Tinsley Cooling Towers

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

(Amended Newton’s third law)

The Tinsley Cooling Towers are still standing but it would seem for not much longer, Eon are determined that they will not make it to see the summer of 2008.

E.ON UK Press Releases

01 February 2008 16:00
Preparations ongoing for demolition of the Tinsley cooling towers

Plans to bring down the Tinsley Towers are ongoing, with discussions continuing between E.ON UK, the Highways Agency, and other interested parties in preparation for an expected spring/summer demolition.Mark Maisey, E.ON UK Property Manager, said: “We’ve been working with a number of technical specialists on getting the final approvals finalised for demolition and now we’re looking to pin down a date that best suits everybody.

“It’s a big project and we want to ensure minimum disruption, which is why it’s taking some time but, naturally, we will share the demolition date with everyone as soon as we have it confirmed.”

one field many tents – fairground

Annoyingly I can’t find the full reference for the book, but I think the title was called Fairground Architecture and this was found on page 25.

What I like is the Liqurice Allsort appearance of the plan, and the way it also illustrates the paradigm “one field many tents”; albeit quite literally in this case.

Click on the picture to see it whole, plus the amazing legend that accompanies it.

circus imitating life imitating circus

A redrawn diagram from Richard Schechner’s book Performance Theory:

A version of this diagram also pops up in an article written in 1986 by no other than Sheffield’s own Peter Blundell Jones. The article is called ‘Beyond the Black Box’ in AR (July 1986)  and is worth a read. PBJ writes about the Half Moon Theatre in London designed by the Architecture Bureau (which included Florian Beigel, now of the London Met’s Architecture Research Unit)

It touches on the reciprocal relationship between theatre and life, and how theatre and pubic performance was once a means through which social relations and competing realities were negotiated. Although not necessarily directly written about circus, there are many overlapping fields of interest and relationships.

Provisional Mo[nu]ments

Are circuses a provisional monument to cities on the move (i.e. changing cities) and if so, how do their provisional moments affect the urban environment?

Therefore, are the Tinsley Cooling Towers a provisional monument and/or moment for Sheffield?

Provisional components:

The Graffitied Iron Bridge -

Salavaged from the closed Brightside train station, less than half a mile down the tracks from the site, the iron bridge connects the Circus School with the Cooling Tower whilst reconnecting the public with its hidden and ‘out of bounds’ surroundings. The bridge also offers a readable sign from passing trams and trains, as well as marking the gateway to the urban parkland beyond.

The Wrapped Steel Pylon -

An existing redundant pylon found on site is retained and wrapped in the remnants of used circus tent fabric, providing a circus teaching space for aerial gymnastics, at the same time, replicating the performance heights achievable inside the cooling tower. The pylon also punctuates the low lying circus roof; enabling a high rigging point for external performances in the summer months.

The Repaired Concrete Cooling Tower -

Housed within cooling tower 6 (the one with diamond vents at the top, as opposed to chequered rectangles) the circus will appropriate this space as a performance venue for the Arts.

The Floating Timber Roof -

A reciprocal frame roof structure made out of reclaimed railway sleepers and telegraph poles spans 35 metres and provides a flexible circus training hall. The Circus school’s roof structure, which forms the main building component, is to reflect the many threads, facets and smaller elements that make up the complex web of Interdependence. The proposed structure, likened to an indeterminate timber cloud, is to hover above the circus performers, connecting and uniting all the spaces, functions and everyday moments under one provisional roof.

Since the beginning of this project, one quote from an interview I conducted with a circus school director about circus schools, stood firm in my memory when he described their role as “one field, many tents”. The wider project together with the designed circus school building, inside and out, attempts to hold on to this simple paradigm.

Interdependent Constructs

“…architects grapple with the socially constructed body more than they will care to admit. Even the “pure, plastic” icons of High and Late Modernism resonate with the overwhelming expression of the body’s denial. The problem, rather, has been in the reluctance of contemporary architectural practice to reward the body and space as interdependent constructs, inseperable from the cultural forces which have shaped them. Architecture refuses to admit that space is already constructed before it gets there-coded legally, politically, morally and socially. Space is nothing more than “contractual,” and is prescribed in advance of architecture.”

Flesh, Diller and Scofidio (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1994) p.39

“one field many tents”

Shelter

Jomon Pit-Dwelling, Prehsitoric Period

Japanese Architecture, Alex, W. (Studio Vista, London, 1968) p.49

Pantadome by Kawaguchi amd Arata Isozaki, Barcelona

Engineering a New Architecture, Robbin, T. (Yale University Press, London,1996) p.48

Separated by over 5000 years and located on opposite sides of the planet these two forms of shelter still have a lot in common. Both use a lowered ‘pit’ to increase internal height for less structure as well as helping thermal and acoustic properties. Both are constructed on the ground and then lifted into place, minimising error and reducing the amount of effort, energy and time involved in construction. And most importantly both forms of construction are reversible, i.e. they can be deconstructed by following the same procedure in reverse; allowing the components to be re-used or recycled.

Two forms of provisional construction seperated by 5 millennia.

Philip Astley’s Circus Table

Briton Philip Astley (Modern Circus’s Godfather) in 1782 was banned by the French authorities in Paris from producing any act not performed on horse back.