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Marks Barfield Architects
November 2007
Hardback
192 pages
250 b/w and colour ills
28.0 x 23.0 cm
11.0 x 9.0 in
ISBN13: 978 1 906155 08 7
Eye writer Steve Rose cover story for The Guardian G2
Following on from being featured in The Times in July, Eye: The Story behind the London Eye appears today in The Guardian as the cover story of the G2 supplement. Here is a quote from Eye writer Steve Rose's article:
"The Eye... exists in a category of its own.... It essentially has to fulfil only one function, and what a brilliantly inessential function it is: to lift people up from the ground, take them round a giant loop in the sky, then put them back down where they started. That is all it needs to do, and thankfully, that is all it does."
You can read the full article here.
Eye The story behind the London Eye
Sweeping one of the world’s most famous skylines at 135 metres in height, the London Eye is the largest observational wheel in the world, and provides a spectacular 30 minute ‘flight’ over the capital. But if it had not been for the vision, commitment and sheer persistence of David Marks and Julia Barfield, the husband and wife team of architects behind the project, the London Eye might never have been built.
Eye tells the various stories behind the conception, development, realisation and construction of the capital’s newest landmark, including personal and political dramas, corporate conflicts, doubts, risks, obstacles and accidents. Against the backdrop of New Labour’s pre-millennium Britain, prominent public figures attacked and defended the project, there were unprecedented design and construction problems to overcome, and Marks and Barfield had to fight every inch of the way to maintain the integrity of their vision.
This seminal moment in British architecture is celebrated through the dazzling photography of Marcus Robinson, insightful writing by The Guardian journalist Steve Rose, with an introduction by Richard Rogers and the clean and modern design of Neville Brody’s Research Studios.
