forecourt. Cultural events may also take place at this site. Vital ancillary and service rooms have been positioned in the eastern part of the hall to facilitate smooth operations at the cemetery. These rooms are encompassed by a wall which runs along the length of the road and also acts as a necessary noise barrier to the Südbahn railway line. To the south, the wall goes on to define a green area with a columbarium grove and wall and with urn graves. Amenities such as a florist, stonemason, phone box and a public toilet are also situated right at the forecourt.

The chapel of rest:

The area for the farewell ceremony is regarded as the key space: the central location, size and above all the height of the room makes it the heart of the service centre. This space is used in three phases. These can be staged differently, depending on how the room has been arranged, especially with regard to the openings and lighting effects. The sequence is as follows: laying out – farewell – accompaniment of the deceased to the burial ground. An approx. 150 m² chapel of rest, surrounded by two shell-like walls (see ground plan) with a ceiling height of about 4.80-5.0 m, forms the main structural element of the building. An overlap between the two shells hides the view of the exit to the columbarium grove and cemetery grounds.

Ancillary rooms:

The ancillary rooms used for running all of the cemetery’s operations and arranging funerals are joined to one side of the chapel of rest. They consist of the rooms required for the funeral (lounge, preparation, work room, store room and frigidarium), for the priest and for the cemetery’s administrative staff. These rooms cover a total area of about 120 m². The outer wall of the ancillary rooms described above is formed by the “new cemetery wall”.

Cemetery wall:

The intention is to build a new cemetery wall flanking the ancillary rooms and the new columbarium grove. Much of it will form the outer wall of the ancillary rooms. Made of white concrete, this wall features different slants: where it performs a space-enclosing function, the wall slants towards the building; where it has the sole function of a “boundary wall” it slants away from the site (cf. photo of model). A second, relatively small structure has also been included in the overall design; it accommodates two small business premises and a public toilet.

Time sequence:

Start of planning: May/June 2010
Completion period: November 2010 – November 2011

Layout review:

Chapel of rest: approx. 150 m²
Ancillary rooms: approx. 120 m²
Sheltered area at the front: approx. 40 m²
Length of the new cemetery wall: approx. 75 m² (height varies from approx. 2.00 to 3.50 m)
Columbarium grove / park-like area: approx. 550 m²
Paved forecourt: approx. 500 m²

The serious scene with a down-home spirit

A recent invitation to the Dallas Art Fair piqued our interest initially by the range of 78 participating galleries and artists like Erwin Wurm bringing his “Beauty Business” from the Bass Museum in Miami, and Zoe Crosher creating a site-specific installation of her Michelle DuBois project as part of the simultaneous Dallas Biennale.

While we didn’t expect to encounter a domestic event in the scope of Art Basel Miami or New York’s Armory Show, Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne clarified that wasn’t the point. “The hope is that by presenting the local, national, and international galleries on an even playing field that the viewer has an important role in evaluating the art on its own terms,” he says. After experiencing the fair among a swirl of strong sales, serious parties filled with decked-out Texas-style socialites, football stadium art tours and a glimpse at some serious private collections, we’ve discovered a Dallas that is, indeed, all its own when it comes to an art scene.

Dallas Art Fair

With galleries representing cities from Berlin to Milwaukee, New York, LA, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Marfa and Waxahachie, TX, the digestible smaller Dallas Art Fair, held in the Fashion Industry Gallery (or simply the f.i.g. “if you want anyone to know what you’re talking about”, a cab driver told us), presented a truly eclectic blend of big-ticket classics and new work by unknown artists. We were pleased to see a thread installation by Gabriel Dawe, as well as the 2009 graphite drawings of another thread artist gaining traction, Anne Lindberg, at Chicago’s Carrie Secrist gallery. Local Fort Worth Artist Helen Altman had her torch-drawn animal prints on display at Talley Dunn gallery out of Dallas, while New York galleries like Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld Gallery featured Richard DuPont‘s polyurethane heads and newer work by Ouattara Watts, and Josee Bienvenue featured cut-paper grids by Marco Maggi.

In the three years since its inception the fair has grown with quality, not quantity in mind, boasting this year’s solid headliners in and around the fair like Wurm and Crosher, as well as Jacob Kassay, Adam McEwen and Dallas-based Erick Swenson. “There’s no grand plan with a push pin map of the art world. The fair starts to generate an organic life of its own with a visual coherence and cohesion as a byproduct of that independent life,” says Byrne.

Goss-Michael Foundation

The long-term relationship of ’80s pop legend George Michael with his former partner Kenny Goss, who happens to be a Dallas-based arts patron and former cheerleading coach, gave the city another of its idiosyncratic art contributions. The non-profit Goss-Michael Foundation was founded in 2007 to support British contemporary art and expose a larger community beyond collectors to the works of the so-called YBA movement. Adam McEwen opened his show during DAF, on the heels of an impressive roster that in the Foundation’s tenure has included the likes of Marc Quinn, Nigel Cooke, Tracey Ermin, Damien Hirst and others.

Dallas Cowboys Stadium

When team owner Jerry Jones opened the roughly 3 million-square-foot Dallas Cowboys Stadium in 2009, it didn’t come as a surprise that the team’s new stomping grounds would become the largest domed stadium on the planet, house the largest HD JumboTron and hold a maximum capacity crowd of 110,000—this is Texas, after all. More surprising was the breadth and depth of its contemporary art collection, and the freedom with which the artists were able to create. The artists were selected by a committee led by Jones and his wife, Gene, the interior decorator for the VIP areas of the stadium, but were given minimal limitations beyond the inspiration of the team’s legacy to create their work. The resulting 19-piece collection spans the entire arena, from massive 2D pieces by Ricci Albenda, Terry Hagerty and Dave Muller over main concourse concession stands; to Olafur Eliasson’s “Moving Stars takes Time” mobile over a VIP entrance and the aptly titled “Fat Superstar” in the Owner’s Club. Lawrence Weiner’s “Brought up to Speed” graces a 38-foot staircase wall, while perhaps most on-brand for the Cowboys, coincidentally, are two acquisitions from Doug Aitken that play to the team’s star logo.

Dallas Contemporary

Running simultaneously with the Dallas Art Fair was the Dallas Biennale—a tongue-in-cheek, one-time presentation of works by Crosher, Sylvie Fleury, Claude Levecque, Gabriel Martinez and more at various venues across the city. While we were curious to see Fleury’s windows at the flagship Neiman Marcus store downtown, the Dallas Contemporary, where Crosher and Levecque presented alongside Wurm, offered an interestingly offbeat, and physically off-the-beaten-track experience in our art wanderings. Located across some sort of freeway network in what’s known as the Design District, nestled on a remote dead-end among gems like the seemingly abandoned Cowboy Bail Bonds and various strip joints, the Contemporary looks like a commercial space that might have a loading dock around the side like its neighbors. Such a spot makes for the perfect intersection of fresh ways of thinking away from the rest of the city’s stereotypically oversized or Southwestern-style neighborhoods, uncovering yet another intriguing aspect of Dallas.