The recently completed BBC Media Center, which includes this unusual facility, occupies 3.6 hectares of the former Roat Basin industrial area on the shores of Cardiff Bay. And this is only the first stage (worth 30 million pounds) of a project to create a large digital broadcasting complex with a total area of 15.4 hectares, for which the DEGW bureau has been working on the master plan for several years. The long building with a 260-meter main facade as part of the media center is the administrative building. In addition to it, there are eight studio buildings and open spaces for filming.
The long façade, designed by FAT and Holder Mathias Architects, is somewhat similar to a theatrical setting: a wooden shield with a whimsical undulating outline is superimposed on the blue surface of the one-story building, designed to recall the expressive silhouettes of the Gothic towers of Cardiff. The shield is cut through with figured windows in the form of crosses and circles. In this postmodernist scheme, even a kind of risalits with figured pediments above the entrances appear.
In the opinion of the architects, such a facade, clearly visible from the side of the bay and shaping the appearance of the new center of Cardiff, restores the lost connection between the city and the water. The deliberately playful nature of the set compensates for the "introversion" of television studios.
N. K.
