Magna Carta was written in 1215. Begun in 1220, the Cathedral’s buildings are unique in that they were all built in one period over several decades. The composition of the Cathedral with the Vestry, Chapter House, the Cloister and the surrounding landscape creates an exceptional spatial context for the new building. Seen from the school fields and south, from where Constable painted Salisbury Cathedral, the clear visual separation of both octagonal buildings and the cloister is an important reference to any new architectural proposal. From the west, the Cathedral and Cloister are visually separate - the elaborate Cathedral elevation and the simple buttressed wall of the cloister.
The solid perimeter and “empty” centre of the Cloister are key elements upon which we have developed our concept. The opaque stone walls convey the sense of enclosure, privacy and protection, and the central emptiness conveys a sense of space and of transparency that connects to the Cathedral spire and universe beyond. The whole, with the two trees, creates a peaceful environment for contemplation. In contrast to the Cloister - a space within which one contemplates - the Magna Carta building provides a space occupied by many, and is not silent.
The client’s invitation to design the first permanent building since then represents a major responsibility and statement about the architecture of our own age.
“A new gothic building… is in reality little less absurd than anew ruin… it is to be lamented that the tendency of taste is at present too much toward this kind of imitation, which, as long as it lasts, can only act as a blight on art, by engaging talents that might have stamped the Age with a character of its own, in the vain endeavour to re-animate deceased Art, in which the utmost which can be accomplished will be to reproduce a body without a soul.” John Constable (1776-1837)
The Magna Carta Project exists to provide a way of better managing visitors to the Cathedral. The Magna Carta Project has a secular function. We have, in recognising the threshold function of the MCP, reversed the solid/void vocabulary of the cloister, and conceived glass walls - printed with the Magna Carta text transparent - and a stone centre. The roof is solid and appears to float above the landscape. It inclines towards the sky rather being “open” to the sky. The close landscape is outside, rather than inside, and is water, reinforcing the concept of reversal, separating yet joining the old and the new.
We have continued the geometrical tradition of the Cathedral based upon square root of 2, and 45 degree rotated square to establish the proportions and rhythm for the new architecture.