Another story which caught my eye this week was the news that architects who suffer the ignominy of seeing one of their buildings demolished in their own lifetime can now seek solace in a new online support group: The Rubble Club.To qualify for Rubble Club membership, architects must be alive and not party to the destruction of the building in question. The building must have been intended as a permanent structure and its destruction must have been deliberate.
This struck a small and sad chord with me. As a lowly trainee architect who was working in practice at the same time as studying, one of the few things I ever designed at work which actually got built was the toilets at Fleet Services McDonalds on the M3 (yes, I know, you can add having to do work for McDonalds to the list of reasons Why I Never Became an Architect).
Picture the scene: it's June 2003, Mr K & I are in the first flush of romance, and we're merrily heading down the M3 en route to Glastonbury. The sign for Fleet Services hoves into sight, and excitedly I squeal "ooh, stop, stop! I can show you something I designed which got built!" (note at this stage I didn't tell him exactly what this, erm, splendid thing actually was).
So we pulled into the services, and I led Mr K to the services building, giddy at the prospect of sharing an admittedly small and not very glamorous achievement with my beloved: they may only have been toilets, and they may well have been located in the world's most reviled fast-food outlet, but I'd designed them and they were mine.
We came to an abrupt halt in the entrance hall. Confused, I scanned the garish fascias of the various kiosks and shops. I couldn't see McDonalds. What I could see was a new-fangled "healthy eating" salad joint in the space where McDonalds had been.
I was gutted. All trace of my toilets had been obliterated, thanks to McDonalds dramatically scaling back their UK operations in the face of the 'Fast Food Nation' backlash and a hostile media. "What is it I'm supposed to be looking at?" asked Mr K? "Nothing," I said sadly. "I'll tell you about it when we get in the car".
So we returned, much subdued, to the car, and I said a silent goodbye to my impermanent monument to human ablutions.
What makes this even worse is that, since reinventing themselves slightly, bloody McDonalds have now re-opened their outlet in Fleet Services! Pah.
So in my own tiny way, I really feel for the members of the Rubble Club. I wonder if they'd let me join?
