Planning battle adds to SHARKS! debates on architectural theory, complete with smoke and bubbles, in Jaimie Shorten’s entertaining Antepavilion
How amusing that Jaimie Shorten, the architect behind the Architecture Foundation’s gloriously wacky SHARKS! Antepavilion on London’s Regent’s Canal, had the nick-name shark at school.
And how ironic – but somewhat less amusing – that just hours before its unveiling, this rather fantastic endeavour should find itself the recipient of an injunction from Hackney Council, given that the competition brief called for entrants to respond to ‘the tension between authoritarian governance of the built environment and aesthetic libertarianism’.
At the time of writing, the legal action – a temporary injunction against art installations on the site at Haggerston, east London – has held off the addition of the fifth and final shark in Shorten’s ensemble of leaping sharks, which features two Great Whites, one Tiger Shark and two Megalodon ‘dinosaur’ sharks. The injunction contends that the SHARKS! installation would be a material change of use, which would require planning permission.
Shorten, from London-based firm Barker Shorten Architects, jokily refers to himself as the ‘perpetrator’ of the pavilion and says the injunction makes him feel like he’s done something wrong.
‘The sharks come here as dumb recipients of the horrible world and become redeemed through being here and being together,’ he says.
After visiting the sharks as they bob gently around on pontoons in the canal, I’d say quite the opposite is true. This is an installation that can’t help but bring smiles to people’s faces, and that’s even before the audio and special effects kick in – bubbles, smoke and fountains are all planned, as well as shark-delivered lectures on architectural theory.
SHARKS! won the fourth annual Antepavilion competition organised by the Architecture Foundation and developer Russell Gray of Shiva, whose canal-side warehouse site at Hoxton Docks hosts both present and past Antepavilion winning entries. The Council has, separately, also tried to remove two of these.
Shorten was confident that he’d nailed the competition brief when he came up with the concept for the grouping of performing sharks – a reference to the celebrated Headington Shark. This 1986 sculpture, in which a shark appears to have crashed head first into the roof of an otherwise ordinary terraced house, gained notoriety when owner Bill Heine became embroiled in a lengthy planning dispute with the local authority, which he eventually won.
The largest Antepavilion shark, the Megaladon was realised by Mark Boyes of Propcreator, who built the 400kg beast by constructing a polystyrene fuselage that was then fibreglassed, sprayed, and hand finished. The other, smaller sharks were created by Sebastian Costa of Pro-Duck using robotic technology, with three of them fibreglassed and finished by Propcreator.
‘I didn’t do it to cock a snoop at planners. I did it for the fun of it,’ says Shorten, whose design beat more than 160 other entries.
He imagines the sharks as ‘ingénues’ who’ve somehow surfaced in the ‘centre of hipster maelstrom’ at Hoxton Docks.
‘They start speaking with bicycle bells as they think that’s the language. Then they become world-weary and sophisticated,’ he says.
He’s full of plans for his shark ensemble. When completed, the idea is for them to be reconfigured in various tableaux according to the various activities that are planned for them – Shorten mentions the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault as one inspiration. Another is Bernini’s fountains at Villa D’Este in Tivoli– the hope is to create a ring of fountains in the water around them at some point. They may also blow smoke or bubbles. Then there’s the audio - there are plans for the shark ensemble to sing to each other in a sort of floating light entertainment show. And that’s not forgetting the talks on architectural theory; Shorten also likes the idea of a psychiatrist interviewing the sharks, or maybe the sharks interviewing architects – the mind boggles. It’s possible the shark group may ‘go on tour’ to other locations.
With its innate appeal and myriad of quirky activities, the latest Antepavilion is set to be a positive force – if it is able to proceed as planned. Shorten certainly sees the sharks and their activities as optimistic at such a troubled time.
‘The sharks come here as dumb recipients of the horrible world and become redeemed through being here and being together,’ he says.
Organisers plan to fight the injunction against this year’s Antepavilion, which as it’s turned out may have met the brief to probe the planning system a little too successfully. Hopefully good sense will prevail, and SHARKS! will soon be able to go ahead in all its crazy glory.